Controversies still arise behind a black Little Mermaid, but why? 

In light of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” making its return to cinemas with a modern twist, I wanted to discuss the controversies behind it, and why people are up in flames over a princess movie. 

Disney has decided to remake their popular The Little Mermaid film, but with singer Halle Bailey as Ariel, which is rubbing many fans the wrong way. Traditionally The Little Mermaid has always been a white, red-haired young lady who longed for a chance at a normal life in the real world, as opposed to her life as a mermaid underwater. Well, the new Ariel certainly has the same backstory, but a much different look. Halle Bailey is a brown-skinned black woman with locks of hair down her back. 

The news hit the blogs of this major change to Ariel in 2019, and people haven’t stopped dragging poor Halle since, with the hashtag of #NOTMYARIEL trending on  Twitter and surfacing on other platforms. If you guessed that the comments were racially motivated, you guessed right. There’s no doubt about Halle having the musical talents as well as acting skills to play the role of The Little Mermaid, but the social media outrage makes you wonder if we’ve done any real work on addressing racial biases in America. 

Should Ariel be portrayed as a black woman when every other book or movie prior has been a white Ariel? This is a fair question to ask. On the flip side, many white actors were cast in a movie as a person of color, and the critics sat with their tails between their legs and let Hollywood do Hollywood. To play devil’s advocate, why is a fictional character being portrayed as a black woman more controversial than Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl in “A Mighty Heart”, or Ben Affleck as Antonio J. Mendez in “Argo”, both based on true stories? The double standards are evident, nonetheless, Hollywood has sparked a conversation among woke Gen-Z and millennials about whether this cultural transition in Ariel is genuine or performative.