Live-Action The Little Mermaid

[Blitzkrieg]

I have been robbed

She's a fantastic singer

She has appeared in a Broadway musical and she was even nominated for a Tony award

 

[Abudefduf]

The flamingos and palm trees and references to hurricanes suggest a Caribbean setting, for sure, not to mention the varieties of fish and other sea life that we see in the film, though there’s definitely a good case to be made for it being set in the western Mediterranean. Though even just the screenshots that Abudufdef posted look more tropical in nature.

Oh that's right, I forgot the flamingos. There are no wild flamingos in northern Europe.

 

[Motown Marvel]

I believe the wrong that is being done here is the pandering nature of the casting. Its obvious tokenization, its insulting as hell, and I'm truly shocked that most people don't realize how demeaning it is to pander to a racial group in this manner. Its like how televison shows used to have the "token black kid" in an entire town of white people. This move is just the next step up from that. Just take an existing character and make her black, that'll make em happy! As if this is what we've wanted from Hollywood this entire time. No, we want original stories that were written with black characters in mind. Don't build up a character for 30 years and hand her off to us as a token. That's pandering.

I think this definitely has some level of pandering to the current social climate which is demanding more diversity. A move like this is certainly in vogue right now. But I think another part of it is in recognition to the lack of diversity in Disney's history and attempting to do something about it. They were certainly aware of how controversial this would be, and aware of the blowback they'd get for it, possibly at the expense of box-office returns, but they did it anyway. I think calling this "tokenism" is a bit extreme though. Most token characters are shallow throwaway supporting characters, where as this film is built entirely around Ariel and her story.

But while you can question Disney's intention, you cant deny the impact of this which is going to be millions of young black girls who will now have a character they feel they can connect with in a big mainstream feature, which is exceptionally rare. Those girls aren't going to care about Disney's intentions.

Either way, we can definitely agree that Disney needs to be more creative. This series of remakes they are doing are grossly unimaginative cash grabs. I sincerely hope they start creating new diverse stories with a diverse cast of new characters.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Now if they REALLY wanted to be daring they could design their mermaids to look like the creatures in the "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" movie. Now that was different. They weren't pretty women with fish tails, they were scary looking sea monsters and probably a lot closer to what a real mermaid would look like.

That's what we have Siren for.

 

[RockSP]

Racists will say you can't cast black folks in a fantasy film that has a vaguely "medieval" setting because it's not "historically accurate" but those same racists cry when a black person is cast in a movie literally set in the Caribbean.

Even if its not in the Caribbean, it's not possible to be historically accurate with mermaids, lol.

 

[Zarex]

Whereas I agree with representation being sadly lacking, this is the wrong way to go about it. Its almost like Disney is saying..."Okay, let's make Ariel black on the live action movie. Boom! Diversity!"

Just the fact that you have to make a character black highlights the problem. The character has existed in Disney for 30 years and wasn't created or envisioned as black. Ariel was created as a young white girl and money was spent, marketing campaigns were launched, all to build the character of Ariel and make her an icon. If Disney is concerned about representation, create new characters that represent us and do the same as they did for Ariel. Don't piggyback on existing characters popularity. Don't give us hand-me-down characters. Put the same money, time and effort into building up original black characters as you have spent building up other characters. Otherwise, honestly, its backhanded representation, its tokenization, and its hurtful pandering. This isn't what we want.

P.s.: Be careful with calling characters "colored".

Ariel is not a young white girl. She is a fish person. And while it would be great if Disney put more money in original stories with casting that represented the rich diversity of our world, they are making bank on live-action animated remakes, not original stories.

I doubt Disney cast a brown skin Ariel to promote diversity. The Mouse is attempting to entice black audiences into cinemas, and none of their classic Princess tales feature a black actress (Sorry Tiana!).

Or Ms. Bailey was just better than everyone else who tried out for the role.

 

[Mad Ones]

Even if its not in the Caribbean, it's not possible to be historically accurate with mermaids, lol.

Exactly lol

 

[kaypain]

Lmao

 

[RockSP]

 

[OutOfBoose]

Science. Mermaids.

 

[jmc]

There’s this weird hypocrisy and mental gymnastics here. People can’t claim on one hand one character is fictional and we can do what we want to it, and then stand up and scream when another fictional character is altered. These movie studio don’t actually care about ‘diversity’ because we live in an era of intellectual properties not movie stars. 25-30 years ago I grew up on a diet of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Van Damme, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Steven Segal, etc, as wide spread a group of stars as you can get. These are the ones who sold movies, there was no brand.

Because of the over reliance on ‘brands’ there are no real stars anymore, and most said brands are decades old and were created when the demographics were different. The thing about creating original content? It takes time to develop. It takes years, in some cases decades to build an audience. Every race swap or gender swap piece of casting that is done further keeps us locked into a system where there is no innovation, because these studios are not interested in actually innovating, they’re interested in recycling, and that does nothing but cause frustration. Literally no-one asked for a new MiB and yet we got one anyway because ‘nostalgia’.

The reason there is backlash and arguing over this stuff, which really is nonsensical, is because Hollywood is stuck in an ‘IP’ world. Occasionally some slips through the crack like A Quiet Place, but more often than not their resources are going to things people recognise because it’s easy. They don’t genuinely care about the colour of Ariel’s skin, they don’t care what anyone’s ethnicity is, they only care about money. If they genuinely gave a **** about diversifying their characters they would have made a live action movie with Tiana, because after all this is said and done the Ariel people will know and remember won’t be this one, it will be the one who’s been an icon of the studio for the past 30 years. Like every other live action Disney movie, people will watch it and move on with their lives, still remembering the animated movies as being superior.

 

[writer0327]

Ariel is not a young white girl. She is a fish person. And while it would be great if Disney put more money in original stories with casting that represented the rich diversity of our world, they are making bank on live-action animated remakes, not original stories.

I doubt Disney cast a brown skin Ariel to promote diversity. The Mouse is attempting to entice black audiences into cinemas, and none of their classic Princess tales feature a black actress (Sorry Tiana!).

Or Ms. Bailey was just better than everyone else who tried out for the role.

I agree, I am just giving them a little benefit of the doubt. This is complete and utter pandering to black audiences.

They made bank on Frozen, Moana, Wreck It Ralph, and Zootopia. So they can still make money on original, non-Pixar animated films and give us new diverse characters at the same time.

 

[kaypain]

There’s this weird hypocrisy and mental gymnastics here. People can’t claim on one hand one character is fictional and we can do what we want to it, and then stand up and scream when another fictional character is altered. These movie studio don’t actually care about ‘diversity’ because we live in an era of intellectual properties not movie stars. 25-30 years ago I grew up on a diet of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Van Damme, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Steven Segal, etc, as wide spread a group of stars as you can get. These are the ones who sold movies, there was no brand.

Because of the over reliance on ‘brands’ there are no real stars anymore, and most said brands are decades old and were created when the demographics were different. The thing about creating original content? It takes time to develop. It takes years, in some cases decades to build an audience. Every race swap or gender swap piece of casting that is done further keeps us locked into a system where there is no innovation, because these studios are not interested in actually innovating, they’re interested in recycling, and that does nothing but cause frustration. Literally no-one asked for a new MiB and yet we got one anyway because ‘nostalgia’.

The reason there is backlash and arguing over this stuff, which really is nonsensical, is because Hollywood is stuck in an ‘IP’ world. Occasionally some slips through the crack like A Quiet Place, but more often than not their resources are going to things people recognise because it’s easy. They don’t genuinely care about the colour of Ariel’s skin, they don’t care what anyone’s ethnicity is, they only care about money. If they genuinely gave a **** about diversifying their characters they would have made a live action movie with Tiana, because after all this is said and done the Ariel people will know and remember won’t be this one, it will be the one who’s been an icon of the studio for the past 30 years. Like every other live action Disney movie, people will watch it and move on with their lives, still remembering the animated movies as being superior.

I dont want to hear it

 

[jmc]

And means nothing to what I wrote, lol.

 

[writer0327]

I think this definitely has some level of pandering to the current social climate which is demanding more diversity. A move like this is certainly in vogue right now. But I think another part of it is in recognition to the lack of diversity in Disney's history and attempting to do something about it. They were certainly aware of how controversial this would be, and aware of the blowback they'd get for it, possibly at the expense of box-office returns, but they did it anyway. I think calling this "tokenism" is a bit extreme though. Most token characters are shallow throwaway supporting characters, where as this film is built entirely around Ariel and her story.

But while you can question Disney's intention, you cant deny the impact of this which is going to be millions of young black girls who will now have a character they feel they can connect with in a big mainstream feature, which is exceptionally rare. Those girls aren't going to care about Disney's intentions.

Either way, we can definitely agree that Disney needs to be more creative. This series of remakes they are doing are grossly unimaginative cash grabs. I sincerely hope they start creating new diverse stories with a diverse cast of new characters.

Recognizing the lack of diversity is good, but its just so lazy and sad to do it this way, and I have a feeling this lazy effort is going to replace what they should actually be doing, which is creating a new black princess. There's an old African folktale about a princess who lost her hair. Tons of possibilities with that. Or what about a movie about Cleopatra or Nefertiti?

You are correct, young black girls don't have many iconic mainstream movie characters to connect with. All the more reason to create them, because face it, the animated Ariel will still be the iconic Ariel after this film is done. Disney should use this time, money, and effort to expand the extremely small list of original black characters instead of repurposing an old one for an easy cash grab and pandering to the social climate.

 

[jmc]

Honestly, Netflix is probably going to be the future for this type of thing, because of the shear amount of content they are creating. Anyone can log onto Netflix and be overwhelmed with the amount of films and television from every corner of the planet, and that's only ever going to increase. The issue is whether they can turn any of these originals into something that genuinely impacts the pop culture landscape. So far Netflix has produced a lot of content that is well liked, and a lot of content that is a conversation starter around the office, Black Mirror, Orange is the New Black, etc, but nothing so far as to be influential enough to have produced merchandise or have people cosplay at cons or have artists create fan art. What Netflix is lacking is something that comes across as mythological, and that goes for the internet in general. The closest we have to a modern myth that's come from the internet is probably Slender Man. We've got all this creative talent globally, all these concepts they are coming up with, and yet no-one has figured out a way to coalesce their ideas into something bigger.

 

[chaseter]

SJWs: ScarJo should be fired. Major should be a Japanese character. This is an outrage. This is whitewashing.

Internet: Uh, Major is a cyborg with no ethnicity. She only has white skin and black hair. There are no specific ethnicity defining characteristics.

SJWs: racist

.........

SJWs: Hellboy is being whitewashed, Ed Skrein should quit. Ben Daimio is Asian in the comics so this is wrong.

Internet: Ok, agree on the second part.

SJWs: Damn right

........

Internet: Uh, Ariel is white with red hair. This isn’t like the source material.

SJWs: Who cares about the source material? Stop being a racist.

........

SJWs: Ridley Scott is whitewashing Exodus. He should cast actual Egyptians. This is historically inaccurate and racist. OH...but have you seen Hamilton!? The cast is so diverse!

 

[Motown Marvel]

Recognizing the lack of diversity is good, but its just so lazy and sad to do it this way, and I have a feeling this lazy effort is going to replace what they should actually be doing, which is creating a new black princess. There's an old African folktale about a princess who lost her hair. Tons of possibilities with that. Or what about a movie about Cleopatra or Nefertiti?

You are correct, young black girls don't have many iconic mainstream movie characters to connect with. All the more reason to create them, because face it, the animated Ariel will still be the iconic Ariel after this film is done. Disney should use this time, money, and effort to expand the extremely small list of original black characters instead of repurposing an old one for an easy cash grab and pandering to the social climate.

I can't disagree with any of that. The creative laziness is particularly shameful coming from Disney, who likes to champion themselves as "the house of ideas".

 

[Motown Marvel]

SJWs: ScarJo should be fired. Major should be a Japanese character. This is an outrage. This is whitewashing.

Internet: Uh, Major is a cyborg with no ethnicity. She only has white skin and black hair. There are no specific ethnicity defining characteristics.

SJWs: racist

.........

SJWs: Hellboy is being whitewashed, Ed Skrein should quit. Ben Daimio is Asian in the comics so this is wrong.

Internet: Ok, agree on the second part.

SJWs: Damn right

........

Internet: Uh, Ariel is white with red hair. This isn’t like the source material.

SJWs: Who cares about the source material? Stop being a racist.

........

SJWs: Ridley Scott is whitewashing Exodus. He should cast actual Egyptians. This is historically inaccurate and racist. OH...but have you seen Hamilton!? The cast is so diverse!

Reality: A white American actor is cast in a Japanese story all the while there are a plethora of qualified, but underrepresented, Japanese actors available for the part.

.........

Reality: An Asian character was being whitewashed and the filmmakers rightfully recognized the error, owned it, and corrected it. Good for them.

.........

Reality: A fictional species in a fictional story where race and culture have no bearing on the product is cast by a perfectly qualified actor and some sensitive people on Twitter get big-mad because her skin happens to be melinated.

.........

Reality: A really really really really bad film recounting a classic Egyptian tale is lead by a cast of white people as if there are no qualified Egyptian actors available for the central roles resulting in yet another Hollywood instance of white voices telling the stories of non-white cultures.

But sure, go ahead and continue distorting reality so you can be comfortable with your racial ignorance.

 

[LvtLeeTDK]

So you're saying that it's ok to cast a black to play Ariel, but it's not ok to cast a white to play Tiana ? While nothing suggest that Ariel is white and Tiana is black ? How can that be called equal ?

I get it, there's not many black princess for the girls to connect to. So you know what to do ? Create an original one ! Like they did with Tiana, an original, refreshing and interesting story. Make a new franchise. It's not that hard after all. And it's the right way, not this lazy way of casting just for the sake of diversity.

PS: Major should absolutely be played by an Asian. On the other hand something like Fullmetal Alchemist should have an entire Europian cast, except for the Xing people, who whould be Asian.

 

[Motown Marvel]

So you're saying that it's ok to cast a black to play Ariel, but it's not ok to cast a white to play Tiana ? While nothing suggest that Ariel is white and Tiana is black ? How can that be called equal ?

I get it, there's not many black princess for the girls to connect to. So you know what to do ? Create an original one ! Like they did with Tiana, an original, refreshing and interesting story. Make a new franchise. It's not that hard after all. And it's the right way, not this lazy way of casting just for the sake of diversity.

PS: Major should absolutely be played by an Asian. On the other hand something like Fullmetal Alchemist should have an entire Europian cast, except for the Xing people, who whould be Asian.

Because it has as much to do with equity as it does with equality.

And as I've stated in this thread before, I would very much prefer them to create new characters. But while that would be preferable, it still doesn't make this casting choice wrong.

 

[LvtLeeTDK]

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying that while it's true there are racists, not everyone (who is against this casting choice) should be deemed "racist".

 

[Sithborg]

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying that while it's true there are racists, not everyone (who is against this casting choice) should be deemed "racist".

No, but the line is very thin. Basically, if you are using "white history" type arguments, you should really stop.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying that while it's true there are racists, not everyone (who is against this casting choice) should be deemed "racist".

It’s possible to say something racist and no be racist.

You can say something mean and ugly about someone and still be someone people consider aa nice. You don’t have to be a vile person in every respect.


Maybe, in a a role that requires singing and acting... a black girl just won? Nothing about brands or nostalgia or SJW.

She auditioned and won.


The reaction of people to a simple fact like she was just good is what is the problem.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

There’s this weird hypocrisy and mental gymnastics here. People can’t claim on one hand one character is fictional and we can do what we want to it, and then stand up and scream when another fictional character is altered. These movie studio don’t actually care about ‘diversity’ because we live in an era of intellectual properties not movie stars. 25-30 years ago I grew up on a diet of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Van Damme, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Steven Segal, etc, as wide spread a group of stars as you can get. These are the ones who sold movies, there was no brand.

Because of the over reliance on ‘brands’ there are no real stars anymore, and most said brands are decades old and were created when the demographics were different. The thing about creating original content? It takes time to develop. It takes years, in some cases decades to build an audience. Every race swap or gender swap piece of casting that is done further keeps us locked into a system where there is no innovation, because these studios are not interested in actually innovating, they’re interested in recycling, and that does nothing but cause frustration. Literally no-one asked for a new MiB and yet we got one anyway because ‘nostalgia’.

The reason there is backlash and arguing over this stuff, which really is nonsensical, is because Hollywood is stuck in an ‘IP’ world. Occasionally some slips through the crack like A Quiet Place, but more often than not their resources are going to things people recognise because it’s easy. They don’t genuinely care about the colour of Ariel’s skin, they don’t care what anyone’s ethnicity is, they only care about money. If they genuinely gave a **** about diversifying their characters they would have made a live action movie with Tiana, because after all this is said and done the Ariel people will know and remember won’t be this one, it will be the one who’s been an icon of the studio for the past 30 years. Like every other live action Disney movie, people will watch it and move on with their lives, still remembering the animated movies as being superior.

There's a weird irony to this post that it doesn't seem to full connect the points that it's making. By that I mean, it states the trends but not their consequences.

People are consuming stuff differently now, and in ways we haven't grasped yet.

None of the stars you mentioned growing up to mean much of anything to someone born after 2000. Van Damme? Banderas? Jet Li? Despite the fact a lot of what came after them, like the Rock or Bourne franchise owe a lot to what they did in the 80s and 90s it doesn't matter to younger generations.

The brands argument your making is right, but again we haven't really seen what the impact is this. The TMNT brand has been in continual production since the 80s but my nephew doesn't know or care about the version I grew up with and how much his version relies on it. He has just absorbed his version as the definitive TMNT. Same with BTAS and The Dark Knight.

While us oldheads will put our noses up to defend Mark Hamill as the best Joker. Ledger's live action or Phoenix's version will leave their mark on a newer generation the way ours did. This Little Mermaid, might suck for all kinds of reasons. Or it might just become the standard version to the 2010 children who eventually are making the future !00 best Disney movies and songs on youtube.