Actress Chloë Grace Moretz slammed the marketing material for her new animated film, Red Shoes & the 7 Dwarfs, which some critics have contended promotes stereotypes about women’s body types.
A billboard for the film, which first appeared last week at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, shows a slim woman in a red dress and heels standing next to a sad-looking shorter, fat woman. The caption above the image reads: “What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 Dwarfs not so short?”
In a series of damage control tweets, Moretz said she had nothing to do with the Locus Creative Studios-produced film’s marketing materials and said she was “angry” and “appalled” by the billboard.
“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,” the Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising star tweeted on Wednesday.
“Pls know I have let the producers of the film know. I lent my voice to a beautiful script that I hope you will all see in its entirety,” Moretz added. “The actual story is powerful for young women and resonated with me. I am sorry for the offense that was beyond my creative control.”
The film, which is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale, follows a princess, voiced by Moretz, who “doesn’t fit into the celebrity world of Princesses – or their dress size,” according to the Locus website.
Also causing controversy was a now-deleted trailer for the film that showed two dwarfs hiding in Snow White’s bedroom watching her undress. Snow White takes off her shoes and morphs into a fatter version of herself, lying in her underwear.
The South Korea-based Locus pulled the trailer from YouTube amid fallout from social media.
Sujin Hwang, one of the film’s producers, told CNN that Locus, has “terminated” the ad campaign.
“As the producer of the theatrical animated film Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs, now in production, Locus Corporation wishes to apologize regarding the first elements of our marketing campaign (in the form of a Cannes billboard and a trailer) which we realize has had the opposite effect from that which was intended,” Hwang told the network. “Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty.”
Red Shoes & the 7 Dwarfs is currently in post production and has no release date.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson
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