BuzzFix: Why Racist Arguments Against 'The Little Mermaid' Don't Hold Water

There’s a reason why movies are often considered an escape from reality. Animated movies, more so. However, given the number of people who have taken an offence to the recently released teaser of Disney’s latest live action remake – ‘The Little Mermaid’ featuring – gasp – 22-year-old Halle Bailey as a black female lead, it would have us believe that perhaps some fantasies do exist in reality… except that this one clearly doesn’t.

In what could’ve been a magical two hours of suspension of disbelief – as an underwater mermaid movie rightly should be – the toxic trolls are hell-bent on “proving” the racial history of Ariel and how she is not supposed to be black. If we haven’t mentioned it already, Ariel is a mermaid. And a mermaid, wait for it, is a made-up character. Mermaids are a piece of fiction.

What is even more ridiculous is the lengths to which white supremacists have gone to prove their racial points simply because they detest and cannot digest a woman of colour in a pivotal role, previously played by a fair-skinned ‘half human’ in Disney’s 1989 adaptation.

Ariel-Ally

People took up the honourable duty to “protect” the supposedly ‘Caucasian heritage’ of Ariel owing to the Danish origins of the original author Hans Christian Andersen, generating over 1.5 million dislikes and an avalanche of derogatory comments within two days on the official trailer in YouTube, forcing the streaming service to disable the feature. Another went a step ahead and used Artificial Intelligence to replace Halle’s face with a White woman.

“Credits to our member Artificial Intelligence scientist @TenGazillioinIQ,” a tweet by a user named ‘vandalibm’ read, before the account was suspended.

Yet another account shared the video, writing, “He fixed The Little Mermaid and turned the woke actor into a ginger white girl. He says he can fix the whole move comes out with 4x A6000 in 24 hours. It’s over for wokecels.” After facing backlash, the user added that the alterations were “purely educational” and to not “misinterpret in a racist way.”

The user further said, “I am just amazed by a high-IQ friend who works with Artificial Intelligence and the stuff he can make, and wanted to show people his field of study.”

Another apologist for racism, far-right political commentator Matt Walsh backed it with science, of all things. He believes that from a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make sense for a person who lives deep in the ocean to have dark skin. But what makes perfect sense is that Ariel has a ‘best fish friend’ and takes advice from a talking crab.

“Not only should the Little Mermaid be pale, she should actually be translucent. They have no kind of pigmentation whatsoever…,” he added in his analysis. He later termed it as a joke, after being called out.

Hashtags such as #NotMyAriel and #GoWokeGoBroke also flooded social media advocating allyship with Ariel… who does not exist, unfortunately.

From a Facebook group named ‘Christians against the Little Mermaid’ to racist movie posters of ‘Da Lil Mermaid’ and Mel Gibson being cast as Martin Luther King Jr because, um, the black civil rights activist is not a real person anymore (?), the black ‘Little Mermaid’ controversy also shone light on the ever-prevalent racism even in 2022 and the unhinged absurdity of racially-motivated attacks.

Representation, LGBTQ and Hypocrisy

Aside from the fact that Ariel is NOT REAL (hope we have made it plenty clear) and the insanity of racists up in arms fearing ‘white erasure’, the film has evoked heartwarming reactions in little black girls who saw themselves in Halle onscreen, which proves that representation matters, even it happens in an animated movie.

Halle, in an interview to Variety said, “I want little girls just like me to know that they’re special and that they should be a princess in every single way.” Black parents posted reactions of their children watching in disbelief, as Halle sings ‘Part of your world’ in ‘The Little Mermaid’ trailer for the first time, leaving netizens in tears and gushing over its positive impact.

Many fans also expressed concerns over the finer details of the film’s casting. For instance, fans hoped the role of Ursula the sea witch, inspired by iconic drag queen Divine, would give space to the drag community. However, Melissa McCarthy will be playing the character.

According to several reports, the original fairy tale written by Andersen in 1837, was “a love letter addressed to a man named Edvard Collin.”

Historians and literary critics consider Andersen to be bisexual and that he wrote Ariel’s story from his own experience of otherness after Collin marries a woman. While the gatekeepers held historical accuracy as an argument against a black Ariel, Internet users unwittingly pointed out their hypocrisy as the movie is completely devoid of any gay angle.

Culture Wars

Amazon’s new ‘Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power’ didn’t go down well with fans who were indignant at Black and Asian actors in the cast, “ruining the authenticity” of J.R.R Tolkien’s world, who had never addressed his elves and hobbits as non-white. Puerto Rican actor Ismael Cruz Cordova, first person of colour to play a major character in a Lord of the Rings series, was faced with abusive attacks since being cast in the role.

Star Wars actors Moses Ingram and John Boyega, Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon in the ‘House of Dragon,’ the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel have shared their experiences of similar racist threats for being part of the respective franchises. Anna Diop who ‘dared’ to be an orange alien – Starfire in ‘Teen Titans,’ movies such as ‘The Woman King’ and the yet to be released ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ also faced backlash and threats of boycott. Irrespective of whether they take on ‘traditionally’ white roles or even original characters, black actors are subject to racist abuse nonetheless.

The widespread hatred to Halle’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other black characters in Hollywood franchises is exactly the reason why the film industry screams for more representation.

Going by the history of the cultural conflict and the messy saga, it wouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone should the upcoming Disney’s ‘Percy Jackson And The Olympians’ and the reimagined cast of Marvel’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ receive a similar treatment.

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