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Transcript

When the Fairest Isn’t Fair

What Disney Still Doesn’t Get About Storytelling in Brown America

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m not mad that Disney remade Snow White.
I’m just confused.

Like—of all the fairy tales that could use a glow-up… why this one? Why now?
And who, exactly, asked for it?

Spoiler: it wasn’t us.

As a brown woman living in America in 2025, I have access to oat milk, multivitamins, and multiple streaming services.

I do not need another glossy retelling of a European fable that revolves around jealousy, a poisoned apple, and a woman who falls into a coma because she dared to be pretty and have stepmom issues.

Yes, the new Snow White tries.

There’s no prince now, she’s reclaiming a kingdom, the Evil Queen gets a backstory—great.

But it’s still the same fragile skeleton wrapped in contemporary buzzwords.
A story where beauty is power, power is envy, and the heroine’s big win is… not dying?

What I don’t need: a $250 million rebrand of a 1937 film that now includes a girlboss subplot and a horse with feelings.

Disney, we’ve moved on.

You know what kind of fairy tale I want?
One with agency.

Maybe even nuance.

Possibly an ending that doesn’t require a dude with a jawline and boundary issues to swoop in uninvited.

Let’s talk about the real issue: “diversity” isn’t storytelling. It’s strategy.
And those aren’t the same thing.
Representation matters—but context matters more.

You can slap modern messaging onto a legacy fairytale, but when the core story still worships beauty, punishes ambition, and resolves conflict with magical fruit, we’re not pushing the genre forward—we’re just redecorating the past.

And don’t even get me started on the politics of fairness.
We grew up in households where “Fair and Lovely” was sold like salvation.
Where “she’s fair and lovely” was not a joke but an actual product, followed by a lifetime subscription to self-doubt.

So when Disney tries to reframe “fairest of them all” as a personality trait, I just want to ask—sweetie, have you met the internet?

You can’t retroactively decolonize a fairytale without doing the actual work of storytelling.
That means: a new narrative. A new lens. A new truth.

If you want to make Snow White matter again, don’t just touch up the visuals.
Rewrite her.
Let her question power. Let her have ambition.
Give her a career, a sense of humor, and friends who aren’t woodland creatures with emotional support issues.

Or better yet—let her rest.

We’ve already had a pandemic, several recessions, and eight billion Cinderella adaptations.
We don’t need another fairytale.
We need new tales. Fair ones.

So no, Disney.
You don’t get points for “trying.”
Not until you tell a story where women—and yes, brown women too—don’t just exist to check boxes, melt ice, or marry up.

Tell a story where we’re the ones writing the ending.
No apple required.

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