Disney’s Snow White trailer has been receiving a lot of backlash. Not only does the trailer have hundreds of thousands of dislikes from fans on YouTube, but now Zach Roloff is weighing in following its release.
Zach Roloff, star of Little People, Big World, responds after the release of the first trailer featuring revamped dwarves as “magical creatures.” The TLC star addressed both the trailer and actor Peter Dinklage’s comments about dwarfs directly.
As a result of Dinklage’s comments, instead of casting real actors, the dwarves are now portrayed using CGI and are being referred to as “magical creatures.”
Zach expressed his thoughts on this change via his Instagram Story, criticizing the film for excluding actors with dwarfism.
“So they aren’t just taking away the dwarves and making Snow White. They are cgi-ing the dwarves. This isn’t 1937—there are actually a lot of people with dwarfism walking around,” he wrote, accompanied by a photo of Zegler with the new dwarves from the trailer. “Either focus on Snow White or own the dwarf representation.”
He continued in another post to his Instagram Story, “If you’ve been following our podcast I’ve had thoughts on this… They updated/diversified Snow White but went way backward on the dwarf side. Hope Dinklage is happy.”
Zach Roloff responded to the new 'Snow White' teaser trailer 👀 pic.twitter.com/bGajP6ue5v
— Reality TV 4Lyfe (@realitytv4lyfe) August 10, 2024
This isn’t the first time the Roloff family has voiced their concerns about the film. In a previous episode of Zach and and his wife’s Tori’s podcast, Raising Heights, Zach discussed the importance of little people “being on camera.”
“Even if it’s not shown in the best way, we can correct that, we can adjust, we move forward,” he said. “It’s still a very powerful thing.”
The 34-year-old TLC star added, “Even though some people might say, ‘You’re not being portrayed the right way,’ there are still parts of the population that will simply look at you and be like, ‘You are on TV. You’re awesome. That’s so cool. I respect you.'”
Zach emphasized that Disney’s decision to replace dwarves with “magical creatures” took away opportunities for actors with dwarfism. He argued that the characters could be modernized without perpetuating negative stereotypes.
“So they’re being progressive by updating Snow White. Be progressive by updating the dwarves,” he explained. “You could tell the story of the seven dwarves without putting them in a cave, without making it all magical and a bunch of hermits out in the wilderness mining.”
Back in January 2022, Peter Dinklage, who also has dwarfism, criticized the live-action remake of Snow White on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
“Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” Dinklage said about Disney’s film. “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.”
The Game of Thrones star added: “You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that [F-bomb] backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together… Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
Shortly after Dinklage’s comments, Disney issued a statement via Good Morning America, announcing it was “taking a different approach with these seven characters” to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film.”
The first-look image and trailer was then released featuring “magical creatures.”
Disney’s Snow White opens March 21 directed Marc Webb starring Rachel Zegler as the titular character with Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen.
