The casting that shook up life under the sea
Well, seeing that I’m pretty new to the blogging game, I think it’s best that my first post covers a completely non-controversial recent event: The Little Mermaid casting!
Seriously though, let’s talk about it (even though everyone has probably moved on).
In case you went dark on social media for the past couple of weeks, Disney finally announced who would play Ariel in their upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid: singer-actress Halle Bailey. Aside from momentary confusion that Disney had cast Halle Berry to the play the role, the reaction to the casting has been… interesting. While there are many people who approve of the choice, including Jodi Benson (who voiced Ariel in the original movie), others have shown be very unhappy with it.
The biggest reason for this controversy is that Ariel, who was presented as a red-headed Caucasian, is now being played by an African American.
While it would be incredibly easy to resort to blanket statements regarding this situation, let us take a deeper dive under the sea (pun-unapologetically-intended) of this issue.
To things start off, this sort of casting is really nothing new.
The past several years have seen several instances of people-of-color being cast in movie roles typically played by white people. This is something that is mainly seen in comic book adaptations, where they either just make the character the race of the actor, or they have a completely different character take on an identity held by another (See: Sam Wilson as Captain America in future MCU projects). Sometimes, it involves the changing entire cast and setting of the project to fit a more racial background (Ex: The Wiz being a black, urbanized version of The Wizard of Oz).
Oddly enough, most recent examples of this sort of casting involve casting African Americans to play characters who typically depicted as redheads
Weird trends aside, there is actually an overarching reason for this sort of casting.
That reason being: such casting is considered a small form of reparation of the sins of the entertainment industry’s past.
If you have a solid knowledge of the history of the industry, you would know that they haven’t historically done a good job of providing equal opportunities for diverse representation. Of course we all know about the infamous use of blackface in early films, but the issue runs even deeper. Take for instance the countless examples of whitewashing that is still happening, or the #OscarsSoWhite controversies of 2015 and 2016. Both of these instances reflect how people-of-color within the industry have not exactly been given as much opportunities as whites. Thus, casting choices like Halle Bailey’s are seen as a win-win for many studios. They are able to give people-of-color much sought representation, and such castings wouldn’t hurt white people, who aren’t going to be starved of representation in film anytime soon.
So, with such a seemingly well-meaning rationale, why does this casting have so people reacting like this:
Like I said earlier, while it would be incredibly easy to dismiss all of these complaints as nothing more than bigoted tantrums, its a bit more nuanced than that.
There are some people who don’t like the casting simply because they prefer characters to stay as they are. This sort of complaint isn’t based on prejudice, but rather a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”-eque stance. There are also people who disapprove of the casting by claiming that it is hypocritical that whitewashing is widely condemned, but the reverse is given (at worst) a shoulder shrug. This sort of argument usually boils down to statements along the lines of, “Well, how would you like it if a white person was cast as [insert notable character/figure-of-color here]”.
However, the loudest argument against the casting is part of a trend that has been growing the past few years.
If you’ve paid close attention to internet discourse over the past few years, you’d notice a certain type of user has taken prominence. With the rise of #GamerGate, #ComicsGate, and politically far-right YouTube content, this type of internet user has been taught to believe that the things they love (i.e. video games, movie franchises, comic books, etc.) are being taken over (and subsequently “ruined”) by people who are not “real fans” of the property. Typically, these “fake fans” are cited as people-of-color, women, the LGBT community, and generally anyone who is left-of-center on the American political spectrum. Thus, these users lash out against any perceived attempt by pop culture franchises to embrace concepts such as diversity, feminism, or social justice.
Remember the outrage when it was revealed that among the heroes for the new Star Wars movies is an AWOL, black stormtrooper?
Or when BBC announced the first female incarnation of Dr. Who?
And of course, let us not forget how the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters had the internet frothing-at-the-mouth with rage.
While the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel isn’t exactly the same as the above examples, it’s certainly in the same ballpark, which is more enough for this type of internet user to get upset about it.
So, with all this analysis, you’re probably wondering what I personally think of this situation.
Well…
First off, taking this controversy out of it, I can’t say in good faith whether or not I like this casting choice. While she is a very good singer, I haven’t seen her in any acting role. I’d probably say she wouldn’t be my first choice, but I personally don’t have strong feelings as to who should play the live-action versions of Disney characters (I save that for comic book movies).
As far the controversy goes, while I understand the desire to just have Ariel as she was in the original movie, I have no problem with Disney casting someone who doesn’t exactly conform to that look. Why you may ask? Its simple:
Ariel is a fictional character.
Furthermore, she’s a mermaid, which also doesn’t exist.
Thus, a mermaid, in terms of race, can be whatever the filmmakers please. It also helps to know that mermaids have acutally played a part in African folk tales.
As far as the claims of double standards go, they far too often fall under the category of false equivalencies. Simply put, casting a black woman to play Ariel is not the same as, say, casting a white man as Black Panther. Being the king of a (fictional) African country, Black Panther’s race is uniquely and fundamentally important to his character. In other words, Black Panther NEEDS to be, well, black. Ariel, on the other hand, does not need to be any particular race.
Oh, and for anyone that wants to claim that this casting choice “ruins” The Little Mermaid for them, just wait until you hear about what happens in the original Hans-Christian Anderson story.
Look, I’m not saying anyone is wrong for not liking this casting choice, since I myself don’t have strong feelings about it. But its not like Disney is gonna take all the copies of the original Little Mermaid movie and burn them like the Nazis burned books. This is simply a just another version of a story that has been told several times in several different ways. Heck, odds are that this remake won’t be as good as the original, and everyone will still watch the classic animated movie over it if given the choice.
Most importantly though, in a time where the United States government is locking children in cages, I think there are more important things to be mad about than the skin color of a fictional movie mermaid.
What else can I say but:
