Why is the Cognitive Dissonance Scale the graphic I chose for the final word on Disney’s “live-action” remake of Walt’s biggest and most important hit, 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”? (For some perspective, realize that we have the same relationship on the timeline to that film that it had to the Presidency of Millard Fillmore.) It is clear that this cultural ethics train wreck, which EA has been dutifully covering (here, here, here, here here, and here), is now stuck inextricably in cognitive dissonance territory. For most viewers, what they think about the movie will be influenced far more by their biases and what they associate with the movie than the movie itself.

That’s how the scale works, as I keep explaining ad nauseam. If Disney is generally a plus-5 on a ticket-buyer’s scale (once upon a time, Disney would have been a plus-10 or higher on everyone’s scale) and the movie in a vacuum would be at “Meh”-level Zero, Disney would pull the film into positive territory. If Disney is in negative territory already for a different viewer, the film begins with an anchor chained to its metaphorical ankles.

Thus it is hardly surprising to see this as the early returns on the film (which doesn’t officially open in theaters until tomorrow):

Now that’s polarization!

What’s going on here? Well, a lot…

1. It is now clear that the movie is not “Showgirls”/”Cats” terrible as many thought it would be (or hoped). Here is a mostly positive if not ecstatic review by the Hollywood Reporter; I have no doubt that Disney packed its invitation-only premiere with friendly (read “progressive-biased”) reviewers, but if the movie were truly badly executed, acted and sung, even a leftward bias wouldn’t save it.

2. Yet Boston Globe film reviewer Odie Henderson, who is woke (about 90% of film reviewers are) hated the film, writing that it “fails on almost every level despite Rachel Zegler’s valiant attempt to carry it.” Of course, that’s about how I felt about the film version of “Wicked,” another fantasy film that kept beating you in the head with its progressive politics, but Odie likes those politics. Writing of the casting controversy around a Latina actress being cast as Snow White, who is persecuted for being “the fairest of all, he says that “it continues the repugnant trend of bringing out the racism in Disney fans. That so many people can’t imagine these mythical characters as anything but white will continue to be a vile source of contention.”

How ironic, since the brownish actress playing Snow got her big break playing Puerto Rican Maria in Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” the original version of which has been condemned as racist because white star Natalie Wood played the Latina romantic lead.

3. Zegler is one of the primary Cognitive Dissonance Scale factors against “Snow White.” She has made it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is an ignorant, over-opinionated asshole, and assholes do not do well on the scale. Via social media and her ever-flapping guns, she has insulted the original movie, the fairy tale, Israel and President Trump. (In the good old days, thanks to Hollywood publicists, movie fans seldom found out that their favorite celebrities were assholes.) But then, this is a family movie, and kids don’t pay attention to such things; a lot of adults don’t either. Zegler is talented.

4. Finally, here is a gift link to an exhaustive examination of the film’s production and controversies by the New York Times. I judge the piece as the Times trying to spin for Disney and help a fellow social justice warrior entity avoid a disaster, but I acknowledge that I am biased against the Times and no longer trust its motives. The reporter concludes that objectively, the new “Snow White” ended up being a good movie.

Maybe. Once the Cognitive Dissonance Scale gets through with it, though, that may not matter.

Addendum: One of our wise commenters suggested that “fairest of all” in the new movie should be interpreted as the ethical value fair, so the Evil Queen is enraged that the mirror tells her that Snow White is a more worthy leader than she. Apparently this is the meaning the film is giving the word or at least hints at, which makes no sense: since when is an evil despot concerned with being regarded as “fair”? Changing the meaning of the word to avoid political controversy is, in my assessment, the same deceitful trick as restoring the name “Fort Bragg” but announcing that the name no longer honors that bad, racist Confederate General Bragg, but nice, brave Roland Bragg, whom nobody ever heard of.