The actor Peter Dinklage said the upcoming “Snow White” remake was hypocritically woke.
He said the studio was “very proud” to cast a Latina actor but kept the “backward story” of dwarfs. Dinklage has spoken before about the harm of stereotypes that dwarf actors deal with.
The actor Peter Dinklage said he was “taken aback” by what he sees as hypocrisy in the plan for Disney’s live-action remake of “Snow White” starring a Latina actor, Rachel Zegler. “It makes no sense to me, because you’re progressive in one way and then you’re still making that fucking backward story of seven dwarfs living in a cave,” Dinklage said on the comedian Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast this week.
The subject came up after Dinklage and Maron spoke about the effect of politics on comedy and the premise of “woke” comedy versus “anti-woke” comedy (something Maron said was “fucking ridiculous”).
“If you consider yourself anti-woke, then I think you’re carrying water for right-wing propaganda, and I think that you’re a hack,” Maron said. “Because the job is to think for yourself. So, you know, if you can’t find your voice in a world of diversity and respect, then what are you really? And if you can’t transcend that by being respectful yet still provocative, then you’re not really challenging yourself, are you?”
He continued: “Things evolve. I think that you can be as crass and as fucking vulgar and as fucking provocative as you want without saying a couple of words. You know what I mean? It’s like, there’s a lot of words we don’t say anymore! This whole idea that we can’t joke about anything has been around since the beginning of comedy.”
“I know,” Dinklage responded. “There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on, I’ve gotta say, from being somebody who’s a little bit unique. It’s a front-row seat to some —”
“Really? Like what?” Maron asked. “What do you see?”
“Well, you know, it’s really progressive to cast a — literally no offense to anybody, but I was a little taken aback by, they were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White,” Dinklage said, “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, because you’re progressive in one way and then you’re still making that fucking backward story of seven dwarfs living in a cave. What the fuck are you doing, man?”
