Warner Bros apologizes for 'The Witches' after facing heat by differently-abled community

Warner Bros has found itself in the midst of a fresh new controversy about their latest release, The Witches. In the times of social media and the vital need to ensure that your content is not offensive in any way to any community, Warner Bros. has invited the wrath of the ‘disabled community’ for which the company now has issued an apology. Let’s take a look at what led to The Witches controversy.

Warner Bros invites the wrath of the ‘disabled community’, issues an apology

Warner Bros has come under the scrutiny of quite a few people from the disabled community for their depiction of Anne Hathaway’s character in the film. Many members from the disabled community took to social media to express their disapproval and protest against the manner in which the characters of the film have been portrayed in this film. Among them was British Paralympic swimmer Amy Marren, who was amongst the first ones to speak up on social media.

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The reason that drew such criticism against this film was because the film projects the character to be having three fingers. This bears a visible similarity to the real-life limb deformity called ‘Ectrodactyly’, otherwise known as ‘split hand.’ Paralympic games also joined in the criticism and tweeted against it from their official Twitter handle by saying, “Limb difference is not scary. Differences should be celebrated and disability has to be normalised.”

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Warner Bros then came out and issues a public apology after The Witch controversy gained force. Speaking to Deadline, the spokesperson of Warner Bros said that the studio was “deeply saddened to learn that our depiction of the fictional characters in The Witches could upset people with disabilities” and “regretted any offense caused.” He also added, "In adapting the original story, we worked with designers and artists to come up with a new interpretation of the cat-like claws that are described in the book. It was never the intention for viewers to feel that the fantastical, non-human creatures were meant to represent them." With this, in a detailed apology, the company addressed this sensitive issue.

The Witches is an adaptation of the novel written by Roald Dahl with the same name. The Witches cast includes Anne Hathaway in the lead, along with Chris Rock, Stanely Tucci, Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Bruno and many more. The Witches was released on October 22 in the United States. 

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