The long-awaited controversial Disney live-action remake of Snow White has arrived with conflicting messages about its heroine.
Disney princess stories have drastically evolved since their animated counterparts debuted almost 90 years ago. In the past few decades, the studio has introduced a host of reimagined complicated, powerful heroines who are flawed, rebellious and don’t need the love of a prince.
The original plot of this story drastically contrasts with that message: a true love’s kiss saves Snow White, who coasts through life as her father leaves her with her evil stepmother. The 2025 version changes this story, but not in a positive, groundbreaking way.
Spoilers for 2025’s Snow White belo w
In the new film, Snow (Rachel Zegler) is passively ‘waiting on a wish’ for her life to change. Taking on a Cinderella-style existence as a servant to the Queen (Gal Gadot), she hopes her father will return to restore the kingdom, all while wondering if she is brave enough to rebel against the cruel hand of the Queen and fight for her right to the kingdom.
In short, she’s a contradiction: Snow is presented as a ‘fair’ victim of her circumstance… but she has the agency to free prisoners, earn the respect of rebels and sway guards from executing her. Why does she not seize the opportunity for herself from the start?
Disney
The changes to her love interest are equally questionable. Though the basic outline of the film rings true to the 1937 original, there is a significant character swap as Snow isn’t swept off her feet by Prince Charming. Instead, she’s equally besotted with the leader of a group of bandits, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap). This Robin Hood-like figure takes from the rich (namely the Queen) to feed the poor in the name of the late King, Snow’s father.
The removal of Prince Charming – only to replace him with another heterosexual love interest for Snow – doesn’t have the progressive impact it intended to. Woven into the tale is a rapid enemies-to-lovers trajectory – a weak attempt to soften the original stereotypical trope of a classic hero rushing in to save the day.
It doesn’t offer anything new or empowering, unlike Disney animations that have reimagined these outdated ideas like Frozen. The supposed Prince Charming Hans turns out to be the evil mastermind, while Anna finds her true love in a familial bond, saved by her sister Elsa.
There’s no deception here, so the switch is somewhat pointless. Snow is still poisoned only to be woken by true love’s kiss from Jonathan, despite knowing him for less time than the dwarves.
Disney
Snow’s defiance of her malevolent leader only blooms from Jonathan’s ambitions. He questions her inaction and reminds her of the influence she holds as a member of the royal bloodline. To distract from this heteronormative regression, the ‘fair’ princess wakes intending to reclaim her father’s kingdom by simply asking the Queen to kindly give it back. She realises that she was “everything [she had] been waiting and wishing for” and that her father won’t come to save her.
Yet, this supposedly empowering stance Snow takes at the end of the film is at complete odds with the true love’s kiss, where it slips back into the narrative that princess problems are to be solved by heroes. It also doesn’t fit with the homage Disney has cultivated in replicating the imagery, costumes and songs from the original film.
Not to mention that the more progressive messages are washed out by the misguided decision to have CGI dwarves, who are modelled closely on the original animations, which leaves a disjointed message that isn’t enough to reinvent this age-old story. Snow White could have taken the opportunity to spotlight another form of love, such as the animals of the forest who guide and protect her, or even the love of the doe-eyed Dopey and his fellow dwarves (which would have worked if they too had been cast in live-action).
While romantic endings are, thankfully, no longer the sole aspiration force-fed to little girls in these princess stories, 2025’s Snow White is not a step in the right direction. The original narrative isn’t radicalised, only tepidly twisted – and therefore, doesn’t offer anything remotely inspiring for new audiences to take away.
Instead, it’s stuffed with contradictions that make the feminist additions feel underdeveloped and performative.
Snow White is out in cinemas now.
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Author: Jess Bacon, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Jess Bacon is a freelance entertainment and culture critic whose work can be found in Stylist, Dazed, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast and more. She covers everything from sci-fi and fantasy to streaming and female-led cinema. She’s currently working on her first non-fiction book.
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