In November 1989, when The Little Mermaid was first released by Walt Disney Animation Studios, I was just shy of 9 years old. As a white, middle-class, cisgender girl, I was obsessed with the red-headed Ariel and her world. I wanted to live under the sea with my fishy best friend and prized Dinglehoppers. I wanted to have a beautiful singing voice and have the ocean as my stage, where lobsters played the clam drums and sea snails sang backup vocals. I loved Ariel for her endearing quirkiness and, unlike her six mermaid princess sisters, her dreams of a different life, in a different land full of different adventures.
Flicker forward 30 years and the world is being treated to a live-action reboot of the classic mermaid tale. This is the latest in a string of born-again Disney films, many being remade with real people, performances and sets, unlike their animated originals. From the mid-1990s, we have seen reboots of 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Cinderella, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Beauty & The Beast and most recently, Aladdin, released just a few months ago.
So when I heard The Little Mermaid was getting a do-over, I was excited. The other photorealistic Disney remakes were great, but they didn’t have Ariel (though I did have a soft spot for bookish Belle). I mean, Ariel was the primary reason I kept my dark hair dyed red for so many years! There was much speculation around who would play the pretty mermaid and other significant characters. Rapper Lizzo had been campaigning for the part of sea-witch Ursula, only to be beaten out by actress and comedienne Melissa McCarthy.
And then real-life Ariel was cast…and Twitter exploded. 19 year old Halle Bailey (not to be confused with Berry), one half of sister singing duo, ChloexHalle had secured the role, after an extensive search. Director Rob Marshall, said “…it was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance – plus a glorious singing voice – all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role.” And guess what? She’s also black.
“Brilliant! She’s just the Ariel we need and deserve!”
Cue shock from all angles. Delighted shock from the black community across America, mixed in with ridiculous, hateful horror spewing from the mouths of ‘others’. There were rallying cries from white women who (like me) had identified with Ariel as little girls and couldn’t believe the fairytale was being taken away from them (unlike me). People who seemed devastated that Disney wasn’t staying true to Ariel’s race (um, she’s mermaid?). And of course, those snowflakes who always come out of the woodwork to cry reverse racism when they are ‘experiencing’ a millisecond of what black people have endured for centuries. Amusingly, most of these people then took painstaking efforts to ensure people understood that they “weren’t at all racist”. Well, good heavens, no. Why would anyone think that?!
I thought about all of this for a long time. I felt the familiar pangs of sadness for a (white) world missing the point. I felt the anger and rage that comes with another example of the (white) world behaving badly.
Then I thought of the 9 year old little black girl finally seeing Ariel the way I saw her when I was young. Looking at her with dreamy doe eyes and wondering what being a pretty mermaid would feel like. Singing alongside a cranky crab and studying her obsessive collection of human artefacts. That little girl deserves to have a childhood where she is everywhere. Where she can see herself as Belle, or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Where the fairytale ends with her finding her own prince (or princess – but I guess that’s a whole other story).
So I want to implore Disney to live-action reboot all of their original animated films; hell, I want them to completely reanimate all the white-wash movies they’ve ever made. To be thirty years on from the original My Little Mermaid and still have sweet, fond memories of identity and relatability, that means something. It means I was seen; that I am somebody and I am acknowledged.
“Imagine all the happy little black and brown faces who will watch Halle Bailey and realise that they can be a princess mermaid too. They too, are somebody. They too, are seen.”
