Rachel Zegler Responds To Online Snow White Criticism Following Set Photo Diversity Backlash

Over the weekend a number of set photos reported to be from Disney’s live-action Snow White movie instigated a wave of online backlash against the movie for “replacing” its seven dwarfs with seven diverse people of different race, size and gender. While there was some initial tousling over whether the images were actually from Disney’s reworking of their original animated movie, the images were finally said to be from the set where stand-ins were being used to work out some positioning and template shots. However, even though the images do not represent what will be seen on screen, that did not stop those commenting from tagging the movie’s lead Rachel Zegler in their posts and forcing her to post her own response.

When the casting of Zegler was originally announced the usual torrent of online abuse followed as the actress’ race became subjected to the same kind of comments that hounded Halle Bailey’s casting as Ariel in The Little Mermaid. The new set images stirred up enough comments for Zegler to come out and ask people to stop tagging her in their posts. She wrote on her own Twitter account:

“Extremely appreciative of the love I feel from those defending me online, but please don’t tag me in the nonsensical discourse about my casting. I really, truly do not want to see it. So I leave you with these photos! I hope every child knows they can be a princess no matter what.”

The post was accompanied with Zegler’s own childhood photos of her dressed up as a number of princesses, including Snow White. After having already gone through many online discussions about her suitability to play Snow White, it is not surprising that the actress doesn’t want to be pulled into the conversation again.

Related: Rachel Zegler Says Snow White Scared Her So Much as a Child, She Only Saw It Once

Rachel Zegler Has Spoken Out Against Online Trolls in the Past.

One thing that is certain is that Rachel Zegler has come from nowhere to be an instant star in Hollywood. Having secured the lead role of Maria in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, the actress has gone on to have prominent roles in Shazam! Fury of the Gods and the upcoming Hunger Games prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. However her casting as Snow White is the one that brought much online trolling with it, and after watching Halle Bailey go through the same kind of criticism, Zegler previously tore into those looking to post hurtful comments purely based on race.

When one Twitter user commented that they were happy with Zegler’s casting as Snow White, but didn’t agree with Bailey being given the role of Ariel, Zegler responded by telling them, “If you don’t support my girl Halle, who is the perfect Ariel, you don’t support any of us.”

Of course we are yet to see any actual footage of how Disney’s Snow White will actually look in the final film, and with the current strike actions in place, it seems likely it will be a while before we get to see that. However, when it does arrive, we can unfortunately expect another wave of this type of criticism to follow in its wake.