Disney recently announced the actress that would be playing Ariel in the upcoming live-action film The Little Mermaid, and the choice was met with backlash.
Fans were upset that Halle Bailey isn’t the redheaded, white girl Disney portrayed the character as in the original cartoon.
The phrase #NotMyAriel quickly surfaced, and people claimed the casting had ruined the movie before it even started filming.
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Since the live-action version is based on the classic, which was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s story, that described her as white Dutch girl with red hair and blue eyes, people claimed she should be “accurate” and stick to the canon.
Attempting to throw logic into their clearly racist statements, fans asked how some would react if characters like Mulan, Pocahontas, and Tiana had their races changed. I find this argument to be the weakest of all, because Ariel’s race was never a crucial aspect to her story, like some of the others.
Mulan is Chinese, and her storyline is set in China. It’s also based on a real person, while Ariel is a fictional character. She can be anything we want her to be.
While Tiana really could have been any race, the Princess and the Frog is set in New Orleans and focuses on her struggles as an African-American woman trying to start her own business.
Pocahontas was another example that people brought up, even though being Native American is at the basis of her story. (Ignoring the fact that Disney changed her story drastically in the film.)
These arguments also ignored the hundreds of white actors who have played people of colour over the years, and no one said anything against those casting decisions. Some examples include John Wayne as Attila the Hun in the Conqueror, and Johnny Depp as Tonto in The Lone Ranger.
Unfortunately, I assumed a response like this would happen when I saw Bailey was chosen to play the character. The amount of times I saw “I’m not racist, but…” followed by a very intolerant comment, had me shaking my head all week.
They didn’t look at Bailey as the best choice for the role: instead they focused on her skin colour and how that solely made her a bad fit. Some are even claiming that because she doesn’t match the Ariel portrayed in Disney’s 1989 version, the soon-to-be created one is ruined.
As long as she does a good job, why should there be any problems?
I wrote my Capstone project in university on Harry Potter fans getting mad that Noma Dumezweni, an African British actress, was chosen to play Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
People used all of the same excuses they did this time around with Bailey’s casting in The Little Mermaid, and I’m so tired of it.
These are fictional characters, and I don’t see a problem with their race being changed. The fact that there continues to be negative reactions to these decision, makes it all the more important to have them.
