Disney The Little Mermaid live action movie stars Halle Bailey as black Ariel. Why people happy with Hollywood tokenism?
The black little mermaid is coming whether we like it or not and the Ariel backlash has been growing. #NotMyAriel has been trending and a petition to remove actress Halle Bailey from the live action remake movie has been gaining signatures by the minute. In this video I talk about why black people are happy with being tokenized by Disney and the Little Mermaid reactions I have received in the comments of my previous YouTube video and social media.
Watch: Halle Bailey Is The Little Mermaid Live Action Black Ariel
I don’t care about Halle Bailey singing Part Of Your World in The Little Mermaid live action movie. I am sick of Disney tokenism being called diversity. Ariel being black is cringe. We shouldn’t accept this fake diversity by Walt Disney Studios. I have seen all kinds of reasons for why African Americans want a black Ariel in The Little Mermaid live action movie. I have seen the fictional character argument, race not part of character, and they’re happy to see white people mad about blackwashing the Ariel character. Halle Bailey is not my Ariel!
People aren’t understanding why fans of the little mermaid are upset. They are quick to call people racist when race is not even the issue. Their argument is that Ariel is a mermaid so she can have any look. But she can’t. Ariel is a movie icon and her image has already been embedded in our minds and it has strong emotional ties to it. By their argument we can say that Bugs Bunny is a rabbit, so he can be gray, brown, or white. So from now on he is going to be brown. Now if you complain about his new look it’s because you hate brown rabbits, not because they changed his look. Is everyone okay with that? Probably not. Maintaining social memory is important to society and individuals. We depend on memories for our sense of who we are. Memories can come in many forms, like written texts, storytelling, and film. In storytelling we created the fairytale movie. The Disney Animated Movie versions of the fairy tales have been buried deep into our social memory and became part of our culture. The remaking of fairy tales by Disney has entered the public vernacular and mindset; however, veering away from their original outside of a character’s natural evolution should not be employed. This is a lazy Hollywood device that feeds into the environment of gratification to prevent backlash from a group that was not even complaining, while disrespecting true fans as well as the character itself. Preaching ethical liberalism and inclusivity in film is forcing a willful amnesia of the cultural context which gave life to these tales, and the reasons for their ability to endure. Furthermore, nobody is concerned about how this will affect children. Having two images of the same character will cause confusion and dissolve the magic for them. Many children are not able to differentiate the real from the fictional yet. Some children will have only have seen the animated film well others will have only seen the remake. So which version will they see in the park? Disney has always made it a point that the characters in the park look like what is known to children, so this will prove to be problematic. Disney’s animated movies are not solely for children, they also present a way for adults to find a recollection of their bygone childhood and a means of connecting with their evolved self. One last point, maving Ariel and Eric two different races does not work with the story. There is no chance that someone born into European royalty would ever marry, much less court someone of a different race. There family.certainly would not allow it. To make ot work they need to.change Eric’s ethnicity and relocate the story. So the atory is not going to make sense. The iconic image we have from the classic cartoons will forever be embedded in the collective memory of the people and continue to shape the lives of future generations. The animated classics and characters are historical monuments to our past and should be preserved.
“amnesia of the cultural context” is exactly what this movement is. It’s a knee jerk reaction with good intention but worse consequences. It’s such a ‘Humans trying to evolve’ moment where our answer to diversity is to erase history. I really, really hate how thoughtless the inclusivity movement is in certain mediums like media, Film, TV, advertising etc.. How many white people do you see working at a Chinese restaurant? How many white rappers were in NWA?
See what i mean? Black people, for example, can write amazing film scripts and have. they have made incredibly life changing music and art. They can do all this so why do we need a bunch of white dudes making a cartoon that re-writes a red haired white girl as a black girl? Why not just watch a cartoon that features a black person made by a black writer?
I guess the only positive is that by making more diversity in cartoons, film, tv etc paves the way for easy accessibility for white people to accept seeing colored heroes in entertainment rather than white people all the time. that way, when anyone makes a film or cartoon, we are used to it and it doesn’t seem odd. I get that.
The major negatives are that proactively being inclusive means that you noticed that people are different and needed to be represented as the norm which contradicts the purpose of inclusivity by imagining that every person is the same and there is no color. LOL
Other problems are that history gets ignored which means context is also ignored and young people don’t understand the subtitles of where they are from and how humans have evolved as a society. This is BS because so many people died and went through hell for us to remember our mistakes and triumphs and now modern white artists are erasing those sacrifices by assuming guilt for their forefathers which is horribly ungrateful and severely illogical.
I don’t feel guilty for being white. I treat everyone with respect and I think history shapes us. I am not responsible for my forefathers actions and I know that without that history we would never be where we are today. Remember this – native people were horribly savage to neighboring tribes too and did unspeakable things to them. Being human is our common connection and we are all evolving no matter how hypocritically WOKE you think you are today.
I agree. Here is a letter that I wrote earlier about my thoughts:
“In my opinion, Halle Bailey, who is going to play as Ariel for the up coming movie “The Little Mermaid” is not a good decision. It isn’t right to race swap a work, it teaches kids about misrepresenting culture. “The Little Mermaid” was written by a Danish writer in 1837 and it said the mermaid was described white with blue eyes.
After I was looking through comments, news, and videos, I’ve noticed alot of blacks are calling whites racist if they don’t accept the new black Ariel. Alot are saying “Mermaids aren’t real, just fictional”. They do not understand that they’re making a bad representation of themselves because “Black Panther” is a fictional character too from a comic book which it touched people’s hearts. If they race swap “Black Panther” and change him into a talented white actor, almost everyone would get pissed off and would not care if he is talented. If blacks are making fun of the whites because the whites want their original Ariel back, it’s making it look like blacks are showing their revenge (and acting like racists without knowing it) against whites for what the whites did in the past films. Revenge is a poor choice.
Scarlett Johanson (who was talented in acting and fighting) was white playing as a fictional robot in an Asian movie “Ghost in a Shell” and people were furious. When Halle Bailey got her role to play as a fictional mermaid on a Danish story, most black people are cheering, which it’s not good doing this to because it is causing alot of anger.
The original Ariel isn’t just a fish, she is an icon and personal heroine to people that grew up loving her starting as kids. The 1989 Ariel was also used as a character to inspire and support children that went through loneliness and bullying. People out there are sharing how important the iconic Ariel was to them. Others don’t seem to understand and missing or ignoring the important things.
If they want to promote diversity, they need to make a strong original story based on a non-white race, not race swapping and causing hate, anger, & revenge. This might affect Halle Bailey or Rob Marshall’s career. I know Halle is happy getting the lead role of Ariel, but I’m hoping she will make a smarter choice by having a lead role in an original strong story than replacing an iconic white character. People might say that Ariel is just a cartoon, but they need to remember that the Oscar nominated “Black Panther” was just a Super hero from a comic.”
So true. This whole debacle just shows even more explicitly how ignorant we all are. Every race is fighting for either equality or supremacy. It’s such a game nowadays to use human history as leverage to blame white people for us ALL being eternally racist but they all forget to accept and acknowledge our history in context and how empathetic white law has been to evolve. Personally I have no tolerance of it all since I am so accepting of everyone and our history. I am positive about our future but seriously, after having to endure this BS in 2020 makes me slightly racist even though I never was in the past.
Many people would say, ‘well now you know how we feel’. Well that is BS because I am talking about 2020 not 1901. Y’all need to take responsibility for yourself TODAY and let go of the crutch that keeps you up as you look for sympathy and resolution from something NO white people today were remotely involved in. It’s called the past and that’s that. EVOLVE together.