Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that after Disney’s U.S. spokesperson initially declared the photos published by the Daily Mail were fake, the studio later said the photos were from the production but were not official photos.
The Daily Mail on Friday published photos from the set of Disney’s upcoming live-action Snow White, sparking a storm of conservative backlash against the actors, whom the newspaper described as being of different “genders, ethnicities, and heights.”
Asked for comment on the brouhaha, a Disney spokesperson initially told The Daily Beast “the photos are fake and not from our production” and added that the Mouse House wanted a correction from the Mail.
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Hours later, however, Disney’s PR shop completely backtracked and said the photos were from the production but were not official “photos”—chalking up the earlier statement to a misunderstanding.
The Mail did get something wrong: In its initial report, it said stars Rachel Zegler and Andrew Burnap were pictured, but later corrected that to clarify they were not and that stand-ins were used.
The Mail article was published under the headline, “EXCLUSIVE: Snow White and the Seven... Politically-Correct Companions? First pictures of new Disney live-action remake show princess walking with diverse band of merry men and women after row over using dwarf actors.”
It wasn’t long before the conservative corners of the internet balked at the photos, chastising the “wokeness” of the casting.
Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren wrote on Twitter, “So they have one little person playing a dwarf to be more ‘politically correct?’ So 6 other little people didn’t get the job or the check and somehow this is more ‘sensitive?’ Disney is a joke.”
Robby Starbuck tweeted, “Meet the cast of Disney’s new woke Snow White film. Snow White is Columbian now and the 7 dwarves look more like the 6 normal sized hipster pedos and 1 dwarf from Portland. Snow White no longer has ‘skin white as snow’. Absolutely ridiculous.”
