JAN MOIR: Snow WOKE! The star of the new Snow White has labelled the prince a ‘stalker’, says the remake of the classic film isn’t a love story – and don’t mention the seven ‘magical creatures’!

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the silliest of them all?

Right now, it has to be Rachel Zegler, the American actress who stars as Snow White in the new Walt Disney live-action remake of its own classic cartoon, itself a version of the famous Grimm fairy tale.

The 22-year-old rising star has been giving interviews, in which she’s telling anyone who will listen about the grave failings of the Disney original.

‘It came out in 1937, and very evidently so,’ she sniffed in one television spot. ‘There’s a big focus on Snow White’s love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Ha, ha! Weird!’

Elsewhere, she has said that the new film is ‘really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful’ and has suggested that all of the prince’s scenes could get cut.

‘Just because there is a guy in it doesn’t mean it is a love story,’ she said.

But what about Snow White herself? Surely rad fem Rachel is not going to let that supine, apple-cheeked, prince-bothering, dwarf-loving disgrace to feminism off the hook? Of course not.

‘I just mean that it’s no longer 1937. Snow White is not going to be dreaming about true love – she’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be,’ she said.

So far, so depressing. Rachel Zegler has shown that she hasn’t just lost the plot – she didn’t even understand the plot in the first place.

And why bother to take part in a remake of a beloved story if you feel so badly about it?

‘I was scared of the original version. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again. I’m being so serious,’ she said.

Really? I remember this animated classic as being completely magical and I suspect that many millions of women would agree.

It is no secret, even though she wore a little red cape, that Snow White isn’t exactly Wonder Woman. No argument there.

Yet she wasn’t a malign influence and nor did she inhibit feminine ambition, demonstrably so.

Generations of women were entranced by Snow White’s adventures but that didn’t make us want to live in a cottage with seven short men and spend all day picking up their tiny socks . . . although Coleen Rooney came close.

The screenplay for this new Snow Woke version was co-written by Greta Gerwig – who has just had a big hit with the Barbie movie – and filmed in England last year.

And it is not just Rachel’s ravings – presumably her sentiments reflect the view of cast and crew — that suggest it will be so woke you may choke.

For example, there is no handsome prince – royalty smacks of elitism and inherited privilege, so he has been cancelled. Instead we have a character called Jonathan, played by Andrew Burnap. The Seven Dwarves have been replaced by seven ‘magical creatures’, and location photographs taken in a Bedfordshire field reveal them to be a melting pot of ethnicities and (I think!) sexes, with only one actual small person among their number.

Is this progress, tokenism, denigration of the little people community or none of the above? Mark my words, there’s trouble a‑brewin’, as Grumpy himself once said.

Part of the problem is that Zegler’s smug wokism fails to acknowledge not only the beauty of allegory in literature, the history of central European folklore and the artistry of Walt Disney in creating a masterpiece – it also refuses to recognise that not every woman wants to be a boss girl or a leader, hell-bent on chasing power and prestige for its own sake.

Also, that it is not anti-feminist to want to fall in love with a handsome prince and long for a happy-ever-after life.

In fact, what is anti-feminist and condescending is to suggest that those women who wish for these things, to perhaps become wives, mothers and homemakers above all, are somehow less worthy of respect than corporate ball-breakers and careerists just like, well, Rachel Zegler. And that is a shame, because her own life has been a bit of a fairy tale itself.

Rachel was only 17 and still at school in New Jersey when Steven Spielberg selected her from 30,000 applicants to star as Maria in his recent hit adaptation of West Side Story.

She went on, at the age of 20, to win a Golden Globe for the role. Everything in her future looked rosy – but it hasn’t worked out like that. Since her controversial Snow White remarks there has

been a predictable online backlash. A film clip has emerged of Rachel crying and talking about the death threats she has received, all of which would elicit a pang of sympathy in the heart of even the wickedest of witches.

‘That’s what I signed up for, isn’t it? But I never wanted to come off as being ungrateful for the opportunity,’ she sobs.

But some say the footage is old and refers not to Snow White, but to controversial incidents or remarks Zegler has made in the past.

Which ones? Take your pick. She once mocked Britney Spears after the troubled pop star sent anguished tweets to a family member.

On another occasion Zegler openly sneered about playing Anthea in the DC characters superhero film Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, by saying that she took the role only because she ‘needed a job’.

Last week, she was criticised again after appearing at the New York picket lines, where writers and actors union members are striking against the big studios.

She told news crews: ‘If I’m gonna stand there 18 hours a day in the dress of an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid for every hour that it’s streamed online.’

Maybe so, but her hot take seemed a little insensitive, given that the strike is primarily about those creatives and film crew members who are paid exponentially less than actors and actresses.

Who knows what will happen next. Maybe the new Snow Woke will be a scream and everyone will love it, although the omens are not good. How one longs for the innocent days of Disney, when all Walt wanted to do was to thrill and entertain people.

Today, no entertainment is complete without audiences being battered repeatedly by the cudgel of correctness while being told what to think about everything by some slip of a girl who wants to elevate her own virtue and status by tearing down the reputation and legacy of others.

And maybe Rachel Zegler will learn to better cope with being in the spotlight.

I hate to sound condescending myself, but she is very young and this is all very new to her.

Still, when Rachel began her Disney journey, she couldn’t possibly have imagined that the biggest damsel in distress would turn out to be herself.