Disney’s live action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has been making headlines since the film went into production in May of 2019. Through the amount of controversies tied to the film — from criticism over creating the seven dwarves with CGI rather than casting actual actors with dwarfism, to fans who are simply tired of the constant releases of remakes rather than films with original stories — what seems to be a constant target of criticism is the films lead actress, Rachel Zegler. Zegler, being of Colombian descent, was targeted almost immediately upon her casting, facing an onslaught of racist attacks; a similar hate campaign that The Little Mermaid actress Halle Bailey faced when she was cast as Ariel in 2019. Zegler also faced backlash at the D23 Expo in 2022, where she criticized the original film in a red carpet interview, jokingly stating “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her…weird, so we didn’t do that this time.” Despite resulting in an abundance of angry tweets and TMZ articles, concern was not raised over public opinion on Zegler for the production department of the film until Aug. 12, 2024, when she responded “and always remember, free [P]alestine.” to her own X post thanking fans for viewing the Snow White trailer.
This post, of course, resulted in more public scrutiny, with many social media users interpreting the post as a direct attack on her co-star, Gal Gadot, who is from Israel and served in the IDF (in 2006, during the Israel-Lebanon war). Of course, turning her comment on a very current political and humanitarian issue into celebrity gossip is extremely damaging, as it trivializes the very real struggles that Palestinians are currently facing. Palestinians have witnessed their land and loved ones be victims of bombings, while their access to food, water, and electricity has been extremely limited by the Israeli government. Nonetheless, producer Marc Platt took Zeglers post extremely seriously, going as far as to fly to New York and ask her to remove the post. Zegler, who was 22 at the time, stood her ground and did not delete the post.
One could argue that a large corporation like Disney does not want to be represented by someone who is very outspoken about political issues, but this argument falls through when you consider that Platt (producer of Cruella, Aladdin (2019), and of course Snow White (2025)) and Gadot have both been very vocal about their support of Israel and its actions following Oct. 7, 2023. This speaks to a larger pattern of labelling people who are supportive of Palestine as “radical.” We see it when universities put their own students on academic leave for participating in pro-Palestine protests. We see it when pro-Palestine protesters are jailed or deported when speaking out in support of a group who is being victimized by a military and government that does not want them to exist. Zegler’s sentence-long post standing in solidarity with Palestinians is not radical, in any way, shape, or form. Standing in solidarity with a group of people who have been victimized by what the UN considers to be war crimes is not a radical stance to take.
The reality is, if you believe someone should be expelled from their university, lose their job, or be arrested for being vocal about their support of Palestinians, you do not believe in free speech. If someone is protesting nonviolently, speaking, or writing in support of a cause, they have every right to do so, even if that cause is something you need to challenge your own beliefs in order to understand. Zegler did what we so often ask people with large platforms to do; she spoke up about an issue that mattered to her, and stood her ground when an authoritative figure asked her to remove it. Zegler’s situation can function as a case study that demonstrates how no matter what those with power over us may believe, or want us to believe, we cannot break under the pressure of authority.