I wrote a piece for Vulture about the new Snow White movie and its place in the history of Disney’s live-action remakes. I hope you enjoy reading it.
A couple years ago, I actually wanted to write a whole column series comparing the original (legendary, hand-drawn, sometimes simplistic, occasionally poetic) cartoons to their (unloved, CGI-laden, always overlong and frequently controversial) remakes. Revisiting Disney classics as a parent is a sobering, eye-opening, mind-expanding experience, I think. You realize you’re absolutely not the target demographic — a parent is always too old — but you also have a better appreciation of the craft of animation. I thought it would be interesting to compare the source material directly with the newer incarnations, which became apex products of their apex studio, as critical to Disney’s 2010s run of billion-dollar phenomena as Pixar, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or Star Wars.
The reason to not do the column series, of course, was the necessity of wading through a dozen or so films no one seems to like (beyond maybe 2015’s Cinderella or the fondly-remembered-by-my-generation Glenn Close 101 Dalmatians.) Actually, the main reason to do the column series was the title I came up with: “Disney Plays Itself.”
But the release of Snow White is a good opportunity, I think, for a long-view appraisal of the remake strategy. The new film has a tortured relationship with the 1937 film, paradoxically seeking to recreate its big moments (which are some of the most well-known sequences in pop culture history) while struggling hard to modernize the subject matter in a generally hammy way. No shortage of great writing has emerged around this troubled film, and I hope you like my contribution.