Disney’s Snow White Isn’t Woke

It says a lot about our cultural moment that Disney’s live-action Snow White was labeled “woke” before a single frame even hit the screen – when, in reality, it’s not particularly subversive. In fact, it’s a film that’s too afraid to stand for anything — too hesitant to embrace tradition, too calculating to rebel. Swaddled in pastel hues and lacquered in sterile gloss, it lands with all the excitement of a birthday gift from that aunt you see once every few years who lives in a cul-de-sac outside of Fargo. What’s inside that glittering, ribboned box? A bag of Costco socks. Not the fun kind. Beige. Multipack. On sale.

Directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, Snow White is a confused pastiche — pretty in pieces but aimless as a whole. It gestures at girlboss empowerment with all the commitment of a shrug, awkwardly stapled to the bones of the 1937 Oscar-winning original (honored with one statuette and seven miniatures, in case anyone forgot). There’s still an apple. There’s even a kiss. But there’s no tension, no danger, and not much depth. Prince Charming is now a streetwise commoner — a clever inversion in theory, but one that plays like a half-baked Post-it no one remembered to pull from the writers’ room whiteboard.

About the Author

Giancarlo Sopo

Giancarlo Sopo is a writer exploring cinema, politics, and the conservative imagination.

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It says a lot about our cultural moment that Disney’s live-action Snow White was labeled “woke” before a single frame even hit the screen – when, in reality, it’s not particularly subversive. In fact, it’s a film that’s too afraid to stand for anything — too hesitant to embrace tradition, too calculating to rebel. Swaddled in pastel hues and lacquered in sterile gloss, it lands with all the excitement of a birthday gift from that aunt you see once every few years who lives in a cul-de-sac outside of Fargo. What’s inside that glittering, ribboned box? A bag of Costco socks. Not the fun kind. Beige. Multipack. On sale.

Directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, Snow White is a confused pastiche — pretty in pieces but aimless as a whole. It gestures at girlboss empowerment with all the commitment of a shrug, awkwardly stapled to the bones of the 1937 Oscar-winning original (honored with one statuette and seven miniatures, in case anyone forgot). There’s still an apple. There’s even a kiss. But there’s no tension, no danger, and not much depth. Prince Charming is now a streetwise commoner — a clever inversion in theory, but one that plays like a half-baked Post-it no one remembered to pull from the writers’ room whiteboard.