We need to take about Snow White. Specifically, the new animated parody Snow White film, produced by Sujin Hwang and released at this year’s Cannes. What we, and the rest of the world, has a serious issue with, is the promotion of the film.
In the promotional poster, two versions of Snow White stand next to each other. One appears to be taller female, and the other a shorter female. Next to the shorter female, the text ‘What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 Dwarfs not so short?’ reads.
Wait, hold up. Is this implying that the shorter Snow White is not beautiful just because she isn’t as slender as the tall one? Are immediate alarm bells going off in your head? Ours too.
Tess Holiday, a plus-size model spotted the poster and pointed this out on Twitter – and until she did, no one within the marketing or promotional team for this remake seemed to even notice just how much they’d messed up.
What’s worrying here is Tess Holiday shouldn’t have to be the one to break the news to a team of advertisers that sending the message fat = ugly is so, so detrimental to young girl’s wellbeing, their mental health and their confidence. How did something so offensive to women all over get through and make its way to promotional posters?
Chloe Grace Moretz, who voices Snow White’s character, has issued an apology to her fans. She claimed to have not seen the marketing, nor had it approved by herself or her team. She also stated that she was as ‘appalled and angry as everyone else.’
Ok, so she might not have seen the poster, but what about the trailer? Because that's pretty problematic too. It depicts one scene in question is when ‘slender’ Snow White is seen undressing in her bedroom where two of the drawfs are hidden under her bed. They get seemingly excited as she undresses (let’s not even talk about how creepy that part is) and then appear shocked and appalled when Snow White re-appears ‘fatter,’after taking her shoes off. It’s 2017 and our beauty standards are still so warped that the notion of a larger person is still seen as a negative - yet no-one seemed to consider that this would be a problem.
This isn’t the first time we’ve questioned promotional adverts, there’s that Kendall Jenner Pepsi advert – which has now been well and truly removed from the Internet. Then there was 2015's ‘Are You Beach Body Ready?’ psoters by Protein World. These adverts, along with the new Snow White promotional posters, just remind us how little we’ve progressed with advertising, and just how much work there is left to be done.
Hwang has since apologised for the adverts, and the trailer. In his statement, he said: ‘Locus Corporation wishes to apologise regarding the first elements of our marketing campaign which we realise has had the opposite effect from that which we intended.” Both the campaign, and the trailer have been withdrawn.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.