So Inclusive, It Hurts: Disney’s Snow White Bans Dwarfs to Stay Woke

Call it progress, but with casualties. Disney’s upcoming live-action Snow White remake has become the latest example of how corporate inclusion efforts have twisted into exclusion—this time, by quietly eliminating roles for actors with dwarfism.

That’s right: in a move meant to modernize the beloved fairytale, Disney has replaced the iconic Seven Dwarfs with an eclectic group of average-height “magical creatures,” reimagining the classic as something more “inclusive”—but not for the community it once spotlighted.

Rather than update the characters with care or nuance, the studio opted for erasure. Ironically, this came after actor Peter Dinklage publicly criticized the idea of recreating the original dwarf characters without rethinking their portrayal. Instead of reworking the roles, Disney simply removed them—essentially swinging from stereotype to silence.

Actors with dwarfism, who rarely see prominent roles in Hollywood, now find themselves pushed further to the margins in the name of progress. It’s inclusion theater, and the stage just got a lot smaller.

Rachel Zegler, who stars as Snow White, has added fuel to the fire by calling the original story “weird” and “creepy,” suggesting that Snow White doesn’t need a prince and that beauty shouldn’t define her character. Admirable sentiments—but why retell a classic fairytale if you dislike everything about it?

Disney’s reimagining doesn’t feel like evolution. It feels like brand management. Inclusivity should open doors, not quietly shut them behind the scenes. What we’re left with is a Snow White where no one’s really white, dwarfs don’t exist, and the story’s core themes are scrubbed clean for modern sensibilities.

Fairytales are meant to be timeless—not soulless. And this one might need more than a magic mirror to find its way back to authenticity.