Online Reception to The Little Mermaid

It seems that Disney has found itself in controversy once again. This isn’t the first time the family-friendly company found itself the subject of millions of nationwide conversations, nor is this the first time race has been at the center of the discussion. If you aren’t already familiar with the situation, Disney recently released a trailer for their upcoming live-action movie, The Little Mermaid, starring actress and R&B singer, Halle Bailey, and many have something to say about that casting decision.

The issue first arose back in July 2019, when Bailey was officially announced to be playing Ariel. The choice came as quite a shock, since Disney, with its 100-year history, has only had one black princess (two, if you count Brandy Norwood’s rendition of Cinderella from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s movie). Many were unhappy with the decision Disney made to not “cast accurately” to their animated film by the same name, where Ariel was depicted as white. Despite this, talk around the movie died down in a few months.

The official trailer premiered at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, before dropping on YouTube this September. This was the first peak the world got to see of Bailey’s portrayal of Ariel, decked out with red locs and a shimmering CGI tail, singing a snippet of Part of Your World. Unfortunately, many didn’t take this trailer well. The video garnered over 1.5 million dislikes the same week that it was posted. To add salt to the wound, the 263,225 comments (which surprisingly aren't disabled), were filled with sarcastic quips starting with some iteration of “The part where Ariel says..” before stating a ridiculous or out-of-place line. The outrage carried over onto other social media platforms, with many users arguing that a black Ariel is disingenuous to the original Danish source material. However, others fought back against this claim by emphasizing the fictional concept of a mermaid that isn’t bound to one specific race. “People are mad that The Little Mermaid is Black? The lady who is also a fish? Who lives under the sea? Whose best friend is a talking crab?” Lynda Carter tweeted. The haters then rebuked that even on the grounds of Ariel “just being a fish,” her being played by Bailey wasn’t scientifically accurate: “Considering mermaids are supposed to live underwater where there isn’t any sunlight they wouldn’t need any melanin in their skin.” one tweet argued. “So if mermaids existed then they would be very, very pale-skinned.” One user went as far as to edit a screenshot of Bailey from the trailer with Euro-centric features as a response to Disney for casting a “woke actor.”

It’s difficult not to see a pattern of response here when there was similar outrage to Noma Dumezweni, a black woman, being cast as Hermione Granger in the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2016. This was largely due to the character being described as white in the books and Emma Watson’s influential portrayal of Granger in the movie series. People were even upset at the choice for Amandla Steinberg to be cast as Rue in The Hunger Games movie adaption, despite the character being described as having dark skin in the original book series, implying that for an actor to successfully portray the innocence of the role required, they needed to be white. The most recent incident occurred earlier this year when 12-year-old actress Leah Jeffries was officially cast as Annabeth Chase in the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians television series. The backlash on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok drove both Jeffries and Riordan to issue public statements calling out the behavior. Now it’s easy to see that depictions of characters from the text to real life have always been a heated topic, especially when dealing with race. But why is that?

The term “racebending” was coined in 2009 as a response to the casting decisions for the live-action film adaptation of the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. While the ethnic backgrounds for the original animated character called for actors from Inuit, Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese backgrounds, the roles were given to people of European descent instead. The term initially was one of protest but is now used to mean “situations where a media content creator (movie studio, publisher, etc.) has changed the race or ethnicity of a character,” according to racebending.com. It’s now more commonly used when originally white characters are cast as people of color. The concept has always been a polarizing one, with some viewing it as a double standard and even comparing it to whitewashing. “For the people saying ‘Why does it matter? It’s just a kid's movie.’ Okay, let’s say then, [Disney] made a live-action of Princess and the Frog and cast a white woman to play Tiana.” a YouTuber by the name ivillu said in a short. “Now you tell me why that wouldn’t matter. ” Others believe that racebending being appropriate depends on specific characters and how closely their ethnicity is tied to their story. “Tiana’s story is somewhat defined by the struggles she faces pertaining to her ethnicity whereas Ariel is a literal fish woman,” one commenter replied to the short. “Ariel’s skin color should be the last of anyone’s concerns. Many deny the notion of a double standard, altogether claiming that racebending and whitewashing can’t be compared because of the lack of diversity in media as a whole. “There is still a big disparity between white actors and actors of color in Hollywood. In 2014, it was reported that nearly 73% of lead roles in Hollywood films went to white actors. Only 33 films that year had actors of color in starring or co-starring roles. And the numbers for directors of color are even worse,” Mikey Mason explained in the article Why Race-bending Characters Is Important. “By racebending roles, we are allowing representation on a large scale that transcends race and shows that in the situation at hand, anyone can be the protagonist.”

For some, their opposition to racebending excludes the whiteness of characters altogether, as their gripe lays more with wanting original black characters instead of “recycled ones.” However, the inclusion of more POC in film could potentially lead to a shift in original characters as there is actually an original black female Disney princess named Asha in the works. While there doesn’t seem to be any foreseeable future where society collectively comes up with a clear-cut answer on whether or not racebending is something that should be employed in media, it’s really unfortunate that these discussions on whether or not to employ it comes with harassment and berating of real people, sometimes even children.

While the situation may seem entirely bleak, there’s been a glimmer of hope amidst the hate. For the hundreds of comments and posts voicing their disdain for a black Ariel, there were hundreds more voicing their support. Black families began posting videos of their children blind reacting to the trailer, and the joy and excitement on their faces for seeing a princess that looked like them was priceless. There’s already a plethora of fan art of Bailey’s version of Ariel and so much more to come. It’s no doubt that regardless of how you feel about this new movie, the casting decision from Disney and the work that Bailey is doing is groundbreaking, and causing a genuinely positive impact on children nationwide.