Disney became embroiled in another woke controversy Friday as leaked images from the new Snow White movie showed the seven dwarves have largely been replaced by actors of varying heights and genders.
Photos were initially published by the Daily Mail, which Disney tried to claim were “fake.” But after the Daily Mail published a clarification, the conglomerate subsequently released a clarification of its own, walking back its initial claim.
TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY, OR THE MINORITY OF ONE
“The photos are fake and not from our production,” a Disney spokesperson originally alleged to the Daily Beast. “We are currently trying to have the Daily Mail issue a correction.”
As a result, the Daily Mail issued the following correction: “This article has been amended since initial publication to correctly identify the actress portraying Snow White as an extra who stood in for post-production photography. Disney confirm [sic] that stand-ins were used for both Rachel Zegler and Andrew Burnap in these images. We are happy to clarify this point.”
Later that day, however, the same spokesperson would walk back the previous statement made to the Daily Beast, saying the photos were indeed from its production but weren’t official. The spokesperson claimed there was a misunderstanding and had called for a correction to the names of the actors that were in the photos, some of whom were stand-ins.
Actress Rachel Zegler, a Latina, was cast as the titular princess. This comes after Disney released its live-action Little Mermaid, which included black actress Halle Bailey.
Last year, Disney announced that the dwarves would be replaced by “magical creatures” after Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage lashed out at the “f***ing backwards story.”
Actors with dwarfism at the time, including Dylan Postl, a former WWE wrestler known as Hornswoggle, accused Dinklage of being “selfish.”
“It’s not helping our community, it’s taking jobs away from our community that are very few and far between as it is,” he said.
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The Little Mermaid made $465 million in global earnings as of the third week in June. It will be released for purchase on Disney+ on July 25.
Disney’s further film productions come as the company announced layoffs for 75 Pixar Animation Studios employees earlier this month. In February, Disney laid off an additional 7,000 employees in a $5.5 billion effort in cost savings, which represented roughly 3% of Disney’s 220,000 global employees.
