It's the 21st century!
The story of the Little Mermaid is based on a Hans Christian Anderson story, as are several other Disney movies. The character is a reflection of Scandinavian culture where it came from (HCA was Danish), and the likelihood of a brown or black person in the North Sea in the 18th century are close enough to zero that there's little point in calculating it.
The 30 year old cartoon image of Ariel is quite accurate to the original story, and certainly makes sense given the Nordic foundation of the tale.
Let's be completely upfront here: Disney specifically cast a black girl in this role specifically for woke points. White girls were not considered, even though the Disney character was a white ginger for 30 years, as was the character she was based on for 200 years. That's literally racism.
And let's also be upfront and say that if they race-swapped the lead in Black Panther with a Mexican or a Korean, these same people defending black Ariel would be losing their minds.
It's also not like this was an unusual circumstance. Disney and most of Hollywood has been race- and gender- and orientation-swapping existing characters for remakes for the last 5 years and people are sick of it.
No one has a problem with black actors. No one has a problem with black characters. I'm pretty certain I own every movie that Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Samuel L. Jackson have ever made. At least 2/3 of my comedy collection are black comedians.
What people have a problem with is race or gender - swapping EXISTING characters, especially when their looks are an important aspect of the role.
Perhaps the worst example of this was making a movie about Anne Boleyn, an English queen that was unquestionably white, and casting a black actress to play her. This is a historical figure! Imagine a movie about Martin Luther King, or Aretha Franklin, cast with white actors!
Disney could have created a new story, and cast whoever, and it would have been fine, but the point of wokeness is to destroy things that we used to love by poisoning them with unwanted changes - and ALWAYS in the anti-white direction - and trying to convince people to accept their forced anti-white changes.
Finally, the thing few people realize is that, as much as the Woke Warriors try to talk about People Of Color, they are really just as racist against Latinos and Asians. All race-swaps are putting in black characters in place of white characters, never putting in an Asian or Latino.
There's nothing honest about it. It's propaganda, and it's evil. It's also lazy - they think putting in a black actor for a white one means that they don't need to bother making anything else about the project good. Bad writing, bad costuming, bad CGI, bad editing, and just poor overall storytelling is the norm with these woke projects. And so they will continue to lose money and get bad reviews. They make their choice, and the public makes theirs.
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They aren't.
People care about franchise continuity because removing that is the equivilant of killing off main characters or making the story so different you can't follow whats canon anymore, it's only tolerated if the original was bad/worse.
I don't watch disney stuff, but ghostbusters certainly didn't need a retcon, let alone an all female cast replacement of the existing male characters, and I imagine fans of the little mermaid probably feel the same way.
It has nothing to do with being black.
No one dislikes kid arachnid/miles morales spiderman, because peter parker still exists.
No one dislikes samual's portrayal of nick fury, because his version was entertaining, and the original one was a boring character that nobody cared about, so he had to get reinvented.
No one is crying over a white or Asian version of static shock not existing.
These are all well receieved characters, as they either upgraded or were joining existing characters, not retconing valued ones out of existence and replacing them.
This matters for story too, prequels that contradict sequels are received badly for example. As are sequels that either kill off favorite characters or have plots that don't make sense based on earlier movies.
Creative thinking, appropriate casting for roles, good acting, and good script writing are important.
1st off I want to say everyone is entited to their own opinion. I disagree with the choice. And it's definitely NOT because I am a racist. Which I most certainly am NOT! I do NOT hate anyone because of their skin color. I was just surprised they did not match the description of what I have grew up knowing Ariel to be. Let red heads have their moment. On that note I also disagree with the choice of Emma Watson playing Belle in the live action Beauty and the beast. She ruined my all time favorite movie. It just wasn't who I pictured playing belle plus she can't sing. I think people are forgetting they also came out with a Cindrella movie (which I loved as a kid by the way) who was also black. You can watch it on Disney plus. Also there is Tiana. Mulan, Jasmine and even the movie life size with Tyra Banks as barbie (who is beyond gorgeous) . All woman of color. Why is everyone hating on people who have a different opinion on who the casting should have been? I would have had the same opinion if they made Ariel Caucasian blonde with pink eyes. Or they made her have green hair and blue skin. It wouldn't be what I expected and grew up knowing. I feel like if you don't agree you get called racist. And that's not fair! in most cases, thats bold accusation to make about someone. And In most cases is further from the truth. So STOP the hate.
Believe me or not but I have been a victim of racism. I was with my 3 girlfriends who are Taiwanese. We ordered an uber one night. The guy pulls up. He said to my friend and I quote " I will take you 3 but I'm not taking the white girl" we fought with him and asked him why. he kept saying " I'm not taking her because she's white. and she is not welcomed to step foot inside this car". My friend told him we are taking another uber and gave him a bad review. I was taken back by this. I couldn't believe what just happened. It made me upset because I didn't do anything this this man and he hated me because I was Caucasian. This actually happened and yes it did suck. It's not fair to hate anyone by their skin color
Racism.. it's the 21st century after all lol its funny cause for years blacks where whitewashed, erased, or just never given roles. Now that we're getting more representation, some people just can't handle it and want things to go back to the old way aka when we practically invisible internet media/Hollywood.
I'm also noticing people calling it "woke" to, I'm starting to notice people flinging f that word around when they don't want to see certain person or group of people be showned on screen. What happened to a fictional character can be played by anyone and that race don't matter? That's what we've been told sense ever.
Especially to black women and darkskin black women who still get erased out certains roles and get replaced by light skin or biracial women. That's still happening, look at the female rap/ pop industry today. It's a lot non black or biracial women pushed as black to black community. It's just crazy. I get wanting original stories with black characters instead of taking old character, but truth of the matter is some people are never going to be happy seeing black folks being in pretty much anything.
I saw some if the reactions to black panther, to them it's not realistic cause we aren't being shown as struggling slaves cause that's all their use to seeing us in. But a man flying around in bat suit not knowing when Halloween ends and begins is? Okay.
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I can't stand racist people! Especially if they're a colourist or they are stuck in their old ways!
Non- black people have been extremely jealous of black women since slavery and when their ancestors found out the black people are more powerful and wealthy than any other race on the planet and they also couldn't accept that God is a black man, so some of their elder thought it was smart to white wash black history and promote European beauty standards worldwide instead to hide their racist behaviours! So I see where the ignorants comes from!
To be honest I think casting only white and fairer skin women in Disney and other lotion picture films except for black women is extremely racist, unfair, biase and wrong! Black women are female too! and it's against the law to be racist and sexist to people of colour in the work place!
However, it's the 21st century and having a black mermaid the live action version of the little mermaid is amazing, beautiful and very attractive in my opinion. It's a change! And at the end of the day it doesn't matter what colour the character is as long as the actress is confident and talented in playing the role and Halle Bailey has a beautiful singing voice. She deserves it! Black is beautiful!
I'm black british- Caribbean and I would love to play a main protagonist in the a Disney movie. Even if I wrote my own x
No matter what shade of brown a black woman is, we should never afraid to chase dreams, love and happiness no matter what people say or throw at us x
We are human just like everyone else in this world and there is nothing wrong with being different x Being black is what makes us special and unique than everyone else x and this is a gift from God because we are the 'chosen ones'.
I can't to see the new Disney live action version of the little mermaid next year- 2023 and I am so excited for it!
Black lives matter! Xxx❤
Racist are just the reasons that people want to make it is existing, but you know, smoke come from fire, that happens when media try to put a racial diversity on show, NOT an ability of actor/actress to play the role, that’s not fair first, so don’t talk so far equality when you can’t just respect someone’s effort sinking down by the thing called “diversity”.
Also, why are you guys just keeping making a lot of conspiracies about all caused by White people. White people plan this, White people plan that. But somethings like White people trying to put a diversity on media, White people trying to protest for Black, White people trying to adopt Black kids, groups of various races, company has a certain amount of Black (google), movie only has Black people, something like that, are all so… vacant from people. Are they just wanting to complain or they just want to say what they want to say without thinking? Trying to replace some event with “White” words by “Black” words then every “racists” just disappear. If I am not Asian and state those things, they probably consider me racist, I bet.
Let me state clear about racist. When you’re trying to say racist, let’s find racial problem in there. White does shit to Black? How about Black does shit to White, White does shit to White, Black does shit to Black, Black does shit to Asian, Asian does shit to Asian. Are they considered racist? Well, if it happen for every case of race, you can not say it racist. For another case, we have rich White, rich Black, even recently we have a lot of rich Asians pr rich Hispanic/Latino, is it racist problem? Absolutely not, we have poor Black, poor White and poor Asian. Nothing relates to racial problem, it’s just poor-rich problem. Maybe Black/White poor/rich does happen in the past, but things did change, in fact, more White are taken chances for diversity, so how about I say the whole diversity of races racist White?It's Woke political correctness being crammed down everyones throats and nomatter where you turn you find it weather asked for it or not. a lot of people are feed up with it, I find it so hard to believe that with all this Black Rich History and stories we hear exists yet none of it can be made into movies so we must cast them into clearly white rolls. Those woke agendas are in all movies and shows and they do it to establish knew norms like race mixing and fake multicultural history to make people forget that most white countries were almost completely white 50 years ago.
In Vikings Valhalla The Queen of Norway is a Black Woman, No leader of Norway was Black or a Woman back then.
That mermaid is a fictional character yes but so is Camelot set back in what 6th century England in the Merlin series? It looks like it was set somewhere in Sub Saharan Africa, White Sir Lancelot will hook up with the Black Quinevere no doubt.
It's so overdone now a lot of people automatically think of Forced Diversity when ever they see a black character including me and I just can't enjoy it after that and it angers me that I paid for my own indoctrination material.
- The Left, Hollywood, media trying to force woke ideology when it gets the chance to the extend that it feels like they're trying to stick it in our throats. Inclusion or diversity are definitely not a bad thing if done correctly. What they're doing however is lazy and it disrespects everyone (including black people for not coming up with new stories and characters for them).
-Black population in USA is approximately 13%, gay people are far less than that and yet Hollywood, media, gaming industry and etc are trying so hard to change the stereotypes it's just unnatural and respectively it leads to disappointment, laugh, bitterness, criticism, etc. And of course narrow-minded people don't see that, cuz they are lazy and don't want to analyze this issue, but rather they repeat like parrots what the left is saying as a response shouting RACISM RACISM. I understand, it's far more easy to just be a parrot than to use your brain.
-To those who find this racist how would you explain the fact that we enjoy movies with black folks like Denzel Washington or Samuel Jackson or Will Smith or Eddie Murphy where they kick many white people asses there? How would you explain that. Or when it comes to Disney movies plenty of people the majority of which whites adored Aladdin who's arab and muslim? Where's the racism here, or the islamophobia that lots of crazy left people use to shout left and right?
-As for me personally, I don't care about little Mermaid, why would I? I'm just sick of this modern woke trend that ruins lots of good franchises.
Most of the comments say “It's not my Ariel!” or “It's not even remotely close to the original” so I am like... Hmm. Let's see a Scandinavian story made by Hans Christian Anderson in 1837 dedicated to his boyfriend. Little Mermaid in the original story didn't have just Little Mermaid, The Sea King, The Sea Witch, and more, her skin color was never mentioned, and the entire idea was that readers could make up how they would see the mermaid in their heads. Her motivation is different because she vowed to marry a man to gain an immortal soul, The Sea Witch didn't have any personal gain, Little Mermaid is fifteen when she goes to the surface, and their sisters can visit land but rather be in the sea, little mermaid didn’t collect random object she had a garden with some flowers and a tree. Her transformation is extremely painful and she cuts her tongue. The prince meaning Eric marries a different princess even though he was interested in the mermaid. The little mermaid then gets information from her sister that she can become a Mermaid again but she notices that her sister's hair is cut off because they exchanged for a magical knife all she had to do is stab the prince in the heart. Little Mermaid doesn’t have a happy ending, she couldn't bare to kill the prince so she throws the knife and herself into the sea becoming sea foam. If people wanted close to the original then they should make a script for live adoption of the book and not the Disney movie that came out in 1989.
I think it's more nestalga and what people are used too I think, not the fact she's black, I think they are making too much of a point out there with doing a black version of something like they did with Annie ( which I found terrible Cameron Diaz was terrible as miss Hannignal.) Or doing a woman's version like with Ghostbusters.
I mean what if they did a reboot of Blade and it was played by a white guy or a new tomb radar came out and it was play by a guy.. people would go insane over it in a bad way. It's not about a black person playing the roles, it what people grew knowing of the roles.
Why don't they do their own version and put a new way of doing it.
I mean look at Spiderman, they didn't go and make a black Peter Parker or a female Peter Parker. They did their own Spiderman Miles Morals and that girl is the white Spiderwoman outfit, I think her name was Gwen. Think outside the box.
I mean they didn't have to do a black Annie, they could of done a musical of another orphan girl being adopted by a rich man.I just wish they styled her hair better like when she had it like this but in her sisters shade of red below
I think people are having a knee-jerk reaction based on political tribalism if they have a problem with a children’s cartoon or in this case live action. Nothing is preventing them from keeping their old movies or books and telling the story they loved as children to their own children. As long as Disney didn’t take public funds to make the movie, I don’t care if the mermaid is striped or polka dotted. The market will sort out whether it is a good movie or not, but I do think that representation of the entire population, which if you were to count up the number of Disney characters and then see what percentage of the whole of them aren’t white, you would see that they are trying to correct a market based appeal inadequacy. Watch the video that @Msputiton posted about this and Grow up. I hope anyone who is angry is never in a position of trust with children or in public office.
I don't know how many billions of people there are on this planet but there's always going to be a problem with somebody somehow somewhere it doesn't matter if a squirrel was Tinkerbell mermaid there's going to be people that love it there's going to be people that hate it and the ones that hate it it's because they don't like themselves it's because they think that they're right all the time they think that they're special you have to ignore those people if that's the girl that's the Mermaid she's very beautiful mermaid and I would welcome that I would even welcome Tinkerbell squirrel as a mermaid but that girl is beautiful she deserves to be a mermaid and nobody should save a negative thing about it what is so negative about it I don't understand that she's a mermaid she's beautiful
Why do stupid people always say: "How could (something I don't agree with, but have no basis for it- I just accept whatever fad is most popular)? It's (fill in the year)!"
Saying the year/ century we are in is not an argument.
Race is allowed to matter to every other race, but when white people do it it's suddenly anachronistic, or worse: racist.
If "white washing," is a bad thing, then "black washing" is also a bad thing. The little mermaid is based on European folklore, and should be represented by Indigenous European peoples, or their descendants.
People get upset every time a character or story is deviated from what it's viewed as in it's most popular form. You hear it most often from people who read a story before it was adapted into a movie. I still puke in my mouth a little when I think about what M Night did to Avatar. Look what happened with the sonic movie. Fortunately, sonic isn't human, so no one was able to pull the race card on that one. I feel like that's what 99% of the drama is surrounding. People are just upset the character was changed at all, but because she's black it's spiralling into race baiting drama
The thing is, this movie will be made for the children of this generation. It's not aimed at the adults who have been whining about their "white redhead babe crush" being replaced. This will be their version of Little Mermaid and we have our own, there's nothing wrong with it. Skin colour should not matter.
It's simple their petty pride, and hate makes it impossible to see the importance of this.
What it means to young black girls to actually for the first time have something that shows them we can be a pretty princess too, instead of the pretty white princess's friend who straggles along or the servant.
Let's hope when this shatters children's box office records they start giving our children stand alone original characters to look up to as well
it's cause Ariel wasn't black in the animation. I was surprised when I first heard it cause I was concerned about the red hair but I honestly don't care now I just hope that the movie is good cause I legit love the little mermaid. 🤣
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I am fine as long as a blue or purple person is playing ursula. And dont get me on costumes or cgi. I want a real purple person otherwise it runs tue original and this remake... Irony off: no I dont understand why people care. Its a fictional character and not even a human to begin with. why care about skin colour it?
I'd guess people are fed up of black's being randomly thrown in shows/adverts to appease a minority. It's all very WOKE.
The silent minority speaking because the majority are too busy working.
I've stopped watching TV/Movies because they throw random black people in who LITERALLY were not there in the timeline.
No one is upset over a black mermaid. If Disney wants to create a new story with black, green, or purple mermaids, no one will object. However, people don't like huge changes in the original story. And, story is the middle ages; not the 21st century.
Reverse the racial change and it gets accusations of "whitewashing" as when Scarlett Johansson was cast in a role associated with Japanese culture.
You can't have it both ways. Either original ethnicity is important or it isn't. Since Hans Christian Andersen was from Copenhagen he probably wasn't picturing a black mermaid.Mermaids are one of many creatures in various folklore that has changed over generations. So, I think they should remake the movie based on the folklore of mermaids. Make her a actual sea monster that looks like a beautiful tell you are close enough to realize she isn't. Then you see the the monster she really is right before she drags you under water and eats you. That's the Little Mermaid movie I want to see.
I understand people being confused because of the fact the original character is quite obviously white, it's like if a white woman was to play Princess Tiana, people would be confused. However, I don't see a problem with a black woman playing her. It's just a character it shouldn't really matter, unless a part of the film is about a particular race or time in history where it would be disrespectful to mix.
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