Rachel Zegler has put her foot in her mouth again.
In a new profile for Harper’s Bazaar UK, the 24-year-old “Snow White” star reveals the cold, hard truth about Latinas in Hollywood:
They didn’t exist before her.
Zegler, a New Jersey native whose maternal grandmother was from Colombia, essentially said she was a trailblazer for people with dark features.
In a video interview accompanying her florals-heavy cover shoot, the actress was asked about her approach to beauty as a younger girl. And it sparked a hilariously ahistorical speech about representation in the entertainment business.
Her approach “was a lot more shaped by what I was witnessing in big pieces of media,” she said. “So it was who was on magazine covers, who was in the beauty commercials. Who was in movies. Who was considered the most beautiful movie star at the time.”
According to her, it was “definitely very Eurocentric” women — which resulted in isolation for the Gen Z gal. “Being a young Latina, that was hard because not a lot of people looked the way I did.”
No one, she added, had bushy eyebrows or dark eyes like her. However, do not underestimate the inner strength of a budding diva.
“As I’ve grown up, I’ve really been able to find [representation] within myself,” she said.
Friends, something tells me that Zegler — best known for her anti-Israel, “free Palestine” stance and her determination to make Snow White a feminist icon — has never looked outside of herself. Not even once.
Because she would have noticed a little something about the celebrity solar system of her youth — it’s densely populated by a slew of wildly popular and successful Latina artists and actresses.
Her bizarre version of recent pop culture history is a total stiff-arm to Bronx-born Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez. It slights Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, Eva Mendes and Rosario Dawson. Jessica Alba, Shakira, Sofia Vergara.
The list could go on, but Zegler would just take an eraser to it.
All of these women have not only graced all of the prestigious American magazine covers, they’ve fronted blockbuster movies and been the face of global beauty campaigns for cosmetic giants. They’ve also became directors, producers and celebrated businesswomen.
For such a proud Latina, Zegler sure is oblivious to their existence.
Her claim reveals a lot about her worldview, where identity trumps all.
Zegler came of age in an era that preached diversity and representation, while valorizing victimhood. It wasn’t enough to be talented — one needed something that made them different or gave them some sort of imagined hardship.
The Bazaar interview goes along with the victimhood narrative, noting that she was criticized for being too dark to play Snow White but not Latina enough to play Maria in “West Side Story.”
“But I refuse to assimilate for anybody else’s comfort,” Zegler said defiantly. Oh boy.
The way she speaks about herself, one would imagine the actress is a uniquely precious person with scales, one eye and a tail.
But she’s not an exotic creature from the lagoon. She’s just an objectively beautiful girl with an objectively beautiful voice.
(Also, she looks “Eurocentric,” whatever she considers that to be. She’s a white Hispanic who is also, reportedly, half-Polish. Drop her into any southern European country, she’d fit in just fine.)
Zegler’s generation has been taught that things have been so terrible for anyone who isn’t white and straight, they refuse to understand that they are not breaking boundaries.
It’s not enough to succeed; they need to be the first one there — modern-day culture explorers. The ones who encountered a jungle but bushwhacked their way through the rough to find the promise land for others.
But for someone who takes such pride in her heritage, Zegler should understand that she’s walking a path that has not only been well trod, it’s been smoothly paved over by all the megawatt stars who came before her.
They even rolled out the red carpet for you.
