Will 'Snow Woke' Go Broke?

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It’s “woke” only to the degree that Snow White is a vaguely Spanish or Portuguese-coded princess — the daughter of a Western European king, which makes it either conservative or vaguely canon.

Who knows/who cares.

But hear me out: Snow White is leftist (Tumblr leftist) as it foregrounds the gap between the rich and the poor, replacing “Prince Charming” with a working-class bandit who “steals from the rich,” etc. It’s also a neoliberal, “written by committee” white feminist repackaging of the Disney princess as a defiant hero who subverts the “damsel in distress” trope while inhabiting a sterilized boardroom where even Snow White’s iconic glass coffin is too “retrograde” or “problematic” to make an appearance.

“Coffins are bad for business in 2025.” “Hard agree.” “Free Palestine?” “Literally…dead.”

Snow White is a lot of things that are either good or bad for business, depending on your geopolitical persuasion.

Gal Gadot’s evil camp performance combined with the dark ride “Scary Adventures” psychedelia of the CGI dwarfs made this a vaguely compelling installment in the Disney live-action canon — so there’s something here for adult audiences who aren’t consumed by the news cycle — but the musical numbers felt uninspired and flat (except for Rachel Zegler’s powerhouse vocals, which carry the film), auto-tuned to death, poorly mixed, and cheesy, especially the “Princess Problems” number, which is sung by a Robin Hood-coded character played by Andrew Burnap, who isn’t a prince, which is probably what Zegler meant when she said this film didn’t necessarily need a love story that was creepy and weird, WEIRD.

Well, it doesn’t have a weird love story (just a few hints at an uncooked romance). “Prince Charming” has been edited into an adorably plain sidekick who isn’t quite as rogue or flirty (or complicated) as Robin Hood or Han Solo (the sci-fi Robin), which makes this film feel almost asexual (which is fine, if that’s your thing). But it is odd to deny the prince his prince-like characteristic while centering the film’s narrative around the murder of a king by an evil witch.

Is this film feminist or trad or both? Ask a YouTuber.

Lack of romance and logical storytelling aside, Snow White isn’t as bad as some of its critics want it to be, who seemingly need this film to fail to validate their boycott of “Snow Woke” or the disproven argument than if you “go woke” you invariably “go broke” — a nonsensical and fantasy-based catchphrase that isn’t supported by the box office (Barbie, for example, made $1.4 billion worldwide). I also think Snow White will do OK. There’s an audience for “woke” content. There’s also an audience for conservative content (e.g., Yellowstone is the most watched drama on television). There’s also an audience for neoliberal Facebook mom content.

Reality check: Snow White isn’t a particularly “woke” or hyper-progressive film as much as it is a family-friendly and safe attempt at translating the original Disney masterpiece for a modern audience (not sure how to define this audience — not sure anyone can) without completely diluting Walt’s original vision (e.g., the entire film is firmly grounded in a patriarchal and Western European universe), which is lovely, but that’s also part of the problem: Snow White feels like a corporate anniversary campaign for a classic brand that lacks an identity and clear idea of who its audience is anymore, which is partially what made Disney’s Star Wars feel so “written by committee” — a committee that doesn’t know what it’s selling and to whom and seems to be scrambling to try to please critics and social media personalities as much as it is a core Disney audience — an audience that Disney has not yet been able to place under its spell.