#NotMyAriel trends after black actress was cast to play the Little Mermaid

[Didymus 32,703]

10 hours ago, Borislshere said:

It’s so funny seeing people get upset “I want redhead representation!!” Do people not realize no one is born with Ariel red hair?? Regardless of whoever it was they chose to play the role (yes, ginger actresses included) they would’ve made them wear a wig. Halle WILL wear a wig.

Good point

[StrawberryBlond 13,263]

18 hours ago, Borislshere said:

It’s so funny seeing people get upset “I want redhead representation!!” Do people not realize no one is born with Ariel red hair?? Regardless of whoever it was they chose to play the role (yes, ginger actresses included) they would’ve made them wear a wig. Halle WILL wear a wig.

I've already been over this. Ariel's hair is likely that unnatural shade because that's simply how red hair was depicted in animation back then, even in "real" cartoon characters. It's odd because they gave Jessica Rabbit a natural shade the year before this movie came out but animation choices can be weird that way. I thought everyone realised it's just the way red hair was animated back then, no evidence to say it's supposed to be a magical, unnatural shade. And actually, before the actress was revealed, I wondered if they were going to consider a redhaired actress and let her keep her natural shade to depict realism this time, which was totally a valid idea. But why are you so sure that she will wear a wig? We've had no confirmation and this is the part is bugging me the most because her hair is the most iconic thing about her and we need to know if she'll have it because that's going to kill off a big part of the hate campaign if so. A black actress has left a big question mark over the hair colour because don't tell me that Disney won't be tempted to go for the full diverse treatment and allow her to have not only black hair but with a natural black hairstyle, meaning not only will Ariel's hair colour be different but maybe even style and consistency too. Long, red, wavy hair is the only thing that will stand a chance of making me accept this casting choice and I'll be mad if we don't get that.

So, my question is, if she doesn't have red hair but has natural black hair and style, what will be your reaction then? Just hypothetical at this point. If she has red hair, I'll obviously take it all back, but we don't know yet.

17 hours ago, M Monstre said:

If the movie is genuinely a bad movie (regardless of the race of the actress), then it'll just be a bad movie. What you stated could be used for just about any movie with any cast about any subject matter. 

As for future "race swapping" Disney movies...I think it will all depend on the movie. Like I've said before in our discussion, I believe that there are legitimate reasons for it being perfectly reasonable and acceptable to want to switch up Ariel's race. Other characters, not so much. 

Ok, you just made it sound as if the race change doesn't matter so long as the story's good, therefore, implying that if the story wasn't good, suddenly the race change does matter. I knew that's probably not what you meant, but I just wanted to check.

I'm just talking about race swapping originally white characters when I said this. I don't think Disney would dare attempt whitewashing in this day and age. I just mean that if this movie is a huge success with not just Ariel being black but a further black cast too (this also means Triton and her sisters will have to be black too and they may even race swap Eric), it'll send the message to Disney that we want more POC replacing white characters in the future. Not everyone's going to like further beloved classics changed and we don't want to go through this hate campaign every time. And I think this is going to be confusing for merchandising when the animation depictions sold in the Disney store look different than the character currently on the big screen and so on. There will be a grand mismatch going on. But if they don't do something similar again, it'll look like Disney made a regretted experiment and decided to "go back to being white supremacist again" or something like that. It's just a big Pandora's box that they should never have opened.

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8 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Ok, you just made it sound as if the race change doesn't matter so long as the story's good, therefore, implying that if the story wasn't good, suddenly the race change does matter. I knew that's probably not what you meant, but I just wanted to check.

I'm just talking about race swapping originally white characters when I said this. I don't think Disney would dare attempt whitewashing in this day and age. I just mean that if this movie is a huge success with not just Ariel being black but a further black cast too (this also means Triton and her sisters will have to be black too and they may even race swap Eric), it'll send the message to Disney that we want more POC replacing white characters in the future. Not everyone's going to like further beloved classics changed and we don't want to go through this hate campaign every time. And I think this is going to be confusing for merchandising when the animation depictions sold in the Disney store look different than the character currently on the big screen and so on. There will be a grand mismatch going on. But if they don't do something similar again, it'll look like Disney made a regretted experiment and decided to "go back to being white supremacist again" or something like that. It's just a big Pandora's box that they should never have opened.

What I meant was that a story will be good or bad regardless of a race change. If the story's good, then racebending the character won't matter in the end, likewise if a story's bad, then racebending the character also won't necessarily have an impact on that either. A story is more than just the race of the character/actor.

As for Disney potentially replacing white characters with POC, like I've stated already, it depends on the story. The Little Mermaid is a story where it's reasonable to want to change the race of the actor. Again, you cannot do that with characters like Mulan, Jasmine, Merida, Moana, etc. because those characters are heavily defined by their heritage, ethnicity, and nationality. Ariel is a mermaid from the sea. Regardless of where Eric and the other people in the movie are from, those things are interchangeable. Eric' nationality and ethnicity don't play a huge role in the story (unlike the Disney princesses I just mentioned).

This isn't as slippery of a slope as you say it will be. Disney wouldn't just change every princesses's ethnicity just for the fun of it. 

[StrawberryBlond 13,263]

3 hours ago, M Monstre said:

What I meant was that a story will be good or bad regardless of a race change. If the story's good, then racebending the character won't matter in the end, likewise if a story's bad, then racebending the character also won't necessarily have an impact on that either. A story is more than just the race of the character/actor.

As for Disney potentially replacing white characters with POC, like I've stated already, it depends on the story. The Little Mermaid is a story where it's reasonable to want to change the race of the actor. Again, you cannot do that with characters like Mulan, Jasmine, Merida, Moana, etc. because those characters are heavily defined by their heritage, ethnicity, and nationality. Ariel is a mermaid from the sea. Regardless of where Eric and the other people in the movie are from, those things are interchangeable. Eric' nationality and ethnicity don't play a huge role in the story (unlike the Disney princesses I just mentioned).

This isn't as slippery of a slope as you say it will be. Disney wouldn't just change every princesses's ethnicity just for the fun of it. 

It wouldn't be for "the fun of it," but because it would be perceived as race swapping adaptions make money and that the public want this to happen again because it's now seen as the right thing to do with modern day adaptions.

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7 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

It wouldn't be for "the fun of it," but because it would be perceived as race swapping adaptions make money and that the public want this to happen again because it's now seen as the right thing to do with modern day adaptions.

They also see that race swapping is causing a lot of controversy. Even if Disney wants to make a lot of money, they also don't want to risk hurting their brand. if this becomes successful, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll race swap again in the future. 

[StrawberryBlond 13,263]

5 minutes ago, M Monstre said:

They also see that race swapping is causing a lot of controversy. Even if Disney wants to make a lot of money, they also don't want to risk hurting their brand. if this becomes successful, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll race swap again in the future. 

I sometimes wonder if they've deliberately engineered the controversy, though. People are talking about it far more than if they'd chosen a white girl. Check out the amount of YouTube videos alone from people talking about this topic. People will go to watch it because they like the change and the detractors may well go to see it in the hope of proving their point that it was a mistake. Either way, Disney's raking it in. It's well known that businesses can stir up controversy just to get people talking, even if they remove the offending product or apologise. There's still plenty of adaptions of non-white protagonists that they can use for a while so people won't notice it happen every single time but it may well happen some years down the line. If there's one thing for sure, it's the media frequently take away the wrong message from successful products. It's usually a case of "people like them, let's make more of them."

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2 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I sometimes wonder if they've deliberately engineered the controversy, though. People are talking about it far more than if they'd chosen a white girl. Check out the amount of YouTube videos alone from people talking about this topic. People will go to watch it because they like the change and the detractors may well go to see it in the hope of proving their point that it was a mistake. Either way, Disney's raking it in. It's well known that businesses can stir up controversy just to get people talking, even if they remove the offending product or apologise. There's still plenty of adaptions of non-white protagonists that they can use for a while so people won't notice it happen every single time but it may well happen some years down the line. If there's one thing for sure, it's the media frequently take away the wrong message from successful products. It's usually a case of "people like them, let's make more of them."

I'm sure that tehy knew that people would be upset over this casting, but I don't think they expected it to be at the level at which it is right now. I denounce the notion that "any publicity is good publicity". Sure, even if people/the media are talking about it, that doesn't ensure that it's "all good and dandy". 

And while we could talk ad nauseam about whether or not this'll make Disney think that having a POC replace a traditionally white character is good, we first have to see how this movie will do. Because at the end of the day, if it flops, then this dicussion about whether or not they'd do more race swaps is pointless. 

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On 7/5/2019 at 1:58 PM, StrawberryBlond said:

Even though I don't support this casting, I think petitioning to fire her is too far. But that's precisely why I don't think diversity casting is the best idea. It's not fair on the actors to be hated on because the film studio wanted to appeal to the woke crowd who probably aren't even fans of the original but just want to give themselves a pat on the back for being their interpretation of progressive. Just give the public what they want and there wouldn't be these hate campaigns against innocent actors. Why these studios don't have this foresight is beyond me.

My wife is black and ironically she doesn't like this idea either cuz she was a fan of little mermaid the way she was

 

She loves Disney and hates changes on them so it's not even just about changing the race but she hates all changes

 

But I don't see the issue. It can be remade with a different spin

 

Now if it was based on a true story of a white woman rather than a make belief story, I can see why some individuals might have an issue

 

Tho even in that circumstance I don't get the big issue... No one will portray someone else physically fully accurate so I don't get why skin colour suddenly has to be a much bigger issue tbh

[StrawberryBlond 13,263]

53 minutes ago, M Monstre said:

I'm sure that tehy knew that people would be upset over this casting, but I don't think they expected it to be at the level at which it is right now. I denounce the notion that "any publicity is good publicity". Sure, even if people/the media are talking about it, that doesn't ensure that it's "all good and dandy". 

And while we could talk ad nauseam about whether or not this'll make Disney think that having a POC replace a traditionally white character is good, we first have to see how this movie will do. Because at the end of the day, if it flops, then this dicussion about whether or not they'd do more race swaps is pointless. 

There's no way they'll change the actress, no matter what, so it's like they thought they'd be as well taking a risk for the controversy coin.

Yes, it'll all depend on how successful it actually is. But again, I fear the wrong message will be taken from it. The right one (provided it's basically the same story and story with the only difference being Halle) is "we don't want further race swaps." But they may interpret it as "we didn't like Little Mermaid enough to begin with to warrant a remake." If the second meaning is taken, expect race swaps to continue. And I'll especially hate if she does have red hair and it flops will be interpreted as "we don't want to see redhaired characters in film."

40 minutes ago, Economy said:

My wife is black and ironically she doesn't like this idea either cuz she was a fan of little mermaid the way she was

 

She loves Disney and hates changes on them so it's not even just about changing the race but she hates all changes

 

But I don't see the issue. It can be remade with a different spin

 

Now if it was based on a true story of a white woman rather than a make belief story, I can see why some individuals might have an issue

 

Tho even in that circumstance I don't get the big issue... No one will portray someone else physically fully accurate so I don't get why skin colour suddenly has to be a much bigger issue tbh

It's not just skin colour, it's the entire package. She's white with blue eyes and red hair, which is such a unique combination and made her stand out among all the other princesses, especially at the time she was created. For these reasons, her appearance has become especially iconic, so it's like changing a respected person in a docu film or something. And most importantly, she's been a huge icon for redheads, being for a generation of us millenial girls, the first redhead they ever saw depicted onscreen, the first girl who looked like them. She became a big reason behind why a lot of us were able to accept our natural appearance when the rest of the world were making us feel like we were too different or ugly. Because she did that for me, she's always the princess I've felt the strongest connection to and I wanted to see the live action depiction of her to give me the nostalgia and vindication for that lost little girl. In a world where redheads have been erased by Hollywood so many times (I literally just saw a graphic depicting 17 times, including this one, that Hollywood have substituted a red haired character with someone of a different hair colour and usually, race as well), I wanted to see a beautiful redhead held up as amazing from Disney, the biggest movie industry. I want this to be for a new generation of redhaired girls what it was for me. Little Mermaid will probably never get remade again, so we'll never get the depiction of ourselves that every other live Disney adaption gave. I don't get why some people can't understand why, while representation does matter, it must be done at the appropriate time and when its your piece of representation to take.

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5 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

There's no way they'll change the actress, no matter what, so it's like they thought they'd be as well taking a risk for the controversy coin.

Yes, it'll all depend on how successful it actually is. But again, I fear the wrong message will be taken from it. The right one (provided it's basically the same story and story with the only difference being Halle) is "we don't want further race swaps." But they may interpret it as "we didn't like Little Mermaid enough to begin with to warrant a remake." If the second meaning is taken, expect race swaps to continue. And I'll especially hate if she does have red hair and it flops will be interpreted as "we don't want to see redhaired characters in film."

And you may be right, but what I'm also saying is that you're just making assumptions. Sure, they could interpret it as "Oh, this movie did well, so let's continue to race swap actors/actresses", I just don't think they'll necessarily see it that way. Even with the added "We didn't like the Little Mermaid enough to begin with to warrant a remake", how does that necessarily translate into them continuing to race swap actors? All that literally says is that people didn't want the Little Mermaid to be made in the first place, regardless of the actress's skin color. 

[StrawberryBlond 13,263]

14 minutes ago, M Monstre said:

And you may be right, but what I'm also saying is that you're just making assumptions. Sure, they could interpret it as "Oh, this movie did well, so let's continue to race swap actors/actresses", I just don't think they'll necessarily see it that way. Even with the added "We didn't like the Little Mermaid enough to begin with to warrant a remake", how does that necessarily translate into them continuing to race swap actors? All that literally says is that people didn't want the Little Mermaid to be made in the first place, regardless of the actress's skin color. 

Because they're disregarding the real reason people switched off and think it must be something else, hence, they won't see race swapping as the reason and continue to do it. Remember that we're trained in modern society to just avoid the touchy subject of race and sweep any problems under the rug. It's all very well telling people to send the message with their wallet but we don't leave a reason as to why we don't see a movie so the company usually takes away the wrong message. In this case, it's bad news all round for fans of the original depiction - a success means the original gets thrown under the bus and more race swaps in future, a flop means no more Little Mermaid endorsed material again.

[Reality 65,699]

4 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Because they're disregarding the real reason people switched off and think it must be something else, hence, they won't see race swapping as the reason and continue to do it. Remember that we're trained in modern society to just avoid the touchy subject of race and sweep any problems under the rug. It's all very well telling people to send the message with their wallet but we don't leave a reason as to why we don't see a movie so the company usually takes away the wrong message. In this case, it's bad news all round for fans of the original depiction - a success means the original gets thrown under the bus and more race swaps in future, a flop means no more Little Mermaid endorsed material again.

Again, you're only assuming certain take aways that Disney will have. I've said it numerous times already, but whether the movie is good or not isn't dependent upon the actor's race, nor will it necessarily mean that Disney will only see  race swaps as the reason the movie did well.

If it's a success, then it's a success. That doesn't mean that now they're going to be like "Let's make Cindarella Asian!", "Let's make Moana white!", "Let's make Belle Latina!", etc., etc.  If it flops, then that doesn't necessarily mean that it was because of the actress's skin color.

There are a multitude of factors that go into whether or not a movie will succeed or not. It's not all black and white (no pun intended). 

[Xardas 1,573]

On 7/5/2019 at 7:49 PM, PlastiscGuy said:

Imagine being pressed by a Disney movie! 

Not for the first time when it comes to me

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1 hour ago, StrawberryBlond said:

There's no way they'll change the actress, no matter what, so it's like they thought they'd be as well taking a risk for the controversy coin.

Yes, it'll all depend on how successful it actually is. But again, I fear the wrong message will be taken from it. The right one (provided it's basically the same story and story with the only difference being Halle) is "we don't want further race swaps." But they may interpret it as "we didn't like Little Mermaid enough to begin with to warrant a remake." If the second meaning is taken, expect race swaps to continue. And I'll especially hate if she does have red hair and it flops will be interpreted as "we don't want to see redhaired characters in film."

It's not just skin colour, it's the entire package. She's white with blue eyes and red hair, which is such a unique combination and made her stand out among all the other princesses, especially at the time she was created. For these reasons, her appearance has become especially iconic, so it's like changing a respected person in a docu film or something. And most importantly, she's been a huge icon for redheads, being for a generation of us millenial girls, the first redhead they ever saw depicted onscreen, the first girl who looked like them. She became a big reason behind why a lot of us were able to accept our natural appearance when the rest of the world were making us feel like we were too different or ugly. Because she did that for me, she's always the princess I've felt the strongest connection to and I wanted to see the live action depiction of her to give me the nostalgia and vindication for that lost little girl. In a world where redheads have been erased by Hollywood so many times (I literally just saw a graphic depicting 17 times, including this one, that Hollywood have substituted a red haired character with someone of a different hair colour and usually, race as well), I wanted to see a beautiful redhead held up as amazing from Disney, the biggest movie industry. I want this to be for a new generation of redhaired girls what it was for me. Little Mermaid will probably never get remade again, so we'll never get the depiction of ourselves that every other live Disney adaption gave. I don't get why some people can't understand why, while representation does matter, it must be done at the appropriate time and when its your piece of representation to take.

Red hair is my fav colour tbh on a girl

 

That's why I loved MJ on spider man in part. Found her really attractive

 

Captain Janeways hair in star Trek Voyager for me was also iconic. Although it was more brown than red tbh but depending on the lighting sometimes it looked kinda red and I loved it

 

I don't like ginger or red on males tho. At the risk of sounding mean, I find Ed Sheeran ugly AF

[pwcca 42]

I can't see the uproar. If she has the talent to do the job, why not let her? It's just a bloody movie about a totally fictional character. I'm not a great lover of this new trend of making live-action remakes of Disney classics, but I'm sure she will bring a lot into the role and make it a success. Besides, if those assholes doing all the complaining really wanted to get the story 100% accurate, why not cast a Danish actor, and have the film entirely spoken in Danish? LOL