Mirror, mirror on the wall: What’s today’s contribution to the never-ending garbage parade of body-shaming women? A poster for an animated kids’ movie, you say? Yup, sounds about right.
Promotions for a new adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs called Red Shoes & the 7 Dwarfs have not been sitting well with celebrities like Tess Holliday or the film’s lead voice actor Chloë Grace Moretz — and for good reason.
Let’s take a look:
How did this get approved by an entire marketing team? Why is it okay to tell young kids being fat = ugly? 🤔😏@ChloeGMoretzpic.twitter.com/PVhgwluGTM
— Tess H🍒lliday (@Tess_Holliday) May 30, 2017
So to recap, a tall, willowy, traditional-looking Snow White is pictured next to a much shorter, more voluptuous version of the fairy tale character and reads: “What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 Dwarfs not so short?”
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Now this is some next-level body shaming because not only does it go after Snow White’s weight, but it also ties her beauty to her height – or rather, lack thereof.
Full disclosure: At first glimpse, I was immediately drawn to the short, stout Snow White, with her crimson A-line skirt and neatly tucked-in white square-neck shirt and was tickled to see an animated princess who looked and dressed like me (down to the fact that she was holding her matching high heels rather than wearing them). How realistic and progressive!
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But then I read the copy and saw that this version of Snow White was deemed “no longer beautiful.” OK, now that’s the attitude toward women’s bodies I know and loathe.
It’s bad enough that the whole story of Snow White centers on her unwilling participation in a one-sided beauty contest with a disgruntled royal followed by a stint as the equivalent of a fraternity housekeeper concluding with some dude interrupting her nap with a nonconsensual kiss.
Snow White has been through enough without being fat- and short-shamed by a movie poster posing the question of what would happen if she were no longer beautiful. Well, I’ll tell you what would happen. She’d be able to live her damn life without having to take care of seven men with Napoleon complexes or worrying about poisoned produce.
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Sujin Hwang, one of the film’s producers, told CNN that the advertising campaign is “being terminated” and that it had the “opposite effect from that which was intended.”
Great, but somehow I have a hard time believing that the original intent was to bolster the confidence of short, curvy women.
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