You’ve probably heard that there’s going to be a live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid”. Not all of the interest is positive and most of the reactions to the film so far have targeted lead actress Halle Bailey, who is black, for playing Ariel. Many people are deeply offended by this, but there’s no reason Ariel couldn’t be black. There’s no historical accuracy to live up to here. Ariel is a fish person. Mermaids do not actually exist. Some people just need to chill and stop being racist.
Josh Gad FTW.
The1_SweetPete,
If the dark-skinned mermaid is from the Ivory Coast, she is not African-American. She’s African.
To be more specific, Ivorian.
That is, until she gets her U.S. citizenship…
Tell me you wouldn’t watch Mel Gibson playing Martin Luther King!
The problem isn’t the color; it’s the “reimagining.” Make up new things! Stop with the endless rehashing, remaking, regurgitating. Be creative.
Yes, that’s harder. But it’s a lot less likely to cause pointless blowback than gender-swapping heroes or race-swapping cherished childhood memories. Then again, if any of these people had a creative bone in their bodies, they wouldn’t require “controversy” to sell their stupid product. The content would be sufficient.
RIP, Walt Disney.
A Mel Gibson Martin Luther King is probably the best Rosh Hashanah meme anyone could come up with!
Sirenomelia, also called mermaid syndrome, is a rare congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together, giving the appearance of a mermaid’s tail, hence the nickname.
Wikipedia ! Do you read it ?
“Blackwashing” doesn’t make it better. It only draws attention to people who are racist. People who would call the same thing as “whitewashing”. But, of course, they lean on their blame & excuses, so their “appropriation” couldn’t possibly be racist or offensive. They deal with the pushback by calling people names. Expect the same childish behavior continue.
If someone made a remake of the Matrix where they cast a white person to play Morpheus, would you all be saying, “Hey, he’s a fictional character! It doesn’t matter what color he is!” Or would you be saying that this was racism? ESPECIALLY if the producers said that they did this specifically because they felt there was too much diversity in the original cast and they wanted to make it all white.
I have no problem with black characters in movies. I have a problem with people changing a white character to a black character for explicitly racial reasons.
When I heard Halle Berry was playing Ariel, I thought “Why is someone so old being cast?”
I am happy to say I knew nothing about this outrage or this new movie until just now. I feel like I am living my life correctly right now other than the fact that I now know about it which I wish I didn’t. Not because I have a problem with it more because I am working towards not knowing things that are happening right now.
maybe zendaya?
Hans Christian Andersen was a white man. When he wrote the story, you can bet he wasn’t thinking of a darned dharhkie in the leading role. If black people want their own stories, they NEED TO WRITE THEM. Instead, as they accuse whites of cultural appropriation, they work their big butts off to appropriate ours, and the liberals applaud it as they censor those of us who are sick of it and who speak directly. Black folks … make your own stuff up, if you’re smart enough.
It never ceases to amaze me the need for Americans to maintain the borders of the race war! I mean…seriously???? I am a Latina woman living in Europe and I keep forgetting that I am black. That’s because people around me seem to forget it too. Where I grew up and here where I live now, people care more about personal background to decide if there can be affinity or not. The amount of melanin in the skin is as relevant as the inches of the nose or the shape of the toenails. Dear Americans (those with a brain the same size as your eyes) your past of traumas and excesses in your war of races is undeniable, but you will have as many excesses and traumas in your future as you decide. With less ignorance you live more lightly on a daily basis and you live experiences with colored people that give meaning to sad lives. The reality is that amazing people are like the pills you need to get in and out of bed: they come in all colors.
This race obsession is simply the dumbest, shallowest, most meaningless things engulfing public discourse. The color of anyone’s skin has less to do with what kind of people they are than the color of their socks.
Stop picking at that scab or it’ll never heal.
“Hans Christian Andersen was a white man. When he wrote the story, you can bet he wasn’t thinking of a darned dharhkie in the leading role.”
HA HA HA!!!! Disney changed the entire story in the first version that they did. But that didn’t get you all worked up, did it? Grow up.
Why don’t black people just create their own movies with their own characters?
As a white person, it tickles me to no end to see other white people go off the rails about a fictional character (also a hybrid human-fish… figure that one out) because it’s just so much fun to see. Listening to a white boy/girl cry about how the new Ariel ruined their childhood memories points to one irrefutable fact: their childhoods must have really sucked if changing the skin color of a cartoon character wrecks their lives. I want to tell these whining white folk: Grow the f**k up already.
Let’s go ahead and make Tiana from the Princess and the Frog white, then. 😂
The reason why some whites are getting mad is because this is seen as an attack on the heritage, traditions, and folklore of European peoples. If y’all can’t relate, imagine if we took Shen Yun and filled it with non-Asians, or we took African folklore and tales such as “The Cheetah and the Lazy Hunter – A Zulu Story” and we made the characters in the story white or some other race. I bet you a million bucks so many blacks would be sooooo friggin mad about that! Trust me, if you think it’s okay to change the traditions, heritage, and folklore of one people, not only are you being insensitive to that culture, you are providing arguments in support of it being done to the traditions and folklore of all the other races, ethnicities, and cultures, too. Why are Moana and Maui Hawaian? Why not just make them white instead? If you find yourself getting angry or upset by that idea but you argued in support of European folktales including other races, well then, congratulations! You’re a hypocrite.
If Hollywood has any ‘original’ ideas these remakes would be unnecessary. Also, see the Egyptian reaction to the movie.
Whoops, sorry! I thought we were crying about Cleopatra. I can’t keep the outrage of the moment straight anymore. Of course children of every color ought to have positive role models to relate to & be inspired by, but come up with an original idea, would you? These retreads seem like tired ‘hand me downs ‘ in my opinion. Kids deserve better.
won’t ya look at that …….. it’s snowing again