The depate on the new My Little Mermaid live action remake, I admit, got me a bit riled up and although I really don’t want Ariel’s skin colour changed in the live action remake, I wanted to try and change my little mermaid black to see what she looked like for fun.
I do still wish they would have made Halle Bailey Ariel’s cousin in the movie, that would have been really cool to see and would have avoided all this mess that is now dividing people. She is gorgeous and can sing so well, it sucks she is put now in a situation like this. I would SO stan diverse mermaid sisters, like they had in Pirates of the Caribbean. Or the original black mermaid in The Water Phoenix, she’s the real deal. However, I admit, I’m not living for them changing the main character’s classic looks though, like at all, for the sake of political correctness even - it’s not ok. It’s a part of her character and a part of her origin, the roots of which are entwined with Danish storytelling and book characters are just as much a part of our culture as historical figures. Or as someone else said: “This is a step backwards from representation in Disney movies. People have argued, and rightfully so that Disney is whitewashed. The solution is not to change the race of established princesses, it is to create more 3 dimensional coloured princesses. Don’t fight fire with fire.” Although her hair colour was never established, on all the book covers as well as the book description The Little Mermaid has always been pale skinned and Disney created their Ariel based on her. If this is a live action remake, then she should come to life as she is. We shouldn’t change classical heroes and heroines to create diversity, it’s insulting to those who actually are pale and grew up with Ariel and identified ourselves with her look as a little girl. It makes us equally feel erased. Especially gingers. It’s similarly repressing and unsettling to see than if the situation was reversed. We should instead push Disney and Hollywood hard to make more original characters of colour. That is something I 100% stand for and want. However, repressing any skin colour at the expense of another is not ok - whether it’s a mermaid, or a wizard or a superhero in a made up story or a historical person. They are equally part of our culture and past and it’s just not ok to change already established characters that are widely loved like this. It just pits different ethnicities against each other. Same goes for filmmakers changing black characters and gingers and Asians to white and vice versa. It’s not okay no matter from which side you look at it and we should fight against it. It shouldn’t be a crime to have white princesses or white characters in filmmaking, it’s a crime that more original character of different ethnicities are not created.
