The Gal Gadot ‘Controversy’

By Haley Strack

Thursday, March 13, 2025

 

Gal Gadot is an Israeli Jew. She’s more than that, of course: a wife and mother of four, a high-profile actress who played Wonder Woman in the DC Comics movies from 2016 to 2023, and a producer. At the Anti-Defamation League’s annual summit, held this month in New York, she said that the most important part of her identity is her Jewish heritage. This has been especially true for her since October 7.

 

An anti-Israel fervor has swept through Hollywood since Hamas invaded Israel 17 months ago, slaughtering more than 1,200 men, women, and children and taking 251 as hostages. While taking a political stand post–October 7 was uncomfortable for Gadot, she felt it necessary to stand with the Jewish community to “find our voice and confront the hatred against us.” The bulk of her activism has revolved around bringing attention to the Israeli hostages; two dozen living hostages remain in captivity, along with some three dozen who are dead.

 

Gadot will soon be seen as the Evil Queen in the latest iteration of Disney’s Snow White, a live-action remake that hits theaters on March 21. The opening will “not include the dozens of media outlets usually invited by Disney to interview the cast and creatives at its premieres,” Variety reported this week, likely because of “controversies surrounding” the film. The “controversies” are reportedly Gadot’s public defense of Israel and the political comments made by her co-star, Rachel Zegler, who has expressed sympathy for Palestinians and also has portrayed the movie as a sort of woke update on the classic. Protests of the movie over Gadot’s advocacy have already occurred, with threats of a boycott.

 

When Zegler, who plays Snow White, posted a thank-you note to fans for watching the movie’s trailer, she added: “and always remember, free Palestine.” What the actress’s pro-Palestinian views have to do with promoting Snow White remains unclear. Zegler seemed to be trying to distance herself from her co-star’s support of Israel.

 

Zegler “insists on using her platform to support Palestinians despite the inevitable fallout,” noted Variety in its interview of the young star. “I can’t watch children die. . . . I don’t think that should be a hot take. . . . I don’t have the answers. I don’t think any celebrity making a political statement has the answers. But we have the platform to share a donation link to make sure that these people get the money, the care, and the aid that they need that people in power aren’t giving them.” She also called on people to “stop the occupation of Palestine” in an Instagram post, leaving it unclear as to precisely what land she believes is “occupied.”

 

Disney’s uneasiness with Zegler’s politicization of a beloved fairy tale is another, perhaps larger reason for the studio’s decision to scale back publicity. In press interviews about the movie, she explained this iteration of the Snow White character as a feminist icon rather than a Disney stereotype.

 

In a Variety interview two years ago, Zegler disdained the original fairy tale. “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird!” This version would be different — in fact, Prince Charming might even be cut, Zegler joked. “It’s Hollywood, baby.” Zegler said in another interview that Snow White would not be “dreaming about true love, she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”

 

Gadot, meanwhile, has described the film’s modern bent in a more diplomatic way. Director Marc Webb, she said on Good Morning America, was respectful of the tale, keeping “all the iconic, magical, delicious moments and the songs and all the magical creatures,” and adapting “it in a way to make it timeless and contemporary at the same time.”

 

Zegler has been the remarkably unlikable public face of Snow White’s woke-ification. (After President Donald Trump’s reelection, she said, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”) Her attitude comes across as snide and unprofessional. Yet it is Gadot who’s usually cited as the Snow White problem child.

 

Gadot has received backlash for the simple reason that she is an Israeli Jew.

 

It’s crazy, Gadot said in her ADL speech, that “just expressing such a simple fact about who I am feels like a controversial statement.” An eighth-generation Israeli, she grew up in central Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces. Her maternal grandfather was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust (some were murdered in the gas chambers in Auschwitz, others died fighting Nazis). Speaking of October 7, Gadot said, “Never did I imagine that we would witness such a day of such death and destruction of Jews in our lifetime.”

 

“However much you tried to avoid it before, even if speaking up wasn’t really your thing, none of us can ignore the explosion of Jew-hatred around the world anymore,” she added. “And that is what I am doing. . . . My name is Gal, and I am Jewish. And we have had enough of Jew-hatred.”

 

Jews who have had to confront antisemitism since October 7 have encountered it in the workplace, in the classroom, in hospitals, on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, and more. Gadot, like other public figures who defend Israel in the public arena, has confronted online hate and death threats against herself and her family. Because of that, there aren’t many celebrities like her. Few are willing to risk their careers for their principles.

 

Since October 7, truth-speaking has been controversial: to say that Hamas is bad and Israel is good, to express support for a country defending itself against bloodthirsty maniacs who gleefully killed, raped, maimed, and abducted innocents and who vow to do it again.

 

Bravo to Gadot, who has made those who view her and what she stands for as controversial look awfully small.