The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro admitted the recently announced Snow White and the Evil Queen film is indeed a direct response to Rachel Zegler and Disney’s Snow White.
Ben Shapiro speaking with attendees at the 2019 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Snow White and the Evil Queen was announced back in the middle of October with The Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing explaining, “Unfortunately, the company Disney founded doesn’t agree with their founder and visionary. They’re remaking their own iconic film nearly a hundred years later. They’ve decided to make some key changes.”
He continued, “Their lead actress, the new Snow White Rachel Zegler has summed it up saying, ‘I just mean it’s no longer 1937. We absolutely wrote a Snow White that she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to 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 she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true.'”
Rachel Zegler as Snow White in Snow White (2025), Walt Disney Studios
Boreing detailed, “While Disney still uses Walt’s name they’ve all but abandoned his legacy. Instead of telling stories about timeless truth, what the ancient fairy tales were all about, Disney’s Snow White is an apology for their past and will expose children to the popular but destructive lies of the current moment.”
He then announced, “Which is why in addition to announcing the launch of our kids entertainment company, I also want to announce today that company’s first live-action feature film. It’s a story about a princess and a prince, about beauty and vanity, about love and its power to raise us from death to life. It’s our own adaptation of an ancient fairy tale. It’s coming in 2024 and it’s called [Snow White and the Evil Queen].”
Now, in an interview with the Critical Drinker on his Critical Drinker After Hours channel, Ben Shapiro admitted that the Bentkey production is a direct response to Disney’s Snow White.
Shapiro stated, “We got the idea for it literally the day that Rachel Zegler did an interview in which she said that she hated the original Snow White and wanted to rip the guts out of it and then Disney released those ridiculous cast photos of dwarves that were not dwarves, the multi-racial, multi-ethnic tall people and one dwarf.”
“And it was that point — this is how we make decisions at The Daily Wire — I literally just emailed that to my business partner Jeremy Boreing, and I was like, ‘We should do something like this.’ And Jeremy was like, ‘Okay, we’re just going to make Snow White.’ So we decided that we were going to do a very rushed movie of Snow White,” he relayed.
Shapiro continued, “But we’re going to do it to all the specs with music, with singing, with the original storyline in classic fashion that imbibes from the original well of the values.”
“Specifically, because if Disney wants to cede that field to us we’d be fools not to take it. And we’re kind of shocked by the fact that no other studio has done that, just on a pure market basis. If you have one of the most significant film achievements of all time, one of the most popular movies of all time and the people who are making the remake of that movie in live action fashion have decided to betray that movie and say out loud — it’s not even a surprise — they’re saying out loud, ‘We want to betray this movie. We don’t like the original values that a woman is reliant on a man. She’s a girl boss, who is going to be fighting the witch on her own. The prince is going to be standing off to the side if there is a prince at all. And if she’s not a transgender, non-binary Snow White whatever…’ It would be idiotic not to go back to, you know, the thing that works and do the thing that works in the face of the thing that clear is not going to work.”
Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney Studios
From there Shapiro criticized Disney at large, “Disney has a horrible habit of doing this. They keep taking some of the greatest IP of all time and they’re still living off the money from that IP. They’re putting up on Disney+ all these placards ahead of Aladdin saying this movie is super offensive, but they still didn’t take the movie. They still know that we all want to subscribe so our kids can watch the original Aladdin. They’re making money off of it, but then they’ll make the live action Aladdin make it way worse for a quick money grab.”
“Well if our company can grab the legacy of the original Snow White then why would we not do that. We should do that,” he asserted.
Ben Shapiro via Critical Drinker After Hours YouTube
Later during the interview, Shapiro explained, “[Disney] hadn’t full on just said, you know, we hate our original movie, like hate it, and we are going to gut that and wear its face around like a weird Hannibal Lecter mask. And that’s essentially what they pledged to do.”
“And that’s such a great market opening for us to put out something competitive,” he asserted.
The Huntsman in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney Studios
Shapiro then alleged that Disney responded to the Bentkey announcement by making changes to their film, “And obviously they got wind of that because now they’ve completely recast it. They have created really horrible looking dwarfs who are giant. They are still giant because — I’m assuming they are just pasting CGI over it.”
“They look terrible by the way,” he continued. “They look awful. They rushed out that image of the CGI dwarfs, who are now enormous. So now Snow White is Gulliver and it looks awful. I think they were forced to. And now they’re saying they’re delaying it for a year and pretending that it’s not about having to recut it and redo it and all this sort of stuff. A little public pressure goes a long way.”
Ben Shapiro via Critical Drinker After Hours YouTube
As for Zegler’s comments, she repeatedly derided the original animated film. She told Extra TV, “The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”
After being asked about the Prince, she said, “We have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because like we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude.”
She continued, “It’s one of those things that I think everyone’s going to have their assumptions about what it’s actually going to be, but it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful. And whether or not she finds love along the way is anybody’s guess until 2024. All of Andrew’s scenes could get. Who knows? It’s Hollywood, baby!”
“It’s an inner journey that she goes on to find her true self. And she meets a lot of people along the way that make the journey really incredible,” she concluded.
Zegler would go on to make similar comments to Variety informing the outlet, “I just mean it’s no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White–”
Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot, who is playing the Evil Queen, then asserted, “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince.”
Zegler concurred, “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.”
“She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be. The leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, brave, and true. And so it’s just a really incredible story for, I think, young people everywhere to see themselves in,” she concluded.
To Entertainment Weekly, Zegler stated, “The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago and therefore it’s extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world. And so when we came to reimagining the actual role of Snow White it became about the fairest of them all meaning who is the most just. And who can become a fantastic leader.”
“And the reality is, you know, Snow White has to learn a lot of lessons about coming into her own power before she can come into power over a kingdom,” Zegler shared.
Gadot also said, “Also the fact that she’s not going to be saved by The Prince and she’s the proactive one and she’s the one who set the terms is what makes it so relevant to where we are today.
What do you make of Shapiro’s admission that the Snow White and the Evil Queen is a direct response to Rachel Zegler and Disney’s Snow White?
NEXT: Report: Rachel Zegler’s ‘Snow White’ Delayed Because Disney Bosses Feared “Financial Disaster”
