Independent Women & Wishing Wells

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• April 8, 2025

The live action “Snow White” flopped harder than a chubby kid belly flopping to impress a girl at a community pool. No, I haven’t seen it. But I have laughed and laughed and laughed at the savage reviews of the film and Rachel Zegler, that even I think are cruel, even if it deserves the lashing the Romans gave an undeserving Jesus before they crucified him.

Without having seen this monstrosity of a reboot of literally the OG Disney movie, I too, am going to pile on hatred for this one. For the record, some of the live action remakes have been great. The best are “The Jungle Book” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Though I also liked “Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid.” “Cinderella” was a god awful script with a mostly great cast. “The Lion King” was okay. “Pinocchio” was disarming in a bad way (the Guillermo del Toro stop motion version is incredible). Like everyone else, I didn’t see “Lady and the Tramp,” and I think the Alice and Maleficent movies are pretty good though they are not reboots, more a different re-tellings.

Disney fucked up “Snow White” for a plethora of reasons, starting with not casting real dwarfs and making them bad CGI characters that make the graphics of Playstation’s “Spyro the Dragon” look good. Rachel Zegler, if you didn’t know, had the easiest road to Hollywood of anyone, ever. Even nepo babies! When remaking “West Side Story,” Steven Spielberg put out an open casting call on Twitter. Zegler submitted an audition via the popular social media app and landed the role of a lifetime in what could have been a really beautiful Cinderella story. She literally went from doing high school plays to starring in a Spielberg Oscar nominated movie. Now, anyone who has seen the “West Side Story” reboot already knows, the leads, Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler, lacked any on screen chemistry and it was the supporting cast, direction and nostalgia carried the film. Zegler went on to star in that Hunger Games prequel, which she was terrible in, a Kyle Mooney (SNL) indie film, which she was terrible in. The truth is, Zegler is a really talented singer, but she is a mediocre actress (if I’m being kind) at best. Being a mediocre actress is forgivable and she could get better with lessons, but she is s self proclaimed narcissist who bashed the original Disney film and takes every opportunity to raise a self righteous flag to free Palestine.

Look… I am all for free speech. But when promoting a Disney princess movie and spewing rhetoric about a conflict that’s older than our country is just nauseating. If she really wants to help families in Palestine, she can take one of the two million she made from that movie and donate to people there. For example, Timothee Chalamete donated his entire salary from a Woody Allen film he did to charities that help women. Beyond politics, shitting on the original “Snow White” is tone deaf to the culture phenomena that is Walt Disney. Disney fan or not, your life has been shaped by Walt Disney. The man, before the parks and the corporation, was an innovator of technology and creativity. If you watch TV, you can thank Disney for inventing the multiplane camera and synchronized sound. The dude was a genius who did more for this world and country than most other people. “Snow White” was the first full length animated feature film… that went WAY over budget but ultimately turned out to be a huge success. Long story short, no “Snow White,” no Walt Disney Studios.

Is “Snow White” dated? Sure. It was made in the 30s. But it’s still a work of art. And Snow White’s charm is her innocence. What is actually cringe worthy is Zegler bragging how the film removed “Someday my Prince will Come” and “I’m Wishing.” While I don’t have an issue with Disney trying to make princesses a bit more independent for the modern audience, let me enlighten you from an independent woman artist…

You can have dreams of a career or something bigger and also want to fall in love. It’s not that crazy. Being in love is simply one of the best things in the world. It makes life in this often dismal and difficult world worth it. It is the greatest feeling, the greatest drug, the greatest thing life has to offer. Truthfully, men need women more than women need men in the sense that women make men better but men don’t necessarily make women better. We are far more empathetic creatures (with the exception of Rachel Zegler). A loving relationship is something to desire and wish for. I’ve been in love and it didn’t work out, and I’m okay being single until I’ve met my match, but I do sorely wish for my “prince charming.” And I’m not a child, so I understand how simplified fairy tales are when it comes to love, but it’s also okay for fairy tales to give children a simplified version of true love (which rightfully leaves out the part where young men are super horny and trying to put their peckers in anything). One doesn’t need another person to “save you” but life is better and easier if you have the right partner. I have a large family and many friends. I am witness to what great, just okay and bad relationships look like. I, personally, am holding out to feel a certain way. Wanting to love and be loved is humanity at its core.

My niece is seven years old and a darling. When she is older, I will certainly encourage her to be her own person and do the things she wants to do. My life is less than charmed but I’d still take it over most other people in jobs they hate or in stale relationships. I’m pursuing an impossible career. I travel at every chance I get, often by myself, because I’m not going to wait for a man to take me. This doesn’t mean I don’t desire this companionship. And desiring this doesn’t mean I’m miserably alone. I’m not here crying, night after night, for a man. Most of the time, I do whatever I want, and sleep in a bed without a snoring man who I have to clean up after and am quite content in my nest. You can be both an independent individual badass and a romantic at heart. If you don’t have the emotional depth to conceptualize that, then you are dopey.

When I pass a wishing well, and have a quarter to throw in and make a wish— what do I wish for? Sell a screenplay? A pet monkey? My true love? Truthfully, I don’t throw the quarter in the wishing well because I’m not a gambling woman and I need those quarters for the laundromat because I’m poor. But I am perpetually wishing for the one I love, to land a writing job on a sitcom, sell a screenplay or stumble upon bricks of cocaine washed ashore when I’m running on the beach in Florida near my parents that I could sell and buy a yacht. It’s good to be your own person. It’s good to have standards. It’s good to dream. If you can be more than one thing, career driven and compassionate, then you’re like what the dwarfs are mining for… a goddamn gem.