Actor Peter Dinklage has been making headlines for his criticism of Disney for rebooting their classic animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a live-action remake.
“Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White,” Dinklage said. “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. You’re progressive in one way, but then you’re still making that f****ng backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together? What the f*** are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
Disney responded to the criticism by insisting they would consult with the dwarfism community to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film.”
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Granted, it’s probably been at least 35 years since I’ve seen Snow White, but I can’t quite figure out how the movie reinforced any stereotypes. Similarly, I can’t say that, after watching movies like The Wizard of Oz, Austin Powers, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or the Harry Potter films, I felt like little people had been marginalized. Heck, how many Christmas movies featuring Santa Claus at the North Pole have little people portraying elves?
As Matt Walsh at the Daily Wire pointed out, “Peter Dinklage appeared in the movie Elf for one scene where the whole joke is that Will Ferrell’s character thinks he’s an actual elf.”
Dinklage also played a major role in Game of Thrones, where his character’s status as a dwarf is almost always exploited as a plot device. I’m sure he didn’t mind so much when he got his paychecks.
If Snow White is problematic for reinforcing stereotypes, is any film that features little people also problematic? Can future Wizard of Oz adaptations no longer have Munchkins? Or are Oompa Loompas too offensive for Willy Wonka? Should little people be erased from films like Aunt Jemima was from breakfast syrup?
Well, you can’t do that, because that causes another problem: suddenly, there won’t be enough roles for actors with dwarfism in Hollywood.
“It makes me so sick to my stomach to think that there are seven roles for dwarfs that can’t get normal acting roles, or very few and far between roles, and now they are gone because of [Dinklage],” Dylan Postl, an actor with dwarfism, told the Daily Mail. “Peter Dinklage is the biggest dwarf actor probably of all time but it doesn’t make him king dwarf.”
“When he was cast as a little person role in Lord of the Rings or in A Game of Thrones or in Elf or this that or the other thing … those checks cashed just fine,” Postl added.
That’s not to say that these are the only kinds of roles actors with dwarfism can have in Hollywood. In the 2007 film Death at a Funeral, Dinklage played a role that wasn’t written as a dwarf but was changed after he got the part. But even this example proves that an actors’ dwarfism informs the role they take in the same way an actor’s race does. So it can’t be ignored without being problematic either.
Here’s an example of an updated classic in which Disney truly got something wrong: in its live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp, the couple that adopts the Cocker Spaniel named Lady was rewritten as an interracial couple. The story takes place in 1909, in an unnamed Midwestern town inspired by Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri — meaning that at the time and place the movie is set, interracial marriage was illegal. Isn’t whitewashing anti-miscegenation laws more problematic than not having ample representation in a historical drama — even if it is one where dogs can talk to each other?
Hollywood has come a long way from the days of, say, Mickey Rooney wearing yellowface to portray a goofy Asian character, but it seems to me that if Dinklage has his way, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves would just be canceled. The story would just have no value anymore. Who does that help? The way I remember the story, the dwarves are friendly and righteous, taking Snow White into their home as one of their own. Snow White, in turn, treats them with love and dignity. The horror!