Arguablyacademic - Romanticizing The Mundane

Why You're Wrong About Rachel Zegler

This is a long post, but there's a lot of context missing from the Rachel Zegler "discourse" that I thought I could add with my history of watching this unfold from the beginning.

The Snow White Thing

You probably know this part. There's a curated video of Rachel going viral, framed to make her seem like she's never seen Snow White, she hates the story, she hates the character, she's ungrateful, and single-handedly ruined Disney's brand. The clips from these videos are not new— they were released nearly a year ago in September 2022 and nobody cared about them at the time. Why? Because all the full interviews she did that day at the Disney Exo in 2022 showed a young, charming woman who was excited and proud to be cast in an iconic role. The interviews were very well received and it was a non story. Now that it's been edited down and cut together in a malicious way, and the people sharing them are purposefully misquoting her, they've twisted the context. Normally, this would be a non controversy. Even if that video wasn't taken out of context and spliced together to make her seem like she hates the film, most people wouldn't care. The issue is the response to the video.

Let's get this out of the way: Rachel Zegler doesn't hate Snow White. She relayed that she was afraid of the forest scene as a child and didn't revisit it again until after she was cast in the role. She has since then watched it several times and has expressed for YEARS before that interview came out that she was incredibly honored and grateful to be playing such an iconic Disney princess. If you watch the full videos that those clips came from, this comes across immediately to anyone with their own mind. If you hate someone for being scared of something as a child, I don't know what to tell you. If the role was being given to the biggest Snow White fan, you would be correct that she doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately for you, this role requires talent and Rachel has the Golden Globe and critical acclaim from people who matter within the industry (her peers and critics).

You know who does hate their beloved characters in beloved franchises but the general public still applauds them? Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, and Robert Pattinson. They've all expressed outright contempt for the roles and the films they were part of, but nobody cared. People had fun with their quotes but they still respected them. Rachel said nothing even closely resembling their remarks, but she's being torn to shreds. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Rachel never said a single bad thing about the character or the animated film— she said that it was outdated and that set people over the edge, foaming at the mouth to have her burned at the stake. If you think it would be perfectly fine to have a movie about an abused 14 year old girl run away to play housemaid for a bunch of men, get kissed in her sleep/death by an adult man, and then wake up to fall into his arms in 2024, that's certainly a hot take. If you're against remakes, direct your ire at Disney. But if you truly think that plot would work with young girls today, you're the one who's out of touch. It would do far more harm than good to portray a young woman in that light.

She also never said that there was anything wrong with romance or love. She said that the new Snow White wasn't only dreaming of that. I can't stress enough that this wasn't her decision… she was describing the plot of the new film that was written by Greta Gerwig and approved by Disney. There's a prince in the film and he will also have a more developed personality and storyline. If you have a problem with the writing, wait until it comes out so you can write your strongly worded letter to Greta. If you have a problem with the concept in general, take it up with Disney. There's no need for you to be defensive over hurting the legacy of a multi-billion dollar company or a 87 year old cartoon written by a proud racist antisemite. This is the most confusing part of the hate campaign to me because it wasn't even her opinion— she was literally describing the plot of the film she had nothing to do with. It also isn't a new thing. Disney actors have been promoting their newer films this way for years.

It's perfectly okay to like things that are problematic. It's becoming an issue that we refuse to acknowledge that maybe some things we love are harmful. What we can't do is justify why it's not problematic, and in fact everyone who calls it out is the problem and NOT their precious cartoon. The 1937 Snow White was an amazing feat of animation. It's a classic for a reason. But it was also Hitler's favorite film and was directed by a white supremacist (the one who is "rolling in his grave" due to Rachel's existence, according to his son). Things don't exist in a vacuum and we can't ignore the bad parts.

How We Got Here:

The thing that everyone is missing is the source of this campaign. This started in September of 2020 when transphobic actor Gina Carano made fun of trans people by changing her pronouns to beep/bop.boop. Rachel indirectly called her out by coming to the defense of the trans community.

She never called out Gina by name (though she rightfully could have). Mind you, Rachel's first film hadn't come out yet. Nobody knew who she was outside of those of us who were anticipating West Side Story and were fans of her covers on YouTube. She was a "nobody" in the industry. Take this part with a grain of salt because I can't confirm it, but Gina and her fans directly blame Rachel for her being banned from Twitter. Again, I really don't think that matters as she's harmful to the trans community and shouldn't have a platform. What does matter is that fans of Gina (which, let's be real, are just fans of transphobia) have been stalking Rachel's every move since then. Unfortunately for them, there wasn't much they could use against her other than to call her woke and #snowbrown when she was cast a year later as the Disney princess. The noise has always been there, but unless you were a fan of hers, you probably didn't hear about it. It wasn't until two years after this that they had something else against her.

If you've recently seen a video of Rachel crying circulating that claims to be her reaction to the recent Snow White backlash, it's an old video. It's from a vlog from her youtube channel posted in June 2022. It was in response to these exact same transphobic anti-woke conservatives who thought that they had something when she did an interview on the red carpet of the Shazam premiere. When asked why she joined the DC universe, she responded "I needed a job." It was generally well received by most people who thought it was cute and funny, but those who were waiting in the shadows latched onto it as an excuse to send her death threats.

The video was also about a month after she was invited to present at the 2022 Oscars and was made to seem like she bullied the Academy (as a no name newcomer, mind you) into letting her attend. In reality, a fan left a comment on her Instagram asking what she was wearing to the event. She responded that she wasn't invited but would be rooting for everyone from her couch in her boyfriend's pajamas. It was the public who demanded she get an invite and the Oscar's must have agreed that it was very odd that the lead actress of a film that was nominated for Best Film wouldn't get an invite. Whether it was an oversight on their part or a scheduling issue with Rachel's filming, I truly think there was no malicious intent from either party. Keep in mind, she used to be very active with her fans (she's a huge fangirl of things herself and has always had a strong relationship with her fans) and she wasn't used to her comments becoming articles and national tv segments. This was the first time it happened to her. It appears she learned that she's not just a girl who posts on YouTube anymore and she's going to be put under a microscope for every move she makes. She has since shut down her Instagram comments and rarely interacts with fans outside of liking comments these days because of this.

I know this is long, but I need people to understand where this is all coming from. It didn't just happen out of nowhere. It's an orchestrated campaign built by violent conservatives, and thousands of women who saw Barbie this summer are hopping on the bandwagon to beat another woman into submission because they have a lot of internalized misogyny to deal with. She's not smug, you just hate women. It's okay to find people annoying, but it's valuable to look into why you think that. If you see a confident young woman expressing views that don't actually harm anyone and you think she needs to be "humbled" and "put in her place" by the entire internet dogpiling her, you've lost your mind. Using "body language experts" (fake job) to diagnose her as a psychopath is so vile. Everytime someone mentions her name online, the comments beneath it are full of the most violent, misogynistic, racist things I've ever seen. If you're contributing to that, you've chosen your side. Reevaluate or seek help.

I'm tired of seeing this happen to young women. We let this happen to Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, Millie Bobby Brown, Halle Bailey, and Jenna Ortega. It's one thing to call out celebrities and hold them accountable when they're doing something actively harmful, but that's not what this is about. That's never been what this is about. We pick these girls to pieces and examine them and pull them apart to justify our hatred of young women who rise to success too quickly for our liking. We dogpile and try to stamp out the flame before they burn too bright. Barbie is still in theaters and you all loved it, yet you're demanding that a bright girl with a big future be small and submissive and humbled because you have issues. That's not feminism. You're just the girls who would have bullied Weird Barbie for using her hands too much when she talks.