People are wising up to the weird culture war campaign against Snow White actress Rachel Zegler.
In recent weeks there’s been a wave of conservative backlash against Zegler, conflating complaints about Disney’s live-action Snow White being “too woke,” and accusations about Zegler supposedly “disprespecting” the original 1937 movie. But as these complaints spread online, they’ve inspired a counter-backlash of their own. Case in point: The response to this tweet from right-wing pundit Benny Johnson.
Johnson’s tweet offers a list of Zegler-related gripes, labeling her a “polarizing narcissist” and claiming that she hates men, capitalism, and family values. Below this list, he shares some photos of Zegler making rude gestures.
Zegler’s politicized anti-fandom has been pushing this kind of talking point for a while. However, Johnson’s tweet looks so absurd to outsiders that it inspired a wave of negative replies, criticizing the hate campaign and making fun of phrases like “unfriendly militant feminist.”
Some also highlighted the way conservative commentators suddenly chose to fixate on this particular Disney remake.
“how do u, as a grown ass man, not feel silly/embarrassed publicly giving this much of a fuck about snow white,” wrote one commenter. Another retweet simply reads, “I refuse to believe y’all care this much about Snow White.”
Meanwhile, others joked that Johnson’s list just makes them more inclined to like Rachel Zegler.
The unfortunate footnote to this whole saga is that Rachel Zegler can’t defend herself publicly. Speaking out about Snow White could violate SAG-AFTRA’s guidelines about promoting work during the actor’s strike. So Zegler is having to watch in silence while people turn her role into a bizarrely overblown source of controversy.
