Defiant

Defiant (pronounced dih-fahy-uhnt)

Characterized by defiance or a willingness to defy; boldly resistant or challenging.

1830s: From the French défiant, from the Old French, present participle of the verb défier (to challenge, defy, provoke), the construct thus def(y) + “i” + -ant.  Defy dates from the mid thirteenth century and was from the Middle English defien, from the Old French desfier, from the Vulgar Latin disfidare (renounce one's faith), the construct being dis- (away) + fidus (faithful).  The construct in French was thus des- (in the sense of negation) + fier (to trust), (from the Vulgar Latin fīdāre, from the Classical Latin fīdere (fidelity),  In the fourteenth century, the meaning shifted from “be disloyal” to “challenge”.  The suffix –ant was from the Middle English –ant & -aunt, partly from the Old French -ant, from Latin -āns; and partly (in adjectival derivations) a continuation of the use of the Middle English -ant, a variant of -and, -end, from the Old English -ende ( the present participle ending).  Extensively used in the sciences (especially medicine and pathology), the agent noun was derived from verb.  It was used to create adjectives (1) corresponding to a noun in -ance, having the sense of "exhibiting (the condition or process described by the noun)" and (2) derived from a verb, having the senses of: (2a) "doing (the verbal action)", and/or (2b) "prone/tending to do (the verbal action)".  In English, many of the words to which –ant was appended were not coined in English but borrowed from the Old French, Middle French or Modern French.  The negative adjectival forms are non-defiant & undefiant although there is a kind of middle ground described by quasi-defiant, semi-defiant & half-defiant, the latter three sometimes used in military conflicts where, for whatever reason, it’s been necessary (or at least desirable) for a force to offer a “token resistance” prior to an inevitable defeat.  The adjective over-defiant refers to a resistance or recalcitrance, the extent or duration of which is not justified by the circumstances; in such cases the comparative is “more defiant” and the superlative “most defiant”.  Defiant is a noun & adjective, defiantness is a noun and defiantly is an adverb; the noun plural is defiants.

Defiance in politics: use with caution

The commonly used synonyms include rebellious, direful, truculent, insolent, rebellious, recalcitrant, refractory, contumacious & insubordinate but in diplomacy, such words must be chosen with care because what is one context may be a compliment, in another it may be a slight.  This was in 1993 discovered by Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) who labelled Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad (b 1925; prime minister of Malaysia 1981-2003 & 2018-2020) one of the “recalcitrant” when the latter declined to attend a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).  For historic reasons, Dr Mahathir was sensitive to the memories of the imperialist oppressors telling colonized people what to do and interpreted Mr Keating’s phrase as a suggestion he should be more obedient (the most commonly used antonym of defiant, the others including obedient & submissive).  Things could quickly have been resolved (Dr Mahathir of the “forgive but not forget” school of IR (international relations)) but, unfortunately, Mr Keating was brought up in the gut-wrenching “never apologize” tradition of the right-wing of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party so what could have been handled as a clumsy linguistic gaffe was allowed to drag on.

Circa 1933 Chinese propaganda poster featuring a portrait of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (Chiang Chung-cheng).  Set in an oval frame below flags alongside stylized Chinese lettering, the generalissimo is depicted wearing his ceremonial full-dress uniform with decorations.

The admission an opponent is being “defiant” must also sometimes be left unsaid.  Ever since Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) in 1949 fled mainland China, settling on and assuming control of the island of Taiwan, the status of the place has been contested, most dramatically in the incidents which flare up occasionally in the in the straits between the island and the mainland, remembered as the First (1954–1955), Second (1958) and Third (1995-1996) Taiwan Strait Crises which, although sometimes in retrospect treated as sabre rattling or what Hun Sen (b 1952; prime minister (in one form or another) 1985-2023) might have called “the boys letting off steam”, were at the time serious incidents, each with the potential to escalate into something worse.  Strategically, the first two crises were interesting studies in Cold War politics, the two sides at one stage exchanging information about when and where their shelling would be aimed, permitting troops to be withdrawn from the relevant areas on the day.  Better to facilitate administrative arrangements, each side’s shelling took place on alternate days, satisfying honor on both sides.  The other landmark incident was China’s seat at the United Nations (UN), held by the Republic of China (ROC) (Taiwan) between 1945-1971 and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (the mainland) since.

Jiefang Taiwan, xiaomie Jiangzei canyu (Liberate Taiwan, and wipe out the remnants of the bandit Chiang) by Yang Keyang (楊可楊) and Zhao Yannian (趙延年). 

A 1954 PRC propaganda poster printed as part of anti-Taiwan campaign during first Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-1955), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek depicted as a scarecrow erected on Taiwan by the US government and military. Note the color of the generalissimo’s cracked and disfigured head (tied to a pole) and the similarity to the color of the American also shown.  The artists have included some of the accoutrements often associated with Chiang’s uniforms: white gloves, boots and a ceremonial sword.  The relationship between Chiang and the leaders of PRC who defeated his army, Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong. 1893–1976; paramount leader of PRC 1949-1976) and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976; PRC premier 1949-1976) was interesting.  Even after decades of defiance in his renegade province, Mao and Zhou still referred to him, apparently genuinely, as “our friend”, an expression which surprised both Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1973 & secretary of state 1973-1977) who met the chairman and premier during their historic mission to Peking in 1972.

A toast: Comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (left) and  Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (right), celebrating the Japanese surrender, Chongqing, China, September 1945.  After this visit, they would never meet again.

Most people, apparently even within the PRC, casually refer to the place as “Taiwan” but state and non-governmental entities, anxious not to upset Beijing, use a variety of terms including “Chinese Taipei” (the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football) & its continental confederations (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA)), “Taiwan District” (the World Bank) and “Taiwan Province of China” (the International Monetary Fund (IMF)).  Taiwan’s government uses an almost declarative “Republic of China” which is the name adopted for China after the fall of the Qing dynasty and used between 1912-1949 and even “Chinese Taipai” isn’t without controversy, “Taipei” being the Taiwanese spelling whereas Beijing prefers “Taibei,” the spelling used in the mainland’s Pinyin system.  There have been variations on those themes and there’s also the mysterious “Formosa”, use of which persisted in the English-speaking world well into the twentieth century, despite the Republic of Formosa existing on the island of Taiwan for only a few months in 1895.  The origin of the name Formosa lies in the island in 1542 being named Ilha Formosa (beautiful island) by Portuguese sailors who had noticed it didn’t appear on their charts.  From there, most admiralties in Europe and the English-speaking world updated their charts, use of Formosa not fading until the 1970s.

All that history is well-known, if sometimes subject to differing interpretations but some mystery surrounds the term “renegade province”, used in recent years with such frequency that a general perception seems to have formed that it’s Beijing’s official (or at least preferred) description of the recalcitrant island.  That it’s certainly not but in both the popular-press and specialist journals, the phrase “renegade province” is habitually used to describe Beijing’s views of Taiwan.  Given that Beijing actually calls Taiwan the “Taiwan Province” (sometimes styled as “Taiwan District” but there seems no substantive difference in meaning) and has explicitly maintained it reserves the right to reclaim the territory (by use of military invasion if need be), it’s certainly not unreasonable to assume that does reflect the politburo's view but within the PRC, “renegade province” is so rare (in Chinese or English) as to be effectively non-existent, the reason said to be that rather than a renegade, the island is thought of as a province pretending to be independent; delusional rather than defiant.  Researchers have looked into the matter when the phrase “renegade province” was first used in English when describing Taiwan.  There may be older or more obscure material which isn’t indexed or hasn’t been digitized but of that which can be searched, the first reference appears to be in a US literary journal from 1973 (which, it later transpired, received secret funding from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)).  It took a while to catch on but, appearing first in the New York Times in 1982, became a favorite during the administration of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) and has been part of the standard language of commentary since.  Diplomats, aware of Beijing's views on the matter, tend to avoid the phrase, maintaining the “delusional rather than defiant” line.

Picture of defiance: Official State Portrait of Vladimir Putin (2002), oil on canvas by Igor Babailov (b 1965).

The idea of a territory being a “renegade province” can be of great political, psychological (and ultimately military) significance.  The core justification used by Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) when explaining why his “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 was not an “invasion” or “war of aggression” (he probably concedes it may be a “state of armed conflict”) was that he denied Ukraine was a sovereign, independent state and that Volodymyr Zelenskyy (b 1978, president of Ukraine since 2019) was not a legitimate president.  In other words, Ukraine is merely a region of the modern Russia in something of the way it was once one of the 15 constituent SSRs (Soviet Socialist Republic) of the Soviet Union.  Although the Kremlin doesn’t use the phrase, in Mr Putin’s world view, Ukraine is a renegade province and he likely believes that applies also to the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) and possibly other former SSRs.  Lake many, the CCP is watching events in Ukraine with great interest and, as recent “exercises” seem to suggest the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have sufficiently honed their techniques to execute either a blockade (which would be an “act of war”) or a “quarantine” (which would not), the attention of Western analysts is now focused on the hardly secret training being undertaken to perfect what’s needed for the triphibious operations demanded by a full-scale invasion.  The US think-tanks which think much about this possibility have suggested “some time” in 2027 as the likely point at which the military high command would assure the CCP’s central committee such a thing is possible.  What will happen will then depend upon (1) the state of things in the PRC and (2) the CCP’s assessment of how the long-term “strategic ambiguity” of Washington would manifest were an attempt made to finish the “unfinished business” of 1949.

Lindsay Lohan, who has lived a life of defiance.

The objectification of women’s body parts has of course been a theme in Western culture since at least Antiquity but rarely can as much attention been devoted to a single fingernail as the one photographed on Lindsay Lohan’s hand in July 2010 (during her “troubled starlet” phase).  The text printed on the fingernail was sufficiently explicit not to need a academic deconstruction of its alleged meaning, given image was taken when she sitting in court listening to a judge sentence her for one of her many transgressions; the consensus was the text was there to send a “defiant message” the internet’s collective conclusion (which wasn’t restricted to entertainment and celebrity sites) presumably reinforced by the nail being on the middle finger.  Ms Lohan admitted to fining this perplexing, tweeting on X (then known as Twitter) it was merely a manicure and had “…nothing to do w/court, it's an airbrush design from a stencil.”  So, rather than digital defiance, it was fashion.  Attributing a motif of defiance to Ms Lohan wasn’t unusual during “troubled starlet” phase, one site assessing a chronological montage of her famous mug shots before concluding with each successive shot, “Lindsay's face becomes more defiant — a young woman hardening herself against a world that had turned her into a punch-line”.

The Bolton-Paul Defiant (1939-1943)

The Parthian shot was a military tactic, used by mounted cavalry and made famous by the Parthians, an ancient people of the Persian lands (the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979).  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the Parthian archers would, in full gallop, turn their bodies backward to shoot at the pursuing enemy.  This demanded both fine equestrian skills (a soldier’ hands occupied by his bows & arrows) and great confidence in one's mount, something gained only by time spent between man & beast.  To make the achievement more admirable still, the Parthians used neither stirrups nor spurs, relying solely on pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping mounts and, with varying degrees of success, the tactic was adopted by many mounted military formations of the era including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols.  The Parthian Empire existed between 247 BC–224 AD.  The Royal Air Force (RAF) tried a variation of the Parthian shot with Bolton-Paul Defiant, a single-engined fighter and Battle of Britain contemporary of the better remembered Spitfire and Hurricane.  Uniquely, the Defiant had no forward-firing armaments, all its firepower being concentrated in four .303 machine guns in a turret behind the pilot.  The theory behind the design dates from the 1930s when the latest multi-engined monoplane bombers were much faster than contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF considered its new generation of heavily-armed bombers would be able to penetrate enemy airspace and defend themselves without a fighter escort and this of course implied enemy bombers would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with some degree of impunity.

Bolton-Paul Defiant.

By 1935, the concept of a turret-armed fighter emerged.  The RAF anticipated having to defend the British Isles against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers and, in theory, turret-armed fighters would be able approach formations from below or from the side and coordinate their fire.  In design terms, it was a return to what often was done early in the World War I, though that had been technologically deterministic, it being then quite an engineering challenge to produce reliable and safe (in the sense of not damaging the craft's own propeller) forward-firing guns.  Deployed not as intended, but as a fighter used against escorted bombers, the Defiant enjoyed considerable early success, essentially because at attack-range, it appeared to be a Hurricane and the German fighter pilots were of course tempted attack from above and behind, the classic hunter's tactic.  They were course met by the the Defiant's formidable battery.  However, the Luftwaffe learned quickly, unlike the RAF which for too long persisted with their pre-war formations which were neat and precise but also excellent targets.  Soon the vulnerability of the Defiant resulted in losses so heavy its deployment was unsustainable and it was withdrawn from front-line combat.  It did though subsequently proved a useful stop-gap as a night-fighter and provided the RAF with an effective means of combating night bombing until aircraft designed for the purpose entered service.

The Trump class "battleships"

In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon announced the impending construction of a “new battleship class” the first of the line (USS Defiant) to be the US Navy’s “largest surface combatant built since World War II [1939-1945]”.  The initial plans call for a pair to be launched with a long-term goal of as many as two dozen with construction to begin in 2030.  Intriguingly, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) revealed that while the Department of Defense’s (it’s also now the Department of War) naval architects would “lead the design”, he personally would be involved “…because I’m a very aesthetic person.”  That may sound a strange imperative when designing something as starkly functional as a warship but in navies everywhere there’s a long tradition of “the beautiful ship” and the design language still in use, although much modified, is recognizably what it was more than a century earlier.  The Secretary of the Navy certainly stayed on-message, announcing the USS Defiant would be “…the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans”, adding that components for the project would “be made in every state.”  It won't however be the widest because quirk of ship design in the US Navy is that warships tend to be limited to a beam (width) of around 33 metres (108 feet) because that’s the limit for vessels able to pass through the Panama Canal.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

By comparison with the existing surface fleet the 35,000 ton Defiant will be impressively large although, by historic standards, the largest (non-carrier) surface combatants now in service are of modest dimensions and displacement.  The largest now afloat are the 15,000-ton Zumwalt class destroyers (which really seem to be cruisers) while the 10,000 ton Ticonderoga class cruisers (which really are destroyers) are more numerous.  So, even the Defiant will seem small compared with the twentieth century Dreadnoughts (which became a generic term for “biggest battleship”), the US Iowa class displacing 60,000 ton at their heaviest while the Japanese Yamato-class weighted-in at 72,000.  Even those behemoths would have been dwarfed by the most ambitious of the H-Class ships in Plan-Z which were on German drawing boards early in World War II.  Before reality bit hard, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) left physics to the engineers and wasn't too bothered by economics.  After being disappointed the proposals the successors to the Bismarck-class ships would have their main armament increased only from eight 15-inch (380 mm) to eight 16 inch cannons, he ordered OKM (Oberkommando der Marine; the Naval High Command) to design bigger ships.  That directive emerged as the ambitious Plan Z which would have demanded so much steel, essentially nothing else in the Reich could have been built.  Although not one vessel in Plan Z ever left the slipway (the facilities even to lay down the keels non-existent), such a fleet would have been impressive, the largest (the H-44) fitted with eight 20-inch (508 mm) cannons.  Even more to the Führer’s liking was the concept of the H-45, equipped with eight 31.5 inch (800 mm) Gustav siege guns.  However, although he never lost faith in the key to success on the battlefield being bigger and bigger tanks, the experience of surface warfare at sea convinced Hitler the days of the big ships were over and he would even try to persuade the navy to retire all their capital ships and devote more resources to the submarines which, as late as 1945, he hoped might still prolong the war.  Had he imposed such priorities in 1937-1938 so the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) could have entered World War II with the ability permanently to have 100 submarines engaged in high-seas raiding rather than barely a dozen, the early course of the war might radically have been different.  Germany indeed entered the war without a single aircraft carrier (the only one laid down never completed), such was the confidence the need to confront the Royal Navy either would never happen or was years away.

The US Navy in 1940 began construction of six Iowa class battleships but only four were ever launched because it had become clear the age of the aircraft carrier and submarine had arrived and the last battleship launched was the Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard which entered service in 1946.  Although the admirals remained fond of the fine cut of her silhouette on the horizon, to the Treasury (an institution in the austere, post-war years rapidly asserting its authority over the Admiralty) the thing was a white elephant, something acknowledged even by the romantic, battleship-loving Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, when in November, 1953 planning a trip to Bermuda for a summit meeting with Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US POTUS 1953-1961), opted to fly because “it costs Stg£30,000 if we go by Vanguard, and only £3,000 by air.”  In 1959, Vanguard was sold for scrap and broken up the next year while the last of the Iowa class ships were decommissioned in 1992 after having spent many years of their life in a non-active reserve.  Defiant is of course a most Churchillian word and after World War I (1914-1918, he was asked by a French municipality to devise the wording for its war memorial.  He proposed:

IN WAR: RESOLUTION

IN DEFEAT: DEFIANCE

IN VICTORY: MAGNANIMITY

IN PEACE: GOODWILL

At the time, old Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) wasn’t feeling much magnanimity towards the Germans and nor was he much in the mood to extend any goodwill so Churchill’s suggestion was rejected.  

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The conventional wisdom therefore was the days of the big warships were done and the Soviet Navy’s curious decision in the 1980s to lay down five (four of which were launched) Kirov class battlecruisers seemed to confirm the view.  Although the Kremlin called the ships тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер (heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers), admiralties in the West, still nostalgic lot, choose to revive the old name “battlecruiser”.  The battlecruiser (essentially a battleship with less armor) was a brainchild of the naval theorists of the early twentieth century but while the concept was sound (and in practice may have proved so if the theory had been followed at sea) but in service was a disappointment and none were commissioned after 1920 until the Soviets revived the idea.  As recently as 2018, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) sources were sceptical any of the Russian ships would ever return to service but in 2025 the Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) emerged from a long and expensive re-fit & modernization to serve as the world’s biggest warship.  Although fast and heavily armed, concern remains about her vulnerability to missiles and torpedoes.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The US Navy seems confident about the protection afforded by the Trump class’s systems, claiming “the battleship [the Pentagon’s term] will be capable of operating independently, as part of a Carrier Strike Group, or commanding its own Surface Action Group depending on the mission and threat environment.”  In other words, unlike an aircraft carrier, the security of the vessel does not depend on a flotilla of destroyers and other smaller escort vessels.  The first of the Trump class is projected to cost between US$10-15 billion although, on the basis of experience, few will be surprised if this number “blows out”.  The Trump class will be the flagships for the Navy’s “Golden Fleet” initiative (an old naval term dating from days of the Spanish colonial Empire and nothing to do with Mr Trump’s fondness for the metal).  In an age in which small, cheap, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, usually referred to as drones) have revolutionized warfare (on land and at sea), the return of the big ships is as interesting as it was unexpected and analysts are already writing their assessments of the prospects of success.

Although the concept wasn’t new, it was late in the nineteenth century naval architects began to apply the word “class” systematically to group ships of the same design, the pioneers the Royal Navy but other powers soon adopted the practice.  It had long been the practice for warships to be constructed on the basis of substantially replicating existing designs and some truly were “identical” to the extent a series would now be called a “class” but before the terminology became (more or less) standardized, warships usually were described by their “Rate” or “Type” (first-rate ship of the line, corvette, frigate etc) but, in the usual military way, there was also much informal slang including phrases such as “the Majestic battleships” or “ships of the Iron Duke type”.  The crystallization of the “class” concept was really a result of technological determinism as the methods developed in factories which emerged during the industrial revolution spread to ship-building; steam power, hulls of iron & steel and the associated complex machinery made design & construction increasingly expensive, thus the need to amortize investment and reduce build times by ordering ships in batches with near-identical specifications.

Navies in the era were also becoming more bureaucratic (a process which never stopped and some believe is accelerating still) and Admiralties became much taken with precise accounting and doctrinal categorisation.  The pragmatic admirals however saw no need to reinvent the wheel, “class” already well-established in engineering and taxonomy, the choice thus an obvious administrative convenience.  The “new” nomenclature wasn’t heralded as a major change or innovations, the term just beginning to appear in the 1870s in Admiralty documents, construction programmes and parliamentary papers in which vessels were listed in groups including Devastation class ironclad turret ships (laid down 1869), Colossus class battleships (laid down 1879) and Admiral class battleships (1880s).  In recent history tests, warships prior to this era sometimes are referred to as “Ship-of-the-line class”, “Three decker class” etc but this use is retrospective.  The French Navy adopted the convention almost simultaneously (with the local spelling classe) with Imperial Germany’s Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) following in the 1890s with Klasse.  The US Navy was comparatively late to formalise the use and although “class” in this context does appear in documents in the 1890s, the standardization wasn’t complete until about 1912.

As a naming convention (“King George V class”, “Iowa class” etc), the rule is the name chosen is either (1) the first ship laid down, or (2) the lead ship commissioned.  According to Admiralty historians, this wasn’t something determined by a committee or the whim of an admiral (both long naval traditions) but was just so obviously practical.  It certainly wasn’t an original idea because the term “class” was by the late nineteenth century well established in industrial production, civil engineering, and military administration; if anything the tradition-bound admirals were late-adopters, sticking to their old classificatory habit long after it had outlived its usefulness.  With ships becoming bigger and more complex, what was needed was a system (which encompassed not only the ships but also components such as guns, torpedoes, engines etc) which grouped objects according to their defined technical specification rather than their vague “type” (which by then had become most elastic) or individual instances; naval architecture had entered the “age of interchangability”.

A docked Boomin' Beaver.

It’s good the US Navy is gaining (appropriately large) “Trump Class” warships (which the president doubtless will call “battleships” although they’re more in the “battlecruiser” tradition).  Within the fleet however there are on the register many smaller vessels and the most compact is the 19BB (Barrier Boat), a specialized class of miniature tugboat used deploy and maintain port security booms surrounding Navy ships and installations in port.  Over the last quarter century there have been a dozen-odd commissioned of which ten remain in active service.  Unlike many of the Pentagon’s good (and expensive) ideas, the Barrier Boats were a re-purposing of an existing design, their original purpose being in the logging industry where they were used to manoeuvre logs floating along inland waterways.  In that role the loggers dubbed them “log broncs” because the stubby little craft would “rear up like a rodeo bronco” when spun around by 180^o.  Sailors of course have their own slang and they (apparently affectionately) call the 19BBs the “Boomin’ Beaver”, the origin of that being uncertain but it may verge on the impolite.  It’s not known if President Trump is aware of the useful little BB19 but if brought to his attention, he may be tempted to order two of them renamed “USS Joe Biden” and “USS Crooked Hillary” although, unlike those reprobates, the Boomin’ Beavers have done much good work for the nation.

The Arc de Triomphe, Paris (left), Donald Trump with model of his proposed arch, the White House, October, 2025 (centre) and a model of the arch, photographed on the president's Oval Office desk (right).  Details about the arch remain sketchy but it's assumed (1) it will be "big" and (2) there will be some gold, somewhere.

As well as big ships (and the big Donald J Trump Ballroom already under construction where the White House’s East Wing once stood), Mr Trump is also promising a “big arch”.  A part of the president’s MDCBA (Make D.C. Beautiful Again) project, the structure (nicknamed the “Triumphal Arch” and in the style of the Arc de Triomphe which stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly the Place de l’Étoile), the western terminus of the avenue des Champs-Élysées) is scheduled to be completed in time to celebrate the nation’s 250^th anniversary on 4 July 2026.  Presumably, on that day, it will be revealed the official name is something like the “Donald J Trump Sestercentennial Arch” which will appear on the structure in large gold letters.  The arch is said to be “privately funded”, using money left over from what was donated to build the ballroom, a financing mechanism which has attracted some comment from those concerned about the “buying of influence”.

Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) sketch of an arch (1926, left) and Hitler, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and others examining Speer's model of the arch, presented 20 April 1939 upon the occasion of the Führer’s 50^th birthday (right; note the pattern in carpet).

A model of Germania.  To give some indication of the scale, within the dome of the huge meeting hall (at top of image), St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome would have fitted several times over; its diameter of the dome would have been 250 metres (825 feet).

Commissioned to honor those who fought and died for France during the French Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), construction of the Arc de Triomphe (officially the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) absorbed 30-odd years between 1806-1836, as a piece of representational architecture the structure is thought perfectly proportioned for assessment by the human eye and perhaps for this reason it has been admired by many.  As early as 1926, Adolf Hitler sketched his vision of a grand arch for Berlin, while bitter experience taught him the big warships were a bad idea because of their vulnerability to air attack, he never lost his enthusiasm for megalomania in architecture and in Albert Speer he found the ideal architect.  Noting the dimensions in Hitler’s sketch, Speer responded with something in the spirit of their blueprint for Germania.  Hitler’s planned the rebuilding of Berlin to be complete by 1950, less than ten years after the expected victory in a war which would have made him the master of Europe from the French border to the Ural mountains (things didn’t work out well for him).  While the 50 metre (163 feet) tall Arc de Triomphe presented a monumental appearance and provided a majestic terminus for the Champs Elysees, Speer’s arch stood 117 meters (384 feet) in height but even though obviously substantial, it would have been entirely in scale with the rest of Germania, the whole place built in a way to inspire awe simply by virtue of sheer size.

Dwarf

Dwarf (pronounced dwawrf)

(1) A person of abnormally small stature owing to a pathological condition, especially one suffering from cretinism or some other disease that produces disproportion or deformation of features and limbs.  In human pathology, dwarfism is usually defined, inter-alia, as an adult height less than 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in).

(2) In zoology & botany, an animal or plant much smaller than the average of its kind or species.

(3) In European folklore, a being in the form of a small, often misshapen and ugly, man, usually having magic powers.

(4) In Norse mythology, any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.

(5) In astronomy, a small version of a celestial body (planet, moon, galaxy, star etc).

(6) Of unusually small stature or size; diminutive; to become stunted or smaller.

Pre 900: From the Middle English dwerf, dwergh, dwerw & dwerȝ, from the Old English dweorh & dweorg (dwarf), replacing the Middle English dwerg and ultimately from the Proto-Germanic dwergaz.  It was cognate with the Scots dwerch, the Old High German twerg & twerc (German Zwerg), the Old Norse dvergr (Swedish dvärg), the Old Frisian dwirg (West Frisian dwerch), the Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch & twerg (German & Low German Dwarg & Dwarch) and the Middle Dutch dwerch & dworch (Dutch dwerg).  The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas gave rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge which led to dwery, forms sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects.  Dwarf is a noun and verb, dwarfness & dwarfishness are nouns, dwarfish & dwarflike are adjectives and dwarfishly is an adverb.  The plural forms are dwarves and dwarfs.  Dwarfs was long the common plural in English but after JRR Tolkien (1892-1973) used dwarves, his influence was enough to become the standard plural form for mythological beings.  For purposes non-mythological, dwarfs remains the preferred form.

The M Word

1972 MG Midget (RWA) in British Racing Green (BRG).

Dwarf seems still to be an acceptable term to describe those with dwarfism and Little People of America (LPA), the world’s oldest and largest dwarfism support organization (which maintains an international, membership-based organization for people with dwarfism and their families) has long campaigned to abolish the use of the word “midget” in the context of short humans.  The objection to midget is associative.  It was never part of the language of medicine and it was never adopted as official term to identify people with dwarfism, but was used to label used those of short stature who were on public display for curiosity and sport, most notoriously in the so-called “freak shows”.  Calling people “midgets” is thus regarded as derogatory.  Midget remains an apparently acceptable word to use in a historic context (midget submarine, MG Midget etc) or to describe machinery (midget car racing; the Midget Mustang aerobatic sports airplane) but no new adoptions have been registered in recent years.  The LPA is also reporting some supportive gestures, noting with approval the decision of the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) of the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) to revise the nomenclature used in the US standards for grades of processed raisins by removing five references to the term “midget”.  Although obviously a historically benign use of the word, its removal was a welcome display of cultural sensitivity.

An interesting outlier however is midget wrestling, a field in which the participants are said enthusiastically to support the label, citing its long traditions and the marketing value of the brand.  Although in the late twentieth century, midget wrestling’s popularity diminished in the last decade there’s be a resurgence of interest and the sport is now a noted content provider for the streaming platforms which run live and recorded footage.  Since the 1970s, midget wrestling has included styles other than the purely technical form with routines extending from choreographed parody and slapstick performances to simulated sexual assault.  These innovations have attracted criticism and the suggesting it’s a return to the freak shows of earlier centuries but audiences in the target demographic seem appreciative and, noting the success of a number of tours and operators, Major League Wrestling in 2022 announced the creation of a midget division.

The MG Midget

Where it began: 1930 MG M-Type Midget Roadster.

The earliest cars to wear MG badge (the name originally “Morris Garages”, an operation which had the same relationship to Morris as AMG does to Mercedes-Benz (ie high-performance variants)) were tuned (and often re-bodied) editions of existing Morris models but in 1928 the 8/33 M.G Midget Sports Series M (truncated usually to “M Type” was displayed at the 1928 London Olympia Motor, series production commencing the next season.  The first of a long line of tiny roadsters, 3,232 would be made between 1929-1932 and the one in the photographs above is fitted with coachwork typical of the era: an open two-seater in the fashionable “boat-tail” style, constructed by Carbodies of Coventry using construction technique which began in aviation, the panels a mix of steel and fabric-covered plywood over an ash frame.  The fabric soft-top was stored under the rear deck along its frame, tools and a spare wheel.  In the spirit of the age, a rakish two-piece windshield was fitted and there was no provision for a heater.  Despite the minimalist accommodation, the engine was surprisingly advanced, the four-cylinder engine using a bevel-gear-driven single overhead cam turning off the vertically mounted generator, 27 horsepower at a then impressive 5400 rpm generated from a displacement of 847 cm3 (51.68 cubic inches).  A footnote in the Midget’s history is that the first exported to the US was in 1930 bought by Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) 1919–1943), then titular head of his father’s (Henry Ford (1863-1947)) eponymous Motor company which, by the million, built larger vehicles.

1960 Austin-Healey Sprite Mark I (top left), 1966 MG Midget Mark II (top right), 1973 MG Midget Mark III (RWA, bottom left) and 1979 MG Midget Mark IV (bottom right).

For a new generation (1961-1979) of diminutive roadsters, MG revived the Midget name last used on the M-Type. MG was by the 1950s part of British Motor Corporation (BMC (1952-1967) which later would be absorbed by the doomed British Leyland (1968–1990)) and a corporate companion marquee was Austin-Healey which between 1958-1961 produced the Sprite (known variously as the “bugeye” or “frogeye”), a small sports car, built on the familiar template of economy car underpinnings with a stylish body.  After the release of the MGA (1955-1962), MG no longer had a competitor in the low-price segment so BMC took the decision that the two companies would share the model, yet another example of the “badge engineering” which BMC pragmatically (and for a while lucratively) would exploit until the process descended into self-defeating absurdity.  When the Mark II Sprites were released in 1961 (without the distinctive headlights which were the source of the nicknames), simultaneously there was the debut of the Midget, the latter slightly more expensive and better equipped, although both remained basic roadsters in the old tradition, lacking fittings such as side windows and external door-handles.  The Sprite would continue in three versions (Mark II; 1961-1964, Mark III; 1964-1966, Mark IV 1966-1971) before, following the end of BMC’s contractual arrangement with Donald Healey (1898–1988), briefly it was sold as the Austin Sprite (1971-1972) before the name was retired and the segment was left to MG.  In the decade they’d been companion models, the pair significantly had been improved, gaining power, refinement and creature comforts (the overdue door handles and side windows part of the Mark II upgrades) but what never changed were the dimensions, the things always small, something the balanced styling tended to disguise, the compactness best appreciated when one was seen parked next to a more typically sized vehicle; the Sprite and Midget being dwarfed.

Almost 130,000 Sprites were built while Midget production (which lasted until 1980) totalled some 225,000, the most numerous being the later models (Mk III; 1966–1974: 100,246 units & 1500; 1974–1979: 81,916 units).  A decade before production ended it was already outdated but such was the charm (and lack of competition) that demand remained strong almost to the end.  The most fancied Midgets are the so-called RWA (round wheel arch) models produced between 1972-1974; these adopted the design used on the rear of the bugeyes and are considered the best looking (as well as making the use of wider rear tyres easier) but in 1974 MG had to revert to the squared-off look because the strength gain from the additional metal was necessary to support the large “rubber” bumpers added to conform with US regulations; the RWA bodywork was found to be prone to damage when the rear-impact tests were conducted.  Even before the huge bumpers unhappily had been grafted, US market cars had for some months had large rubber “buffers” bolted to the chrome bumpers, known in the US as “Dagmars” and in the UK as “Sabrinas” both names tributes to the hardly vague anatomical similarity with the two pop culture figures.  Along with the big bumpers, to comply with minimum headlight height regulations in the US, the suspension height was raised by about an inch (25 mm), something which raised the centre of gravity and thus affected the handling characteristics, something adjustments to the anti-roll bars only partially ameliorated.  Visually, the increased height was disguised by lowering curve of the front wheel arch.

Triumph Spitfire, also a midget-sized roadster

A midget (with a small “m”) dwarfed by two behemoths: A 1977 Triumph Spitfire between two Ford Super Duty F-450s heavy pick-up trucks.  At their intended purpose (carrying or towing heavy payloads) Ford’s Super Duty heavy pick-up trucks perform well but such is the consumer appeal they’re a not uncommon sight used as passenger vehicles, even in cities; they can thus be both a personal and political statement, owners delighted Ford has made pick-ups great again (MPUGA).

Adopted for the range in 1999, Ford between 1958-1981 had previously used the “Super Duty” label on three large displacement (401, 477 & 534 cubic inch (6.6, 7.8 & 8.8 litre) gas (petrol) V8s, the family one of a remarkable variety of different V8s the corporation produced during the 1950s & 1960s.  Big, heavy and low-revving, the Super Duty V8 were legendarily robust and famed for their longevity but were doomed ultimately by their prodigious thirst.  They were intended only for heavy-duty, industrial use and in that very different from the Pontiac Super Duty (SD) V8s which were high-performance units, the early versions in the 1960s optimized for drag racing while the revival the next decade was the final fling of the original muscle car era (1964-1974).  The 389 & 421 cubic inch (6.4 & 6.9 litre) versions were offered between 1960-1963 while the 455 (7.5) appeared in 1973-1974 and had it not been for the 455 SD Pontiac Firebirds in those years, the muscle car era would have been regarded as having ended in 1972.  The Watergate-era 455 SD is also a footnote in the history of environmental law because Pontiac (in a preview of Volkswagen’s later “Dieselgate”) used a device to “cheat” on emission testing being undertaken as part of the certification process.  Caught re-handed, Pontiac, guilty as sin, was compelled to remove the “cheat gear” and re-submit a vehicle for testing; that’s the reason the 1973-1974 455 SD was rated at 290 horsepower (HP) rather than the 310 of the original (and more toxic) engine.

1967 Triumph Spitfire Mark II (left) and 1972 Triumph Spitfire Mark IV (with after-market exhaust tips, right).

The Triumph Spitfire had the same relationship to the larger TR sports cars (1952-1976) as the Midget did to the MGB.  Produced in five distinct generations between 1962-1980, like the Sprite & Midget, the Spitfire featured a stylish body atop the platform of a high-volume model and for the coachwork Triumph out-sourced the job to Italy, Giovanni Michelotti (1921–1980) producing a shape which owed nothing to the little Herald (1959-1971) on which it was based.  In continuous production in five versions (Mark I; 1962–1964, Mark II; 1965–1967, Mark III; 1967–1970, Mark IV; 1970–1974 & 1500; 1974–1980), almost 315,000 were built with the later models the most popular, the some 96,000 of the 1500s sold.  Like the Midget, the Spitfire was over the years improved although the things did at least stagnate in the post-1974 US models which became heavier, slower and uglier although in the 1970s that was a general industry trend.  The Although soon under the same corporate umbrella, the Midget & Spitfire were competitors (in the showroom and on the circuits) for almost two decades and when Road & Track magazine in their September 1967 edition published a comparison test, they couldn't decide which was best, concluding: "...whichever one the buyer chooses, he is assured of many miles of motoring pleasure in the great sports car tradition.  They're good cars, both of them.  You can't go wrong."  For the readers that may not have been a great deal of help and the phrasing must have been force of habit because the two little roadsters had always enjoyed some popularity among women.  

The photograph run in 1959 with the caption “Hark the Herald’s axle’s swing” (left) and a Mark I Spitfire's swing axles displaying the same behavior.

The Spitfires of the 1960s were a bit more lively but that description wasn’t always a compliment because, based on the Herald, what was inherited was the swing-axle rear suspension and swing the axles certainly could, leading to a “lively rear”.  When the British motoring press first tested the Herald they noted the behaviour of the swing axles under extreme load and had a photographer appropriately positioned: The caption “Hark the Herald’s axle’s swing” became famous.  None of that deterred Triumph which in 1962 introduced a more powerful version powered by a 1.6 litre (97 cubic inch) straight six.  That meant a faster car which meant the behaviour of the swing axles could be experienced at a higher speed (with all that implies) but the car sold well which was encouraging so Triumph in 1966 fitted a 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) six.  It was not until 1968 the rear suspension was revised and this curative solved the errant characteristics to a degree which impressed even the usually sceptical motoring journalists and sales remained strong until production ended in 1971.  Offered only in four-cylinder form, the revisions to the Spitfire’s rear suspension were less complex but when tested on the Mark IV in 1970, the improvement was apparent and from this point, criticism ceased of of road-holding at the limit.

1967 Triumph GT6 Mark I (also with after-market exhaust tips, left) and 1979 Triumph Spitfire 1500 (right).  With production ending in 1973, the GT6 was spared from being disfigured by the battering-ram like bumpers imposed on the Spitfire, those on the last of the line (1979-1980) the biggest.

While the roadster never gained six-cylinder power, Triumph from 1966 offered a coupé version (with a convenient hatchback, al la the Jaguar E-Type (XKE, 1961-1974) called the GT6.  Mechanically it followed the Vitesse except it was only ever fitted with the 2.0 litre engine and didn’t receive the suspension fix until the Mark II in 1969 and that transformed things although, being relatively complex it must have been deemed too expensive to justify on what proved a low-volume model and the with the release of the Mark III in 1970, a version of that used on the Spitfire was substituted and it proved just as effective.  Sales of the GT6 never matched the company’s expectation and the market preferred the MGB GT (1965-1980) which used the same concept for the body.  Noting the costs which would have been incurred to make the GT6 compliant with the US regulations to take effect from 1974, production ended in late 1973.  Because the considerably more powerful (especially the fuel-injected versions sold outside the US) 2.5 litre six Triumph used in the TR5 (which, with twin carburetors, was in North America sold as the TR-250), TR6, 2.5 PI & 2500 is a relatively easy swap, quite a few GT6s have been so upgraded although some attention does need to be paid to the chassis to achieve a completely satisfactory road car.  

The short stature of Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) with (left to right), with Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia (Rome, 1943), with Albert I, King of the Belgians (France, 1915), with his wife, Princess Elena of Montenegro (Rome 1937) & with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), observing the Italian navy conduct manoeuvres, Gulf of Naples, 1938.  Note the King of Italy's sometimes DPRKesque hats.

Technically, Victor Emmanuel didn’t fit the definition of dwarfism which sets a threshold of adult height at 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m), the king about 2 inches (50 mm) taller (or less short) and it’s thought the inbreeding not uncommon among European royalty might have been a factor, both his parents and grandparents being first cousins.  However, although not technically a dwarf, that didn’t stop his detractors in Italy’s fascist government calling him (behind his back) il nano (the dwarf), a habit soon picked up the Nazis as der Zwerg (the dwarf) (although Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was said to have preferred der Pygmäe (the pygmy)).  In court circles he was knows also (apparently affectionately) as la piccola sciabola (the little sabre) a nickname actually literal in origin because the royal swordsmith had to forge a ceremonial sabre with an unusually short blade for the diminutive sovereign to wear with his many military uniforms.  His French-speaking wife (Princess Elena of Montenegro (1873–1952; Queen of Italy 1900-1946)) stood a statuesque six feet (1.8 m) tall and always called him mon petit roi (my little king).  It was a long and happy marriage and genetically helpful too, his son and successor (who enjoyed only a brief reign) very much taller although his was to be a tortured existence.  Still, in his unhappiness the scion stood tall and that would have been appreciated by the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) who initially approved of the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer (1960-1997) to the Prince of Wales (b 1948) on the basis that she “would breed some height into the line”.

In cosmology, the word dwarf is applied to especially small versions of celestial bodies.  A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy of between several hundred and several billion stars, (the Milky Way may have as many as billion) and astronomers have identified many sub-types of dwarf galaxies, based on shape and composition.  A dwarf planet is a small, planetary-mass object is in direct orbit of a star, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right.  Best-known dwarf planet is now Pluto which used to be a planet proper but was in 2006 unfortunately down-graded by the humorless types at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) who are in charge of such things.  It’s hoped one day this decision will be reversed so Pluto will again be classified a planet.  Dwarf planets are of interest to planetary geologists because despite their size, they may be geologically active bodies.  The term dwarf star was coined when it was realized the reddest stars could be classified as brighter or dimmer than our sun and they were created the categories “giant star” (brighter) and dwarf star (dimmer).  As observational astronomy improved, the

With the development of infrared astronomy there were refinements to the model to include (1) the dwarf star (the “generic” main-sequence star), (2) the red dwarf (low-mass main-sequence star), (3) the yellow dwarfs are (main-sequence stars with masses comparable to that of the Sun, (4) the orange dwarf (between a red dwarf and yellow/white stars), (5) the controversial blue dwarf which is a hypothesized class of very-low-mass stars that increase in temperature as they near the end of their main-sequence lifetime, (6) the white dwarf which is the remains of a dead star, composed of electron-degenerate matter and thought to be the final stage in the evolution of stars not massive enough to collapse into a neutron star or black hole, (7) the black dwarf which is theorized as a white dwarf that has cooled to the point it no longer emits visible light (it’s thought the universe is not old enough for any white dwarf to have yet cooled to black & (8) the brown dwarf, a sub-stellar object not massive enough to ever fuse hydrogen into helium, but still massive enough to fuse deuterium.

Coolest dwarf of all is (9) the ultra-cool dwarf (first defined in 1997), somewhat deceptively named for non cosmologists given the effective temperature can be as high as 2,700 K (2,430°C; 4,400°F); in space, everything is relative.  Because of their slow hydrogen fusion compared to other types of low-mass stars, their life spans are estimated at several hundred billion years, with the smallest lasting for about 12 trillion years.  As the age of the universe is thought to be only 13.8 billion years, all ultra-cool dwarf stars are relatively young and models predict that at the ends of their lives the smallest of these stars will become blue dwarfs instead of expanding into red giants.

Disney's seven dwarfs; they're now cancelled.

The events towards the conclusion of the nineteenth century German fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs make ideal reading for young children.  Her evil step-mother has apparently killed poor Snow White so the seven disappointed dwarfs lay her body in a glass coffin.  The very next, a handsome prince happens upon the dwarfs’ house in the forest and is so captivated by her beauty he asks to take her body back to his castle.  To this the dwarfs agree but while on the journey, a slight jolt makes Snow White come to life and the prince, hopelessly in love, proposes and Snow White accepts.  Back at the palace, the prince invites to the wedding all in the land except Snow White's evil stepmother.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, even Happy looking sad.

The step-mother however crashes the wedding and discovers the beautiful Snow White is the bride.  Enraged, she again attempts murder but the prince protects her and, learning the truth from his bride, forces the step-mother to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and dance in them until she dies; that takes not long and once she has the decency to drop dead, the nuptials resume.  In the way things happen in fairy tales, the prince and Snow White live happily ever after.

DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)

The condition achondroplasiaphobia describes those with a “fear of little people".  The construct is achondroplasia (the Latin a- (not) +‎ the Ancient Greek chondro- (cartilage) + the New Latin‎ -plasia (growth); the genetic disorder that causes dwarfism) + phobia (from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) from φόβος (phóbos) (fear).  The condition, at least to the extent of being clinically significant, is thought rare and like many of the especially irrational phobias is induced either by (1) a traumatic experience, (2) depictions in popular culture or (3) reasons unknown.  Achondroplasiaphobia has never appeared in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  In 2006, it was reported that while dining at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, after noticing two people of short stature had entered the restaurant, Lindsay Lohan suffered an "anxiety attack" and hyperventilated to the extent she had to take "an anti-anxiety pill" to calm down.  To her companions she repeatedly said "I’m so scared of them!"  A spokesperson for the LPA responded by suggesting Ms Lohan should "...treat her fear the same as she would a fear of any other protected minority population.  If that fails, she might find diversity training to be useful."  Almost immediately the story appeared, it was debunked by a representative for Ms Lohan who issued a statement  saying she is not achondroplasiaphobic and not in any way scared of little people, adding "Lindsay loves all people."

Prince Charming's non-consensual kiss of Snow White on her "lips red as blood".

In February 2025, Luis Rubiales (b 1977), the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation was found guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso (b 1990) without her consent and was fined €10,800 so, at least in some jurisdictions, the matter of consenting to a kiss is not mere legal theory.

Among critics and industry analysts, the consensus seem to be that in late 1919 when the project was approved, for Disney to allocate a budget of US$200 million (it ended up being booked at around US$250 million) to a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) probably was a good idea.  Based on the German fairy tale Sneewittchen which first appeared in print early in the nineteenth century, Disney’s 1937 production was the first animated, full-length feature film made in the US and it was both critically acclaimed and a great commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1938; adjusted for inflation, it’s success then and since has made it one of the most profitable films ever made.

The elements in its success were (1) the quality of the studio’s work, (2) advances in the technology delivering sight and sound which made the audience's experience so vivid and (3) the threads of the story which are fairy tale classics: A wicked queen, jealous of her stepdaughter’s beauty orders her murder, only to discover she’s hiding out in a cottage with seven dwarves so she poisons her with an adulterated apple, inducing a deep sleep from which she eventually is awoken by the kiss of a handsome prince.  In 1937, had the word “problematic” then been in use, it wouldn't have been applied to anything in the plot but by the early 2020s, things had changed.  In the pre Trump 2.0 era, when DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) was compulsory, having Snow White gaining her name because her skin was as “white as snow” and the very existence of dwarfs were both definitely “problematic” so the challenge was to keep the “Snow White” in the title while changing troublesome content as required.  That's been done before and had the 2024 US presidential election elected someone (probably anyone) else, Snow White could have appeared in cinemas to lukewarm reviews but a solid box office based on 7-11 year old girls still impressed at Meghan Markle (Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; b 1981) having proved its not only in fairy tales that princes rescue middle-class girls from dreary lives.  Only Fox News would much have bothered with a condemnation.

Times have changed.  Whether it's Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, for a man (whether or not a prince) to kiss an unresponsive female, it's now usually some sort of assault.  An unresponsive female cannot grant consent.

So for Disney, the timing of events was unfortunate but the earlier race and cultural controversies which swirled around the earlier remakes of Mulan (2020) and The Little Mermaid (2023) should have been a warning.  Most jarring perhaps was the absence of “dwarfs” (in the historic sense of the word).  While Snow White is of course the protagonist, in casting terms there was only one of her and seven of them so the substitution of the heptad with “magical creatures” was always going to attract a critique of its own.  According to the studio, it consulted members of the dwarfism community (the so-called “little people”) “to avoid reinforcing stereotypes” before the re-casting but, given the production was, according to many, replete with cultural, sexist and chauvinist tropes, the cancelled dwarfs received less attention than might have been expected.  With reviewers using phrases like “exhaustingly awful reboot” and “tiresome pseudo-progressive additions”, expectations of success for Snow White have been lowered.