‘Representation always mattered, even in fantasy stories’: Halle Bailey Fans Defend The Little Mermaid Against Renewed Backlash, Claim Diversity is Needed Even in Folktales
Halle Bailey’s casting as Ariel in The Little Mermaid is undoubtedly a revolutionary step taken by Disney. But as it looks, the reception is quite contrary to the expectations. With the teaser reportedly attracting around 1.5 million dislikes, talks are there that Disney has deleted various hate comments to the actress. Fortunately, several fans of Halle Bailey are wholeheartedly supporting the movie. These fans have shared that Disney was always diverse and they even had a black mermaid in the 90s.
Disney’s live-action remakes are always criticized as major cash grabs. After the failure of the recently released Pinocchio, it was hoped that The Little Mermaid may undo some damage but undoubtedly the House of the Mouse is having a tough time now.
The representation mania is not sudden
Since the first day, it was announced that Halle Bailey will lead The Little Mermaid project, the actress and the movie had to face a lot of distaste from the fans.
On one hand, a certain section of the audience claimed that the transition of the skin color is unfair due to the origin story being hampered. While on the other hand, some true fans are constantly defending the movies and the actress from backlash by showing proof that the representation trend is not new.
In 1992 The Little Mermaid series had a deaf, Hispanic mermaid who communicated in American Sign Language. Representation has always mattered, even in fantasy stories
— Okiro (@TheFirstOkiro) September 15, 2022
The fans are correct in this case as the 1992 series on the fictional world of Ariel and Atlantis featured a Black Mermaid Gabriella who was also deaf and used sign language to converse. The fans took over the internet to prove that this is enough and a piece of concrete evidence that Disney always focused on diversity and representation. It is not sudden and it is equally important in Fairy tales.
Who was Gabriella?
The disapproval of Halle Bailey as The Little Mermaid has also led to the creation of #NotMyAriel. The fans have now seemed to have their hands on something that can counter the hate comments very well.
In the series of The Little Mermaid, Gabriella was a deaf mermaid who was a very good friend of Ariel and had a dark complexion. She also used American Sign Language to converse. Reportedly, the character was introduced so that every child could relate to it and understand that in front of talent and skill, skin color stands nowhere.
Halle Bailey fans bash the haters
The fans of Halle Bailey took no time to address the issue on Twitter and shield the upcoming movie from hate. We have collected a series of Tweets which shows how much the fans love Halle Bailey and how much this diversity represented by Disney encouraged them and their kids.
Wow! It's always great to know these things. Instead of bellyaching, people need to focus on how joyful a movie can be and what can be learned from it.
— Kenya The Mighty (@KenyaTheMighty) September 15, 2022
Omg I remember this! This was incredible to see as a kid!
— Nico🌈👽 (@NotOfMars) September 15, 2022
Based.
— Zephyr Stobart (@ZephyrStobart) September 15, 2022
Well halle can sing and she has red hair so…that's little Mermaid
— SaiyanQuad92/Predicting Tokyo Trip in 2023 (@SaiyanQuad92) September 16, 2022
That’s my daughters’ fav episode because she looks like them 🥹
— Cristal Porter (@CristalMPorter) September 16, 2022
It is to be remembered that Ariel’s skin color has nothing to do with the story. While some of the audience can argue that it is based on a Danish Fairy Tale, still there are many dissimilarities between the original tale and Disney’s animated story. So there shouldn’t be any complaints about creative liberty being utilized. Now it will be worth watching if the movie can be so good to tackle everything it’s facing now.
The Little Mermaid is going to hit the theaters on May 26, 2023
Source: Twitter
