Why Does Everyone Hate Rachel Zegler? It's Getting Old.
A mini dive into the online discourse around Rachel Zegler.
Snow White came out last week, and since 2022, 3 years before its release, the film had already had a significant amount of negative press. However, I couldn't help but notice it reached a boiling point, more recently, in unimaginable lengths. The film bolsters a score of—at the time of my writing— 42% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 74%. The film's budget was above 250 million (the number fluctuates from article to article—so a guesstimate), and last Sunday, it opened with $43 million in ticket sales. But none of these numbers are shocking; in fact, they were expected. And it may be all because of one common denominator...
Rachel Zegler.
Rachel Zegler was born May 3, 2001. Throughout her childhood she became enthralled with musical theater at the age of four and began taking voice and acting lessons by the age of 12. In highschool, Zegler began starring in several musicals, playing roles such as Belle in Beauty and the Beast (2016), Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2017), Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street (2018), and Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical (2019).
Throughout her adolescence, she’d run a YouTube channel that was active from July 2015 to August 2023, which garnered media coverage and critical praise for her performances. In January 2018, director Steven Spielberg posted an open casting call via Twitter for his new film adaptation of West Side Story.
Zegler, 16 at the time, responded to the casting call. She was selected out of 30,000 applicants for the role of Maria and made her film debut in 2021. Zegler would then go on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, making her the first actress of Colombian descent to win in that category as well as the youngest winner in that category at 20 years old.
Since then, she’s starred as Lucy Gray Baird in the Hunger Games prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Anthea in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and made her Broadway debut last fall as Juliet in a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The star’s career has been nothing short of magical: she was listed on The Ringer’s The Big Picture podcast's list of “top 35 actors under 35”, included in Forbes’ “30 under 30” class of 2022, and named one of AP Entertainment’s Breakthrough Entertainers of 2021. Initially not invited to the 94th Academy Awards—despite West Side Story receiving seven nominations, including best picture.
Luckily, after confirming to a fan on social media who had asked about her lack of an invitation. She was then backed by thousands online and was not only invited to the Oscars, but also as a presenter.
It all sounds like a fairy tale: a musical-theatre prodigy, a Golden Globe winner, a performer at the 64th annual Grammy Awards in honor of Stephen Sondheim— all by the age of twenty. The grandeur of it all.
But what was once her voice of reason, social media, is now the center of growing backlash.
Casting
It'd been two years since the announcement of Halle Bailey taking on the titular lead of Ariel in the live-action Little Mermaid, and audiences around the world were still up in arms about the race-swapping. That same crowd would then turn its sights on Rachel zegler in June of 2021, despite her Polish descent. Though it is worth mentioning she is also of Colombian descent, it would make Rachel Zegler the first live-action Latina princess.
Either way, the audience was not happy.
The general consensus? Rachel Zegler just wasn’t pale enough. “Snow White is called Snow White because her skin is as white as snow,” they’d argue. Others claimed her features were “too Latin” for a character rooted in German folklore, or that she simply just didn’t have the look for Snow White.
Though I’d argue she does. She has the hair (as pictured above), we’ve seen her sing and act—she’s a Golden Globe winner—and she has proven ability to play innocence and nativity through her role of Maria. She has the ultimate toolkit to play as Snow White, but because she’s two shades darker than the cartoon, her character is being pulverized? GUYS, GIVE ME A BREAK.
The official Snow White trailer has racked up 15 million views—with 65,000 likes and…1.9 million dislikes. (I had to get a browser extension to see the dislikes—this is real journalism.)
Now sure, some people are angry about the casting—but that’s not Rachel’s fault. That decision is made by the casting director, producers, director, and Disney. A group decision.
So, what has Rachel actually done to garner this much backlash? Nothing to be honest, but I’m getting ahead of myself. She just rode the wave of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and her breakout role as Maria in West Side Story, which, by the way, she was phenomenal in. Highly recommend.
But what in the world could make the world, mainly those from the right side of the political aisle, hate her so much that Disney even had to scale back the premiere of their first animated Disney princess?
I present to you—
THE INTERVIEW.
Here’s a mini transcript if you don’t care to watch:
When asked about defining the modern edge of the film, Rachel zegler clarifies by saying, “…It’s no longer 1997.” She says in a condescending tone. She continues, “We absolutely wrote a snow white—”
Gal Gadot chimes in from behind. “—She’s not gonna be saved by the prince.”
Rachel agrees, adding on, “…And she’s not gonna be dreaming about true love, she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be. If she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. And so, it’s just a really incredible story for I think young people everywhere to see themselves in.”
This interview was the fuel to the fire.
I personally didn’t find it offensive as some have. Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen the original snow white—I wasn’t a Disney kid, let me breathe. Or maybe because it’s obvious to me she’s poking fun… and it’s as simple as that? But as the internet usually does, it ruffled some feathers, and people took it to heart. From there onward, everything snowballed as more press snippets of Rachel speaking about the film began making it’s rounds. So let’s go through it, shall we? Rapid fire.
Things that Rachel said that have everyone raising their pitchforks:
“I was scared of the original cartoon. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again.”
“There’s a big focus on her love story—with a guy that literally stalks her. Weird, weird, weird.”
“It’s really not about the love story at all…”
“…If I’m gonna stand there for 18 hours in a dress as an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid for every hour that it is streamed online.”
You can find them all here ☟
Now granted, it sounds a little bad or at the very least that she may not be a huge fan of snow white—which is fine because at the end of the day this is a job. But listen, a lot of these are taken out of context.
“I was scared of the original cartoon. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again.”
Granted. If I were a little kid watching this—GIRL, I would’ve been scared too.
“…If I’m gonna stand there for 18 hours in a dress as an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid for every hour that it is streamed online.”
She said this at a SAG-AFTRA rally. A rally advocating for actors to receive liveable wages and appropriate rights to their works…it’s like I say these things, and it goes over some of these people’s heads. Likewise, nobody quotes the rest of the interview where she praises the film, the crew, and calls this the biggest dream of hers: Linked here.
Update March 30th: Found this TikTok that completely encompasses my thoughts:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
And making it this far, I still can’t help but laugh that people are this hell bent on hating her. Sure she said some unlikeable comments(deemed by some) about the original film—but it’s clear as day that Rachel zegler was simply poking fun, even if there we’re true sentiments to her statements. And quite honestly, the comments weren’t even that bad.
It’s odd, really. The side that constantly praises being tolerant and unemotional are the ones creating thousands of edited thumbnails of Rachel Zegler in unnatural, exaggerated, angry/emotional poses. These are the people writing think pieces about a 21-year-old’s dumb comments about… a cartoon.
Right….” Weird, weird, weird.”
Then the nail on the coffin…
Politics
Before the whole presidential election comment fiasco, there was D23. After the Snow White teaser trailer premiered at the fan event, it had reached 120 million views in 24 hours. Rachel would go on to thank supporters and follow up on social media by posting, “…and always remember, free palestine.”
Her statement reached 8.8 million views and it’s reported that Disney was shocked that she could potentially squander the promotion of the film with a political statement. Allegedly, a Disney executive raised the studio’s concerns to Zegler’s team, and even film producer Marc Platt flew to New York to speak with her directly. However, Zegler stood her ground, and the post remained for all to see.
As stated by Tatiana Siegel’s Variety article, “Behind the scenes, death threats toward Zegler’s co-star Gal Gadot, who is Israeli, spiked, and Disney had to pay for additional security for the mother of four.”
“She didn’t understand the repercussions of her actions as far as what that meant for the film, for Gal, for anyone,” says one insider.
I do believe it’s fair to point out that in an interview with Cosmopolitan, Zegler said the following:
“There was a lot of harassment from a certain group of people—they were showing up at my apartment and screaming profanities.”
People came to her apartment. Literally, terrifying. Though Siegel fails to mention or question whether Zegler had security provided for as well, which I think is worth noting. But I digress. It’s also interesting to see that Mark Ruffalo has been vocal for Palestine for several years now, yet his relationship with Disney doesn’t seem to have unraveled?
I’m just saying. It’s an OBSERVATION 👋🏾👁️✋🏾.
Three months after the re-election of Donald Trump, Zegler took to Instagram and wrote the following, “Fuck Donald Trump” and “May Trump supporters … and Trump himself never know peace.”
I knew the moment I saw her Instagram story that there would be WWIII. Unlike some people 🤠, I don’t care what she wrote; I rock with the First Amendment. But I knew her remark—this remark—would draw significant criticism. And if you couldn’t tell by now, I like Rachel Zegler and only want the best for her. And well, this statement did exactly that. With even well-known conservative commentators like Megyn Kelly demanding Zegler be fired from Disney’s live-action Snow White.
In response to the backlash, Rachel posted the following:
“Hi everyone, I would like to sincerely apologize for the election post I shared on my Instagram last week. I let my emotions get the best of me,” Zegler wrote on Instagram. “Hatred and anger have caused us to move further and further away from peace and understanding, and I am sorry I contributed to the negative discourse.” She continued, “This week has been emotional for so many of us, but I firmly believe that everyone has the right to their opinion, even when it differs from my own. I am committed to contributing positively toward a better tomorrow.”
To complete my statement from earlier. Zegler was not the common denominator for box office number sales flopping. Yes, her statements may have influenced some audiences’ perceptions, which were blown out of unimaginable proportions. But there were and are several factors as to the film’s disappointing results:
The film was over $250-270 million. There’s no reason films—especially this film—should have the same budget as Captain America: Civil War.
Disney faced criticism for not casting little people in the role of the dwarfs. Even Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage spoke out about the controversy:
“Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” he said. “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, 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 you’re still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
The film faced even more backlash when everyone assumed this leaked image was of the seven dwarfs. But in the film, they are referred to as the ‘bandits’. It has not been confirmed if they were supposed to originally play the seven dwarfs.
And several more reasons but you get the deal. None of this is solely on Rachel, there was controversy in all departments. Social media can be such a dark place, and Rachel Zegler is a talented young woman who expresses kindness in many ways. I think this is greatly overlooked by the public disclosure. I’d even argue that most people, aren’t even sure why they dislike her so much— they’re simply told to do so by the influx on social media and peers.
I can only hope that Rachel Zegler is protecting her peace. Especially monitoring her intake of social media, because this level of hate she’s been subjected to is merciless. I believe that regardless of what political party you support or what you thought of the film, the amount of vitriol is excessive. And I guess that’s my point in all of this. To point out how crazy this whole scenario has become and how incredibly taxing it must be for Rachel to navigate all this.
Because this:
This is not normal.
On the bright side, Rahcel is still living her best life and is set to make her West End debut as Eva Perón in a revival of the classic musical Evita. The production will run at the London Palladium from June to September 2025.
So I hope this little analysis gave you some insight into the discourse around Rachel and why it’s pretty dumb. Do you agree with me? Let me know in the comments below. Or if you happen to disagree with me, we can dish it out in the comments below as well but— respectfully🫵🏾🥸.
That’s all for today, if you liked this analysis, please feel free to subscribe and—or become a paid subscriber. You can get analyses like this one for as low as $5 a month.
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I’m launching another Substack pretty soon! This substack is all about girlhood, navigating being a young adult, being just a girl, crying about the job market, and more! Okay, bye now!🩰*ੈ✩‧₊˚
