What really happens to the movie Snow White?
Personally, this remake of Snow White isn’t very exciting. The remake that I’ve got excited was for “The Beauty and the Beast “, starred by Emma Watson. The ripple effect of the excitement affected not only me, but also felt all across the world. There are some indicators you can refer like rating sites/apps, Box Office records and reviews all across the internet. As I believe, a movie to perform, it isn’t just enough to have a good script, performance by the actors, stunning visual effects, directing or cinematography. You name it. The marketers or distributors also should address other political concerns surrounding the movie. (I’ll write about this in another post) I think Snow White has failed to address most of the concerns surrounding it. That is why maybe the movie especially struggled to perform in the Box Office. Not only controversies around it, like using heavy CGI to depict the dwarves, or the choice of actress as Snow White affected the performance in the Box Office but also the story line, dialogue, some sloppy scenes affected the movie to gain attention of the masses.
Pro-Israel vs Pro-Palestine: Lot of reasons to boycott
First, I didn’t want to watch the movie because I supported the boycott campaign against Snow White. Because Gal Gadot’s stance on Palestine-Israel conflict. Everywhere I see, I saw only Gal Gadot’s negative effects prior to the movie’s release. Maybe it was a part of the campaign to attract more pro-Israel fans to watch the movie. If it was a marketing stunt, it utterly failed. Then I got to know the thing that Rachel Zegler brings into the table, pro-Palestinian stance. It didn’t perfectly balance, but if it was to attract the pro-Palestinian fans to watch the movie, it also failed. As I always believe, with big money projects, there are no co-incidents. Everything surrounding the drama is very well planned. Most of the news you hear, watch or consume in some other way in social media are things they wanted us to hear. Building a negative campaign/controversies around the movie prior to the movie’s release to gain attraction from the public got popular since the successful campaign of Oppenheimer and Barbie, Barbenheimer. Barbenhiemer was not actually a negative stunt, but it actually worked.
As per the backlash for the movie Little Mermaid, after they cast Halle Bailey as the lead role, Disney didn’t back up from their decision not to cast stereotypical story book looking girls for iconic Disney movies. I’ve seen people were criticizing the decision to choose Rachel Zigler as iconic Disney character Snow White by comparing the beauty of Gal Gadot and Rachel Zigler saying Ms. Zigler is not as beauty as Gal Gadot. Maybe they have done that intentionally to highlight the concept – “Beauty emerges within“. The public or fairy tales fan base had a presumption of what to expect from a character like Snow White for a reason which I can’t understand. Disney always wanted to break all the social norms possible.
How I got to watch “Snow White”
I didn’t want to watch Snow White in the theatre because I was sensitive to political issues and consuming contents in social media surrounding the movie. But suddenly when I was wandering in Havelock City Mall (A shopping in Colombo with a Cinema Multiplex called Scope Cinema) with my three daughters, I had this moment of thinking, that, whatever the political concerns surrounding the movie doesn’t matter for my daughters, they would definitely enjoy a story they already know. Because they aren’t got polluted by all these social media nonsense. So I booked 5 tickets for the whole family and watched the movie. As I expected, my daughters at 7, 9 and 11 respectively enjoyed the movie from start to the end. I would rate the movie 4 out of 10. But it didn’t matter to my daughters, they wouldn’t give a dime regarding the rating. It was visually stunning. They had an enjoyable time with the movie experience while crunching popcorn. That’s what it matters. It was on a Sunday evening; the theatre was 75% occupied. Which I think is a good thing. Do not let social media opinion influence your decisions.
Leave a Reply