You know, I posted this so everyone could have a good laugh. I see some posts where my mother would have commented, “Oh for crying out loud,” and which the Internet generation has compressed to OFFS.
Given the creator’s own description, Ariel could have been played by Vanessa Williams.
OMG! They cast a skinny, black, wise-cracking guy to play a non-human, large, blue, wise-cracking cloud. PC run amuck! Much worse than casting a young, black actress to play a young, non-human half-fish.
Would we all feel better if Halle Bailey’s hair were dyed red?
But he played it in blueface. What if Disney cast an African American actress, and lightened her skin and changed her hair color?
I think msmith537 had a good point: in previous live adaptations, like Beauty and the Beast, they were pretty faithful to the way the characters looked in the cartoon.
Thanks to the original animated feature (plus decades of spinoffs and merchandizing), people have a very specific idea in their minds of what Ariel looks like; and some people have trouble wrapping their brain around a version of the character that doesn’t match that.
(For the record, I’m not saying that Disney shouldn’t have cast a black Ariel; just that I have at least a little bit of sympathy and understanding for some of the people who are bothered by it.)
The complaints are about casting a Black actress, when they really should be “Why the fuck are they making a live-action version”?
Casting a black actress may or may not be a cynical money-making move, but making the film in the first place is a far more egregious example of cashing in for the bucks.
Huh? People have smugly talked about Disney-ifcation of classic fairy tales and stories for as long as I’ve been aware of them. And they’ve probably been doing it since 1937 with Snow White. “Ya know, in the REAL story, a hunter brings the Queen a boar’s liver and says it’s Snow White’s. Then the Queen eats it. Didn’t see THAT in this cartoon…”
Not really. If anything this will cost them the so profitable China market. A more well-established actress of any race would have been the way to go if that’s all they wanted with the casting.
Indeed. It’s a little late to be outraged that Disney is trying to make money using business strategies that generally make them money.
If there’s a problem with Disney’s business model (and I think there is, but I’m a confirmed pinko), it goes much, much deeper than their current focus on remaking cartoons with real people.
(Anyone wishing further discussion of the Aladdin Genie’s color may want to read these articles I stumbled across while searching for a good image to link to:
But that has been basically book nerds like us calling attention to it and being ignored and told to lighten up, this not your book it’s is a fun movie for kids with a happy ending the way Disney does it. The people pulling out their hair on Reddit and the memespace over nonwhite Ariel apparently don’t want to be told “this is not your animation, it’s a movie by Disney and they decide how to make it”.
Wait a second. I have a more important question. Are they going to make the live-action Ariel’s tail swish around like the animated Ariel? Because everyone knows that live action mermaids’ tails only flex in one spot.
Internet rage is inversely proportional to the stakes of the matter.
The story is a metaphor for crossing rifts and dealing with foreigness. While, granted, in this day and age it shouldn’t really be any sort of rift between white and black people, that’s not the reality of the modern world. It probably is relatively good casting symbolically.
Traditionally, red heads represented tempestuous Irish folk. Given that that is no longer a thing in modern culture, replacing all the red heads with African Americans may make sense.
Okay–I’m not trying to be difficult, but I’m not sure what you were getting at, then. My point was that for most of the movie, Will Smith appeared as a black man, a definite change from the original movie.
If the animated Little Mermaid were green-skinned, and they cast an African American actress but changed her skin tone to green for significant sections of the movie, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it, and then it’d be analogous to Aladdin.
I’m black, and I agree with this. I think it’s fine to have more black characters, but why not make them new and original.
For example, I was 12 when I saw ROTJ in the theater. I didn’t think I couldn’t be Luke because he was white and I wasn’t.
I’m not even really sure how they figure more money will be made. The last I looked we are only about 14% of the US population. That is clearly not enough to offset all those that won’t see the film because of this change. I just don’t get it.
Think how much of the world population is peoples of color and there’s one possible answer. Which however is not determinative, I mean in my Puerto Rican social nets the black Ariel is grinding some people’s gears to the point I worry about them.
Although yes, I agree the best way to make the princessphere more universal and inclusive is to bring in more stories with heroines and princesses from other cultures and peoples. There are plenty of other love and/or adventure stories around the world we can use. Or even go to some yet-unused western story and relocate it elsewhere.
And of course a bunch of commenters on the trailer are going “hur hur why not make her white Dizney lol I’m so smart”.
…and 31 is “approaching middle age”??? Say wha???
(though that is itself a recurring tcasting theme in TV/film, “teenagers” pushing 30)
