Once Upon a Time, There Was No Woke Snow White…

Disney has a new live action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs hitting theaters—a woke Snow White. 

This is Disney’s latest attempt to remake a classic, and let’s just say that they’ve lost the point. And it didn’t help that the lead actress, Rachel Zegler, torched the original film in interviews before the cameras even started rolling. 

Rachel Zegler’s Controversial Snow White Comments 

She Dismissed the 1937 animated classic as “extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for.” And she added, “there is a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird, weird.”

Yes, I see now. . . When audiences flocked to see Snow White—the non-woke Snow White— for the last 87 years, what they really hated about it was that love story and triumph of good over evil. 

Apparently Zegler missed the entire point of this fairy tale. Snow White is a moral fable. It is a story about good and evil, a tale about a vain queen so obsessed with her own beauty and status that she is willing to murder an innocent young girl just to remain the “fairest in the land.”

Zegler, along with the film’s producers, proudly declared that she would not be waiting for true love, but dreaming of becoming a fearless leader (fearless leader of what exactly?). 

She refused to sing “Someday My Prince Will Come,” the signature song of the classic film, dismissing it as “weird.” Instead, she has a new song: “Waiting on a Wish,” a song about female empowerment and self sufficiency. Because, dare we acknowledge the timeless human desire for love, redemption, and rescue??

The Significance of the Classic ‘Snow White’

Let’s be clear, this isn’t just any film they’re remaking. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full length animated feature ever made, created by Walt Disney himself.

In fact, before that, animation was just a series of short, amusing little skits. . . Think Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Silly Symphony, and, of course, Mickey Mouse as an example. 

But Walt had a bigger vision. He saw a silent film adaptation of the classic Grimm Brothers fairy tale and thought that this story about beauty, jealousy, as well as good and evil would be the perfect foundation for his leap into feature films. 

It was a bold, ambitious move to say the least. So ambitious that people actually called Walt’s idea of making Snow White into a feature film “Disney’s falling.” They thought no one would sit through a full length feature cartoon.

Walt Disney got the last laugh, didn’t he? 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a global phenomenon and it was a springboard for everything we now associate with the Disney name.

‘Snow White’ in Connection to Faith

The story told in Snow White is basically the story we read in the Bible about Lucifer, a once high ranking powerful angel who wanted to take the place of God. Like the evil queen, Lucifer’s problem was that he was in love with his own image. He wanted to be in the place of God.

Snow White ends with evil defeated, the queen and all of her vanity defeated, and Snow White resurrected from her death-like sleep, saved by her prince. She sings “Someday My Prince Will Come,” which is not all that different from a Christian worldview.

The original, non-woke Snow White carried the message that one day the prince will come, the true prince, the one who raises the dead and defeats evil once and for all. The new, woke Snow White? Nope, we can’t have that. 

The Original Values of Disney

I grew up loving all things Disney, like many of my generation (yeah, I’m a Baby Boomer). I watched Mickey Mouse Club, and later, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. And I stayed glued to the screen with everyone else as Uncle Walter, as he was sometimes called, unveiled his plans for this new amusement park that was going to be called Disneyland (if you can believe it, Disneyland’s original plans included a church on Main Street).

To a little kid eating from a TV dinner, that place seemed like Heaven on earth! 

I remember going to Disneyland, driving up the freeway and seeing the Matterhorn above all the other buildings. I made a solemn vow as a child that when I became an adult, I was going to go to Disneyland every single day. . . I’ve been an adult for a while now, and I have not kept that vow, but my love for Disney animation has stuck with me.

I even became a cartoonist myself, eventually producing my own animation series with my characters, Ben Born Again and YellowDog.

To say Disney was a genius and visionary is an understatement. Walt Disney believed in a world where good overcame evil, truth defeated lies, families were celebrated, and patriotism was honored, not mocked. . .

He once said, “The important thing is the family. If you can keep the family together—and that’s the backbone of our whole business, catering to families—that’s what we hope to do.”

Disney understood that people don’t just want entertainment, they want meaning. They want stories that reaffirm the best parts of humanity!

But perhaps there are small glimmers of hope.

Is There Hope for Disney to Share More About Christian Values?

For the first time in 20 years, Disney has produced an openly Christian character in their new animation series called Win or Lose. The character is Laurie—I like that name—and she prays this, “Dear Heavenly Father, please give me strength. I have faith, but sometimes doubt creeps in.” I like that.

It may be something small, but it is something.

So, Disney has sunk 270 million dollars into this woke Snow White, hoping audiences will embrace this new vision. Will it pay off? I guess time will tell.

But as a lifelong Disney fan, I want to believe that Disney can find its way back to what it was meant to be. The best thing Disney can do is return to the roots of its founder, to the stories that celebrate family, virtue, and faith. 

Walt Disney once said, “In these days of world tensions, when the faith of men is being tested as never before, I am personally thankful that my parents taught me at a very early age to have a strong personal belief and reliance in the power of prayer for Divine inspiration.” If Disney wants to reclaim that magic, that’s where they need to start.

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Learn more about Pastor Greg Laurie

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