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Gal Gadot’s singing doesn’t seem to do anything positive. Those of us who clearly remember March 2020, when the first days of the pandemic lockdown began, may recall a video of her shining brightly alongside other celebrities, all singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It was meant to unite us, and in that regard, it served its purpose entirely. Amid a crisis of mass illness, unemployment, poverty, and death, internet users around the world, suddenly confronted with a false mixture of hope from famous figures sheltering in their multimillion-dollar shelters, found themselves united by pure, open hatred. Just a few days into the lockdown, a terrifying instant classic of Hollywood emptiness was born.
Now, five years later, Gadot delivers a new song, and how. She’s not just singing; she’s trying to sing, or at least making a determined attempt. Her backdrop isn’t a mansion but a palace, where she’s descending a Vegas-ready grand staircase with bewildered ladies-in-waiting as backup dancers. And what she’s delivering isn’t a hymn to hope but a hymn to fascist violence: “All’s fair when you wear the crown / The little bonus that comes with your power / If they dare to speak, slap them / She, with the diamonds, decides.” It’s worth noting that Gadot is playing this role in the new Snow White, Disney’s remake of the 1937 animated masterpiece Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She plays the Evil Queen (“She. Was. Evil!” the narrator helpfully notes), which explains the severity of Gadot’s regal attire: a black balaclava-style hood, a glittering cape, and an enormous stained-glass crown so sharp and spiky that Her Majesty could fly head-first through a cathedral window.
Gadot has worn absurdist clothes before, most delightfully as Wonder Woman in various DC Comics films, but this time, Diana Prince was a role that was particularly well-suited to her charisma and comedic timing. In Wonder Woman (2017), as a demi-goddess confronted for the first time with the strangeness of the human world, Gadot had the pleasing disorientation of a fish out of water, a disarming mix of courage and naivety. In Snow White, however, she’s tasked with embodying the exact opposite, and the tension is immense. Tasked with reimagining one of Disney’s most terrifying and iconic villains, Gadot displays no sense of malevolent guile or even self-aware cynicism; repeatedly slapped with her Magic Mirror, she can barely muster a decent icy glare in return. The great Jean Marsh, who brought us chilling villainy in Return to Oz (1985) and Willow (1988), makes Gadot's Evil Queen look like a softened poisoned apple.
Snow White herself is something of an antidote. She’s played by Rachel Zegler, who, from the start, in washcloths and a smile, projects a winning combination of radiant innocence and underdog confidence. Despite losing her parents and being held captive by an unreliable stepmother, Snow White has not lost hope; she’s “waiting for a wish to come true,” to quote the most melodic of several new songs written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The Snow White of 1937, voiced by opera singer Adriana Caselotti, leaned over a well and sang “I Wish” with lofty, lilting simplicity; the Snow White of 2025, by contrast, must sprint back and forth, seemingly halfway across the castle grounds, singing her way through a breathless manifesto of self-improvement.
And despite the odds, Zegler sells every word. She has a gift, rarer than it seems, not just to sing well but to act well while she sings; her voice is as powerful and her nerves as steady as they were when she made her brilliant film debut as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021). One day, Zegler may tire of headlining slightly sacrilegious remakes of beloved musicals, and rightfully so; based on her current track record, however, I can’t really complain.
Still, there have been plenty of online posts. When Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, was first cast in the film, racist trolls across the country voiced their displeasure, as did when Halle Bailey, a black singer and actress, was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2023). In subsequent interviews, Zegler has offered some mild criticism of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, pointing out its outdated
Sourse: newyorker.com
