I am shocked–SHOCKED–to learn that one of the world’s largest corporations is trying to increase their earnings!
I mean, seriously, dude?
Can we all take it as given that Disney is trying to make money? They are not a nonprofit charity. Pointing out that they only care about things that make them money is the lowest hanging fruit in the world.
I’m a red head, and you’re not with me.
That’s all fine and good, but why mess with something with more than a quarter-century of an iconic character with red hair, pale skin and blue eyes? This sort of PC… revisionism(?) is the sort of thing that generally either pisses off the more right-wing types, or makes a lot of the rest of us just roll our eyes.
I mean, Disney could just as well generate a NEW princess-franchise to have women of color in the lead roles organically - there’s a lot of storytelling room outside of European folktales - there’s Africa, pre-Colombian America, pre-Raj India, etc…
Gotta love how many people tell you they “don’t see colour” - until you change some colour things that literally do not matter one fucking bit to the story. Then, people seem to see colour just fine…
The target audience for these movies are children. You understand this, right? Children will not care at all that this Ariel looks nothing like the cartoon version, because most of them haven’t been exposed to it to any significant degree. Even if they have watched the 90’s movie, it’s like one movie out of many dozen. Odds are good much more current Disney and Pixar characters are where their attachments lie (Elsa, Moana, etc.)
At the risk of offending people, this latest outrage over what fictional characters looks like the product of what happens when carrying over juvenile interests into adulthood goes too far. If you don’t want to see this movie, just don’t have to see it. Easy decision here.
But if you have kids that talk to their friends about it and want to see it, I hope ya’ll aren’t going to turn them down just because black Ariel doesn’t match your vision of the character. Because that’s like, really sad.
It’s. A. Caribbean. Musical. Without. Any. Caribbean. People.
Heaven forbid it might be a sincere attempt at somewhat correcting that erasure. Especially with Lin-Manuel Miranda (a Caribbean person) helping produce and write new music.
Yes, Disney’s ultimate goal is profit, but this idea that diversity couldn’t possibly a natural creative choice is irksome. That the only possibly reason to include people of color is to ‘drum up controversy’ as opposed to, you know, actually listening to us and doing stuff… well, it speaks to how unnatural our presence still feels in mainstream entertainment.
Well, there’s the crab who sang calypso…
Can we be real? If my name was Sebastian and I had a cool Jamaican accent, you’d totally help me. You would. You know you would.
I think it’s more silly than anything else- there’s no reason not to make Ariel black, but nor is there any reason that they need to either. There’s no reason to make Ariel black. Nobody would have thought twice about a white, red haired, blue-eyed Ariel, but Disney felt like they had to make a point for some reason.
I’m just suspicious of the motives of studios/production companies that do stuff like this- it strikes me as cynical attempts to virtue signal how diverse they are. “Hey look! We cast a black girl as Ariel! Look how diverse we are now!”
My cynical take is: “Hey look! We cast a black girl as Ariel! The inevitable foaming at the mouth that will now come from the butt hurt is exactly what we want! Watch this blow up our ticket sales!”
And then here we are, right as predicted, surrounded by mouth foam.
So, we’re all taking it for granted that she won’t have red hair? It’s possible for black people to have red hair, after all. And Hollywood has a long track record of ignoring actors’ hair colors and just dying it whatever they think will be best for the role.
As for “staying true to the original”, all these posts, and nobody has complained that the animated Aladdin wasn’t Chinese?
(edited)
I mean, it’s not, and that’s a really weird thing to say.
I’m sorry, but what’s to roll your eyes about? Why is an actress being black something that merits your disapproval in any way?
Was Ariel white in the cartoon? Yes, she was. That was THIRTY YEARS AGO. This movie is not for adults, it’s for children who were born long after the 1989 animated film. A change in the character’s skin color will matter not at all to them.
It is entirely possible Disney felt they’d make extra money by casting an actress who wasn’t white. Why does that merit an eye roll from you? Studios have been casting actors and actresses based on their appearance since long before you were born. Of course they want to make money off this, and of course they want people to think they’re progressive. They’re an entertainment company and their job is to make money; PR and improving their reputation for progressive casting decisions is just good business, and acting like there’'s something “cynical” about it is like bitching that they charge for the tickets to see the movie.
Perhaps the point is that no one should give a rat’s ass about the race of a fictional/mythical character where the character’s ethnic background is of zero significance to the plot.
Race is going to be irrelevant to the kids who are the target audience for the movie. More to the point, race is far less relevant to parents in the 20-30 age range who are the parents of those kids than it was to we old fogies who grew up in the civil rights era. Not that society is color blind by any means, but it is far more so than it was to my (and I would assume your) generation.
A few hundred people in a country of 350 million is “surrounded by mouth foam”?
okay.
I didn’t know there’s a census count for internet mouth foamers.
Yes, there is. If the amount of people outraged is less than the amount of people who believe Bigfoot is real, then there is no outrage.
You’re welcome!
Race is still seen as a special category in our society, even though it shouldn’t be any more significant than height, or hair color, or eye color, or build, etc. I don’t think race or skin color is intrinsic to the Ariel character in any way, and thus I don’t think there is anything legitimate to the complaints about the casting.
It might be different for some fantasy characters, for race/skin color or other characteristics. If a character in some fantasy story is frequently described as stout and strong with a big beer-belly, and his build is a big part of certain character moments (say, he’s so wide that it’s hard to find the armor to equip him for battle, so he frequently fights without armor) then it’d be reasonable to complain about the casting of an actor who is slight and skinny, barring some prosthetics or CGI, IMO. But this Ariel casting doesn’t come close to this.
So, not surprisingly, I think the complaints are mostly based on ignorance and bigotry. I doubt they’d complain about a beautiful and talented actor of the appropriate age and gender for Ariel who was significantly taller or shorter than the character in the original cartoon.
I am anticipating that Prince Eric may well be played by a Latino actor. We may be going through all this a second time if that happens.
Not only that, but I hear that Scuttle is going to be played by a sandpiper.