How The New Seven Dwarves Ruin LP Opportunities & Storytelling

ID: Vintage movie poster for Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The best loved film ever! Snow White poses in a forest, surrounded by the seven dwarves, as the evil queen watches on.

If you're reading this article, chances are high that you've seen marketing for the upcoming 2025 live action remake of Disney's 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by the same studio. And, unsurprisingly, even though the first trailer premiered back in August, the film is already steeped in politics and criticism. 

If you're unsure where to start, start here. This article will show what Disney's first plan was for this remake and how their backpeddling created the Plan B we're actually seeing trailers for. Then, you'll read how this whole operation has botched opportunities for actors from the Little People (LP) community, as well as opportunities for unique, original storytelling.

The Situation | The "Seven Magical Creatures"

The wave of public backlash against the film began when Peter Dinklage, Emmy award-winning actor with achondroplasia, commented negatively on the film's announcement. In celebrity-guest podcast WTF with Marc Maron in January of 2022, Dinklage briefly expressed his thoughts on the upcoming remake:

"Well, you know, it's really progressive to cast -- literally no offense to anything -- but I was a little taken aback by the -- they're very, they're very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you're still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Take a step back and look at what you're doing there. Ya know? Makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way, then you're still making that _______ backward story of seven dwarves living in a cave? Like, what the ____ are you doing, man? You know? Have I, have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I'm not loud enough."

In so many words, Dinklage's main gripe was that the movie was being made at all. The biggest issue, he points out, is Disney's hypocrisy in trying to play it off as progressive by way of diverse casting, when the story itself seems fundamentally anti-progressive at its base. While he half-jokingly laments that he's not "loud enough," his opinion actually ends up being the most heard, getting reported in almost every pop culture magazine and celebrity news outlet. Just Google Dinklage and Snow White, and you'll see for yourself just how many times his words have been shared like Gospel. This wide dissemination, and his star power, ended up having major influence over Disney's future decisions and the opinions of the wider public.

So, after Dinklage's comment, Disney was quick to make this statement via Variety:

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

Then, in 2023, on-set footage got leaked, and Disney's Plan A was revealed.

ID: Outdoor photo of the cast walking through a field. Zegler is dressed as Snow White in the lower left. A line of eight actors walk in the upper right. The seven magical creatures consist of five tall actors, one tall actress, and one little actor. They follow the character Jonathan, presumably the stand-in for the prince.

Disney's original Plan A for the live-action remake took a bold turn by removing the seven dwarves from the story altogether, instead replacing them with what they called "seven magical creatures," played by one short actor and six tall actors.

Needless to say, the leak elicited even more backlash. Some expressed distaste over their favorite childhood characters getting scrapped. Others called it politically correct virtue signaling. And many expressed indignance over six jobs for LP being given to tall actors instead.

The film, originally announced to be released in March of 2024 faced a tough bind. The movie was already too far along in production to just completely rewrite and reshoot everything. People were unhappy with the "magical creatures" idea. And, Disney was determined to keep LP out of the movie as much as possible to avoid political incorrectness. So, they did what many big-scale movie studios do these days: Push the release date back and "fix it in post."

They postponed the premier to 2025, severely backtracked on the "magical creatures" concept, spent $209 - $330 million, and then digitally replaced the seven actors with CG versions of the dwarves from the animated film.

ID: Image from the film, showing Snow White sitting with five of the CG dwarves.

ID: Image from the film, showing Snow White singing in the dwarves' cottage as four on-screen CGI dwarves tidy up. 

Now, with the August release of the first official trailer, fans are criticizing and even making memes about the overall designs for the characters, sets, and special effects. Seriously, the comments under the trailer are something from a stand-up comedy roast. As of the writing of this article, the outlook for Disney's audience reception looks bleak.

The weirdness continues when you realize that the studio removed "and the Seven Dwarfs" from the official title, just calling it Snow White. Although the current rendition of the seven supporting characters are copies of the dwarves from the original, Disney still refuses to call the CGI doubles "dwarves," still insisting on calling them "magical creatures."

So, not only did Plan A erase LP from the narrative, but so has Plan B.

What Has Been Said | The LP Perspective

So, that's what's been happening. But how has this specifically effected the Little People community? Rather than speak on their behalf as a person of regular height, I thought it better to report what others have already said. The LP community has said their piece already, others just need to listen.

Firstly, many LP have expressed disagreement with Dinklage's negative outlook because (surprise, surprise!) not all LP are the same, share the same opinions, or view everything through the same lens. Dinklage is reported to have said in 2012 that "every person my size has a different life, a different history," so perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt, since there's no possible way he could have predicted the sheer virality of one passing comment. Instead, the injustice ought to fall on the studio, whose first mistake was treating Dinklage -- and a supposed focus group of "members of the dwarfism community" -- as the definitive authority on the varied rainbow that is the world-wide LP community.

For instance, actress and producer Terra Jolé shakes her head at the politics of the industry and how “[I]t boggles my mind that a network, instead of listening to an entire community, [is] listening to one person. That’s just how much pull this one person has created in this society because of where he is on the level of popularity.”

In the same vein, Cara Reedy, a journalist and member of the community believes that “It’s appropriate that Peter spoke his truth about how he feels, but I don’t feel that it’s appropriate that he is including the entire dwarfism community.” She goes on to say how Dinklage is in no way the champion of LP rights, and thus his personal opinions should not have had the power that they did. 

Following up on Dinklage's viral podcast clip and the leaked on-set footage, professional WWE wrestler Hornswoggle, otherwise named Dylan Mark Postl, spoke up in a news interview about his disagreement:

"You're not being progressive; you're hurting the community by what you're doing. ... Who put this guy [Dinklage] in charge, and why is he the single voice, like, for a whole community? ... I've had people from the dwarf community reach out to me, saying how this is crazy to recast or to use normal, or normal sized humans -- I use that term -- but normal humans, or normal sized humans for these roles. It's just insane to me and it just doesn't make any sense. I say it all the time: Disney, I know six dwarf actors, with myself, that would love these roles. ... These are dream roles literally made for our community, and I think it's just crazy to recast it."

According to Horsnwoggle, if Disney was going to remake Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, then they should go ahead and give the roles of the dwarves to real actors with dwarfism, since it would be one of the few instances of typecasting that offers major opportunities to an otherwise under-casted sect of professionals.

But don't LP actors hate getting typecasted as non-humans?

In a broad sense, yes. Taken on a case-by-case basis, it's a little more complicated.

Of course, LP actors would love to just play regular people, because they themselves are regular people. However, they are well aware of the fact that casting is casting, a job is a job, and representation is representation -- perhaps even better aware than tall people. While some filming experiences are demeaning, others are more respectable. Such is the risk all actors must take when navigating the sketchy entertainment industry.

In a discussion-led article from The Guardian regarding the casting for Mirror, Mirror (2012) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), Danny Woodburn and Mark Povinelli speak on their experiences as LP actors and on the complicated, even paradoxical, ethics of casting for Snow White adaptations.

"I have put it in my contract before that no one will pick me up in a scene, and I will not be required to bite anybody" says Woodburn, "Do you not see how humiliating it is to liken me to some kind of animal?" While Woodburn reveals the hell of working under discriminatory directors and writers, he stands firm on safeguarding roles ideal for LP. When tall actors played the dwarves in Snow White and the Huntsman with the help of special effects, he believes that telling a story about dwarves, without dwarves, is one that is "still telling of the nonacceptance of dwarfism ... You would never see this with any other minority — it isn't acceptable. In today's industry, you would never see someone seriously playing an African American who wasn't an African American. Yet it is acceptable in the realm of actors portraying people with dwarfism, or disabilities in general." 

While roles ideal for LP actors ought to be safeguarded, LP actors must still be welcomed into the wider range of roles found in mainstream film and television. In the same article, Povinelli makes a distinct angle from Woodburn while maintaining the importance of normal roles:

"I mean, I've got no problem with Ian McShane playing a dwarf, if I'm allowed to play a lawyer or a doctor or all of the things we seem to be denied so often. I don't want the market on the fantastical characters – that doesn't interest me. I want the whole range. I don't begrudge McShane taking on that role but the coin should be flipped as well and we should be allowed to play actual humans. Because … you know, it's pretty obvious but that's what we are. I'm not a leprechaun. I'm not an elf. I don't live in a forest. I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a sports fan, I'm a theatregoer ... I'm everything everyone else is. And those are the things you want to portray. ... Hopefully we're evolving as a society so that we're coming to the realisation that people with a difference can actually offer something with a unique perspective rather than being something of wonder or something to be laughed at. And I think that's coinciding with the fact that there's a real pool of super-talented actors who are finally getting a chance to show what they can do – to finally be seen as actors first, and dwarves second."

Here, Povinelli effectively sums up how "ideal" roles are not excluded to mythical ones, but include normal ones.

Making similar points is Zach Roloff, co-star of the documentary show "Little People, Big World," who recently dedicated an entire episode on his and his wife Tori's podcast about the upcoming movie. In it, he deftly and insightfully summarizes key issues with the remake:

"If you're trying to ... show diversity and promote and all that, being on camera is very powerful. Being on TV is very powerful. You know, still. Even if it's not shown in the best way, we can correct that, we can adjust, we move forward. It's still a very powerful thing. Even though some people might say, 'you're not being portrayed the right way,' there are still parts of the population that simply look at you and be like, 'you are on TV. You're awesome. You're so cool. I respect you.'" - 10:38

"Having people with dwarfism in film is a cool thing, and even though the story isn't totally accurate or %100 appropriate -- whatever it is, updated, whatever you want to call it -- there's still power in that, and I don't think we should say 'no' to that as we adjust. We adjust, we make adjustments, keep evolving. Eventually, if you get too much of a stink, they 'I don't wanna deal with it.' ... I feel like that's kind of what's happening a little bit, like, 'we don't how to touch this because if we do anything referencing an elf or dwarf character, whatever stereotype, then we're gonna get cancelled. So you know what, we just won't cast that player at all.'" - 26:51

Roloff makes the surprising statement that casting LP actors in normal roles normalizes them, but so can just putting them on-screen. The act of taking LP off screens instills the idea that real-life dwarfism is unacceptable.

There's a dark irony here to this whole situation, which Roloff describes above. It seems that Disney is such a perfectionist, that they would rather not do something at all than do something imperfectly. They'd rather provide opportunities to minority actors than provide opportunities to the minorities already present in the source material. They'd rather bury stereotypes than fix them. They'd rather avoid prejudices than reeducate (Kain, "There’s One Huge Problem With Disney’s Live-Action ‘Snow White’ Trailer").

What Can Be Said | A Storytelling Perspective

The Little People community has voiced their thoughts on the remake from the point of view of casting, representation, and discrimination. But how does this whole "magical creatures" idea, or idea of the remake in general, stand up under a storytelling perspective? How could it be better?

I won't waste time by explaining why this movie shouldn't have been made in the first place. We're all getting tired of live-action remakes. If it's a shot-for-shot copy, then what's the point, but if it's too different then you disappoint fans of the original. Nostalgia is a profitable tool, but it can also be a movie's downfall by reminding the audience of something better. The movie is coming out no matter how much we complain, so we won't dedicate much more thought to it.

What I have dedicated thought to, however, was the "mythical creatures" concept. In my opinion, the writers should have gone all in with it from the start!

First, they should have made them actual creatures, not just regular-looking people in whimsical outfits. Imagine if Snow White lived with a unicorn, a troll, or a selkie! Or, even better, creatures from non-European  mythologies; Like an eastern dragon, a Korean dokkaebi, and a Turkic Şüräle! This leads into another point: if the creatures were from a diverse background of nationalities, then we could have gotten an original spin on the story why still getting that so-coveted representation. Then, with these new creatures, the writers could have created a new magic system and world to go with them. This would meld the original story with its new cast of characters in a fresh, fun, and believable way.

ID: Early concept art for Sisu, giving her a more traditional Malay design with horns, frills, and fangs.

Another remedy for boring Snow White remakes is a simple yet groundbreaking one: Make the story about the Dwarves!

According to the 1937 film, they hold major plot power and are everybody's favorite characters. They are just as important in the fairy tale too, if not more so, since Snow White gets poisoned several times and is saved by the dwarves before the prince ever even shows up. So, they definitely carry a large enough presence to carry their own story.

In this day and age obsessed with fairy-tell retellings, there are adaptations focusing on minor characters across mediums and genres alike. Adaptations focusing on minor characters have already been made and are extremely popular, so it's totally doable. Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) takes a mature, supernatural spin that makes the huntsman a lead role; Fairest (2015) by Marissa Meyer is a sci-fi backstory novel for the Evil Queen; Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs (2019) is CG comedy that makes the dwarves more like comrades-in-arms than messy housemates. 

But, where is the version told strictly from their perspective? 

ID: Image from Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves. Red Shoes, voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz, sits and smiles with Merlin, voiced by Sam Claflin.

As Roloff proposes to the decision-makers at Disney Studios, "they're being progressive by updating Snow White; Be progressive by updating the dwarves. You can 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, okay?" So, a film portraying the dwarves as relatable, complex, and dignified people with normal struggles would be a wonderful addition to the global catalogue of Snow White stories. Unfortunately, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs may be the closest thing we get for now, going so far as to make one of the dwarves the princess' love interest, yet it's a far cry from LP representation. I don't know about you, but a Snow White movie where a tall actress falls in love with a dwarf who is also her prince is a movie I'm dying to see!

Is that so much to ask for? 

I know I'm not the only one.