As I was scrolling through Twitter, I came across this tweet by plus-size model Tess Holiday:
Seeing this advertisement for an animated film shocked me. I figured this had to be some sort of joke, but after doing my research I realized it wasn't.
This billboard showcases a poster for the film 'Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs' starring young actress Chloe Grace Moretz. The trailer is as disturbing as the poster above. Two of the dwarfs sneak into Snow White's home while she is not there, and quickly scramble underneath a table as the thin version of Snow White walks in. Snow White begins to undress, and the dwarfs become googly-eyed and stare at her, which seems a tad too sexual for an animated movie about a princess, and is a whole different issue in itself. Once she takes off her red shoes, her legs go from slim to full and chunky. The dwarfs seem to be shocked and disgusted by how the princess looks after her transformation. Snow White unwinds laying in a chair and chugs a beverage and burps saying, "Now I feel beautiful." This left me appalled.
"What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 dwarfs not so short," the poster reads. This 'punchline' hasn't been able to leave my head. Why is Snow White no longer beautiful because she isn't slim like before? What does size have to do with beauty? I find no correlation between the two. Let's take Tess Holliday, for example, or even Ashley Graham, a plus size model who has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated for goodness sake. Two BEAUTIFUL and successful models who aren't the typical model size, per say, and are rocking it in the modeling world and are loved by many. Just because they are bigger does not mean they aren't beautiful. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and with that being said, the person who allowed this advertisement to be marketed does not understand that concept. Although IMDb calls this film "a parody with a twist", which implies it may not necessarily be directed to children, it is animated and based off a princess, both which directly target young children, specifically young girls.
Though I do not think Holliday should have directed the tweet toward Moretz, since it isn't really her fault, the actress should have spoken up sooner about the poster. After Holliday brought it to her attention she then tweeted , "I have now fully reviewed the mkting for Red Shoes, I am just as appalled and angry as everyone else, this wasn't approved by me or my team." Moretz might not have approved of this, but she accepted this role and read the script, so she knew what she was getting herself into. A princess showing off her "beautiful" body in the outside world, and coming home to hide her real and normal body? Moretz's Twitter bio reads, "To all the little girls watching...never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world. - HRC " How are little girls going to feel valuable if they have to hide their bodies? This movie isn't supporting body positivity or confidence at all.
Looking at the movie poster, I associate myself with the chubbier Snow White on the right. Does this mean I'm not beautiful? Thankfully, I have great confidence in my body, and I feel comfortable and beautiful. Younger children, however, who are still learning new things as their brains grow, may not understand how to take this poster. If a saw a poster like this at 7 years old, I would feel sad, different from everybody else, and certainly not beautiful. I do not like the concept of this movie in general, but frankly, there is nothing I can do to stop the production of it. I just hope they can change their marketing strategies for the future--our future.
