This Rachel Zegler “hit piece” just made her seem so much cooler than she already was

Variety seemingly wants us to blame Rachel Zegler for the box office of Snow White. On the contrary, she is the only reason I went to see it. But in a new piece from the outlet, Zegler is made out to be the “villain” of this story. Instead, she looks super cool.

The issue with Zegler, according to the Variety piece, was that she wrote “and always remember, free palestine” on social media. Okay, she’s right. But the piece does not paint Zegler’s support of Palestine as a good thing. Instead, it is seemingly on the side of producer Marc Platt who reportedly flew to New York to tell Zegler to take it down (she did not) and of her co-star Gal Gadot, who recently got to have an entire part of an interview dedicated to her explanation of her support of Israel.

There was no mention, in this piece, of the hate campaign that had been launched by right leaning users on social media. A racist and hate-filled movement that forced Zegler off of X and is featured heavily under any post about her. Instead, the piece claims that Gal Gadot got death threats and blamed it on Zegler’s post.

“She didn’t understand the repercussions of her actions as far as what that meant for the film, for Gal, for anyone,” an insider told the outlet. Personally, I do think it is unfair and borderline evil to push death threats on a 23 year-old woman who simply showed support for Palestine. But the entire piece really just showed Zegler being unwilling to stand down and it made me love her even more.

This sounds like you’re trying to blame Zegler for being…right

Another one of the reasons the Variety piece labeled as part of the “failure” of the movie was Zegler’s comments at a D23 prior to the film’s release. At the convention, Zegler criticized the original film, saying that Prince Florian basically stalks Snow White (he does) and spoke about how their version wasn’t going to be as passive when it came to Snow White as a character.

If you want to get technical, this is WHY I even saw the movie. I hate Snow White as a character. It never sat right with me, even as a young girl, that this woman runs off into the woods and instantly starts taking care of these seven men. She’s supposedly “kind” but catering to a man is not “kindness.” What the new Snow White does is show Snow’s kindness and warmth through her actions and it makes her a more well-rounded character.

All things I learned by seeing the movie I didn’t want to see BECAUSE Rachel Zegler told me it was different. See, it works! But the Variety piece has a “box office analyst” named Jeff Bock blaming Zegler’s comments for the film’s failure.

“They say all press is good press, but in Snow White’s case, they were unabashedly wrong,” he said to Variety. “Too much negative controversy surrounded this film for years, and it didn’t help that the reviews were subpar, likely rendering this latest live-action adventure to D+ for many potential ticket buyers. A possible saving grace? A feeble marketplace where Snow White could stay awhile — as many family films have — despite the lackluster debut.” 

They won’t let her being right about the Oscars go

Another reason Variety cited for Disney being angry with Zegler went back to their time with West Side Story. The Steven Spielberg film was nominated for Best Picture and yet the film’s star, Zegler, was not invited to the Oscars. When she was asked about it on social media, she said she was watching at home and fans were horrified on Zegler’s behalf. It led to the Academy President inviting her.

Reportedly, Disney was mad about this because they said Zegler “aired her grievances publicly.” I don’t know but responding to someone that she wasn’t going to the broadcast isn’t “airing her grievances” to me and is, instead, just telling someone the truth. Made even worse, it seems as if the former president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, Sean Bailey, is the reason Zegler wasn’t initially allowed to go. He wasn’t going to let her fly back from filming Snow White for the telecast.

For a day? You couldn’t let her go and film something else so that a girl who was in her first Oscar nominated picture could go to the Academy Awards? Again, I am still on Zegler’s side!

The entire piece from Variety feels like it wants us to blame her for everything. I don’t blame her for a single thing. Zegler’s support of Palestine did not force people to send death threats to Gal Gadot. Zegler’s comments about the 1937 movie did not hurt the film. If anything, it got me to buy a ticket. So all this did was make me think about how cool Zegler really is.