Since the first “Hunger Games” movie made its grand premiere in 2012, fans have idolized the film for its powerful and resilient female leads. However, the newest film in the series, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” releasing in Nov. 2023, has already sent fans to social media to spread displeasure over one controversial actress: Rachel Zegler.
Zegler, actress and singer, made her breakthrough into the film industry when she starred as María in “West Side Story,” winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2021. Despite this claim to fame, Zegler was asked in a recent interview about her thoughts on her starring role in the “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” live-action remake, where she commented that she disliked the movie as a child. Social media quickly erupted on the star for her distasteful attitude in the interview, which may just cut short her time in the spotlight.
“Rachel Zegler admitting she didn’t like ‘Snow White’ growing up, saying she had only watched it once before getting the role is so sad to me. Out of millions of women who loved the character, care about the story and yet this is who we get,” a user said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” live-action remake first began facing controversy when Disney announced that they casted an actress, Zegler, whose skin was far from being “white as snow.” When they released the rest of the cast list, the dwarfism community was angered that they were not being properly represented in the seven dwarfs casting except for one actor. Fans only further slammed Disney with their outrage following another interview with Zegler in September, where she commented about finding the new take on the movie being “weird.”
“I think that the casting for the new ‘Snow White’ movie is simply inaccurate. I completely agree with racial equality in movie and television casting, but I also think that accuracy is important, and I believe they should make new movies with diversity rather than attempting to completely change past ones. Snow White is only called Snow White because of her pale white skin that looks like snow, but they completely disregarded that fact with Zegler,” Victoria Sprecher, sophomore, said.
While “Hunger Games” and “Snow White” are vastly different from one another, they do have one aspect in common: their leading actress. Many fans have expressed that they are simply too excited to finally have another “Hunger Games” movie to care about Zegler’s controversy. At the same time, others have commented on their dissatisfaction with the film’s casting, possibly signaling a low number of views if viewers are unable to put their opinions aside.
“I think people definitely have an opinion on a movie before they even watch it based on the actors in it. But still, I do not think a movie should be getting hated just because of the cast until people actually watch it,” Mason Mancini, senior, said.
Though Zegler is still set to star in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” she has certainly demonstrated how one wrong move can send an actor out of the spotlight just as quickly as they stepped into it.
