Why the changing representation of dwarfism in Disney’s live action Snow White remake is so important

The upcoming release of Disney’s live action remake of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” currently scheduled for March 2025, has been surrounded by controversy—so much so that the film’s trailer has received over 1 million dislikes on YouTube. In particular, many fans have taken umbrage with the fact that computer-generated imagery (CGI) will be used for the characters of the seven dwarfs, now renamed the “miners,” rather than having them played by dwarf actors.

To my mind, unless changes are made, it would be better not to release a live action remake of “Snow White” in the first place. My doctoral research has shown that it’s common for people with dwarfism to experience mockery influenced by the representation of dwarfism in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” But if the film is to go ahead, CGI is a better choice than to cast real people with dwarfism.

Fans lamenting on social media the fact that they will no longer be able to see a film featuring “real dwarfs” ignore the parallels with the Victorian freak show. Frequently their disappointment is masked as supposed concern for the welfare of “actors” with dwarfism who will lose the “opportunity” to play these characters.

But people with dwarfism who play these characters are rarely seen as serious actors. Alice Lambert, an actress with dwarfism, was interviewed for a chapter in my new book, Dwarfism Arts and Advocacy (2024). In it, she recalls that during her time in pantomime, people “would come to the stage door after the show, but I realized that they just wanted to meet ‘a dwarf’ … you are not being represented as a performer, but rather your dwarfism is being paraded for the amusement of others.”

My research has also found that many people still believe that people with dwarfism only work in the entertainment industry. It is not unusual for people to ask someone with dwarfism if they work in pantomime, particularly as one of the seven dwarfs. I have personally lost count of the amount of people who snigger and ask me if I am “Grumpy” or “Happy” (names of two of the dwarf characters) or if I know where Snow White is. If people cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality, then fictional representations need to change to minimize abuse.

Of those people with dwarfism who are actors, many have long refused to play roles that are considered derogatory, including the seven dwarfs. That is because people with dwarfism are capable of so much more.

Worldwide, there are more than 250,000 people with dwarfism. People with dwarfism include geneticist and psychiatrist Judith Badner, lawyer Paul Steven Miller and astrophysicist William A Wheaten.

Many of the fans expressing disappointment that the dwarfs will now be CGI fail to realize how the role impacts people with dwarfism in public. For example, in 2012 German lawyer Silke Schönfleisch-Backofen, who has dwarfism, successfully sued a man after he started laughing and singing Hi Ho, the song the dwarfs sing in the original Disney film, at her in court.

If people cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality, then fictional representations need to change to minimize abuse. Instead of reproducing outdated attitudes, films—and the tales that inspire them—can change with the times to produce stories that are inclusive of everyone.

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