On July 13, 2019, Halle Bailey was announced as Ariel in the live-action retelling of “The Little Mermaid”. For many, this was cause for celebration. Black Twitter met the announcement with a sea of unbridled support. Fans of the alternative sister duo, Chloe x Halle, rejoiced. For we know, Halle has a voice that a certain sea witch couldn’t help but be envious of. Wide-eyed Black girls uttering “Mommy, she looks just like me” starred in an adorable array of viral clips.
Unfortunately, not all of the reception was positive. Angry groups of dissenters have taken to critiquing every aspect of the casting from complaints surrounding the brightness of Halle’s hair to her darker skin tone. My personal favorite baseless critique is that “scientifically” a Black mermaid wouldn’t make any sense. Allegedly, mermaids would have no access to sunlight and couldn’t develop melanin … Analyzing the scientific realism of a being that’s half human, half fish, and capable of breathing underwater is a job that not even Bill Nye is qualified for. Everyone has appointed themselves a jaded film critic and made a 23-year-old Black woman their sole target. Recently, the film’s second trailer garnered over three million dislikes on YouTube in the span of a few weeks. A #NotMyAriel campaign also surfaced on Twitter. Under this hashtag, you can find Halle being the target of racial slurs and countless insults regarding her physical appearance. Some users are even going as far as to edit white skin and blue eyes onto images of Halle as Ariel. While all critiques aren’t this drastic, a common complaint circulating has to do with Hollywood making a habit of “Blackwashing” white characters.
Those who oppose a “Black Ariel” claim that the white characters they grew up with are being erased. A small, but vocal, pond of gingers are even upset that their redhead representation has been stolen, coining this phenomenon: “gingercide.”
Be astronomically for real.
The idea that representation is being taken from white audiences is ridiculous. If white people are seeking to see themselves in the form of a Disney Princess, they still have an array of porcelain sopranos to choose from. Look no further than Snow White, Cinderella or modern figures such as Rapunzel and Anna (oh look redheads, you got another one!). Better yet, if you want your original white and fiery-haired Ariel, she is available to you at any point in time via Disney+ for only $7.99 per month.
Another common complaint is that whitewashing is never acceptable in the reverse. “Why can’t white actors play characters of color?” Well, they already have … There is large historical precedent in support of whitewashing. White creatives have cast white performers in “racially diverse” roles and perpetrated harm through caricatures of ethnic experiences for over a century.
Minstrel shows were the first uniquely American live theater productions. In the early 19th century, white actors donning black face, exaggerated red lips and coarse wigs performed stage plays riddled with various racist stereotypes. Decades later, actor Mickey Rooney played Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Mr. Yunioshi is an Asian man with artificial slanted eyes and an exaggerated accent. Mickey Rooney is a blue-eyed white man. More modern examples of this American staple include Gerard Butler (a white man) playing an Egyptian deity in “Gods of Egypt”, and Scarlett Johansson (a white woman) cosplaying as Asian for “Ghost in the Shell’s” two-hour run-time.
Whitewashing is a cancer that has pervaded performance arts for years. Not only does this rob minorities of the chance to see themselves on screen, it steals agency from performers of Color, bars them from telling their own stories and refuses them access to an inequitable film industry. If anything, with casting choices like Halle Bailey, Hollywood is only beginning to make up for lost time. These shifts in casting are only a small step in healing decade-old wounds and adding diversity to projects created in less progressive eras. Whitewashing has the exact opposite impact and only works to strip away the representation marginalized demographics have had to fight tooth and nail for.
Whitewashing also tends to interfere with the believability of narratives. Typically, the ethnicities of characters of Color are essential to their storylines. The Louisiana Bayou backdrop, central voodoo elements, and soulful blues music in “The Princess and the Frog” don’t work with a white protagonist. A white man being the king of Wakanda, an uncolonized African nation, wouldn’t make sense in any context. Contrarily, “The Little Mermaid” is a relatively untethered coming-of-age story, focusing on a fictional creature with zero mention of race. There is no vocal demographic of mermaids that will be audibly offended if they are “inaccurately” represented. Ariel is a blank slate. Rebelling against your parents or wanting to explore the world are not uniquely white experiences. If white children and white gingers could see themselves in a mermaid, they should have no problem relating to a black woman.
The beauty of an adaptation is the opportunity to retell a classic story with a modern audience in mind. On paper, Black Ariel just makes sense. For starters, the original film’s soundtrack has very obvious Caribbean influences. The musical number, “Under the Sea” was composed with a blend of calypso Trinidadian music and reggae sonics. “Kiss the Girl” even goes as far as sampling Harry Belafonte’s song “Jamaica Farewell.” The story itself also becomes more nuanced with the addition of a Black protagonist. Ariel feels like an outsider in her world and longs to be part of a larger society that refuses to accept people like her — this clearly parallels the reality of many Black Americans navigating this country. There is always an underlying feeling of discomfort or invalidity associated with holding marginalized identities. It is difficult to truly feel a part of a world that was built through your oppression. Narratively, a Black woman begging to be seen in a land that ignores her existence is infinitely more powerful than a girl who merely wants to travel and trade her fins for legs. A Black child getting her voice stolen by a villainess white woman also takes on a deeper meaning with this reimagining. It’s no secret that Black music, style and aesthetics are frequently colonized by white people, and appropriated for their benefit. Am I reading too deeply into a story containing a magical belting octopus and a six-packed sea god? Possibly, but I’m not claiming these were intentional choices, just that they’re interesting to analyze and have the potential to bring new life into an old project.
There is no better fit for bringing Ariel to life than Halle Bailey, the exceptionally talented singer, actress and Black woman. Halle Bailey does not deserve internet trolls and heated controversy. Halle Bailey deserves a relentless wave of “thank you”s. Thank you for ushering a lead Black heroine into the living rooms of countless Black children. Thank you for acting as a symbol for youth that are constantly forced to question their beauty and value. Thank you for letting the Black kids with starter locs or plaits reaching down their backs know that they too can be royalty. Thank you to #OurAriel for telling every Black girl in America that she can be anything she wants to be, even a princess and a mermaid.
MiC Columnist James Scarborough can be reached at jscar@umich.edu.