Ben Shapiro has been criticised for “bigoted” complaints about Disney’s casting of Rachel Zegler as Snow White in the forthcoming adaptation of the beloved fairytale.
It was announced in 2021 that the 22-year-old West Side Story actor had been cast as the popular princess in the 2024 live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Following the leak of “misleading” set photos, which caused considerable backlash from conservatives, Shapiro shared comments objecting to Zegler’s casting.
“Her name is Snow White. Now you may consider that racist, but that’s also the name of the actual fairytale,” the conservative commentator, 39, said on his radio show, The Ben Shapiro Show.
Quoting a descriptor from the original 1937 movie, he read: “‘Skin as white as snow.’ That’s literally in her name, that’s why she has her name.”
He described Zegler, who is of Colombian and American descent as a “very talented person”, before continuing: “It’s weird casting, you might say. I don’t understand. There are certain parts that are racially specific. I mean very clearly so.”
Shapiro argued: “Snow White is maybe the only racially specific white princess because it’s in the name. It’s very strange to me that if you cast Alexander Hamilton as a Black person, that’s totally fine, but if you cast Martin Luther King as a white person, that is totally unacceptable.”
He added: “Maybe you should cast people as like what the description of the part is. There are certain parts where the person is described as white, and that’s ok. That’s not the end of the world.”
Shapiro’s comments have been ridiculed across Twitter, with several people mocking him for his “phoney outrage” over “nonsense”.
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“In the novel the white represents purity, the red represents life and adventure and the black represents death. So that’s not her skin colour. Only in the movie they say her skin colour,” one noted.
A second wrote: “The white in the name and the story doesn’t have anything to do with skin colour.”
“Does he understand it’s a fictional character?” a third questioned.
“Phony outrage from right-wing media stars over nonsense is at fever pitch every f’n day to to feed the beast,” another commented, while someone else labelled his views as “bigoted”.
“Wait until he finds out about Sirius Black,” one person joked, referencing the popular Harry Potter character portrayed by British actor Gary Oldman.
“Ben never drops an opportunity to pander to the racists that make up his audience,” another said.
The Independent has contacted Shapiro’s representative for comment.
This isn’t the first time Shapiro has been derided for his divisive takes on popular TV and film.
In February, Shapiro was mocked for his “hilarious” complaint about a fan-favourite The Last of Us episode centring on a gay love story. A month later, he found himself at the centre of social media scorn for his unfavourable review of the Oscar-winning movie Everything Everywhere All At Once.
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