A prominent diversity advocate criticizes “The Little Mermaid” for its omission of enslavement in the Caribbean. Marcus Ryder, a prominent British activist and the chair of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, praised the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel but criticized the film’s portrayal of ethnic harmony.
Ryder wrote in a blog post –
“A world in which the very idea of race for the main characters seems to be subverted, consciously ignored and at the same time Black beauty is celebrated, needs to be applauded.”
“While the importance of casting the Little Mermaid as a Black woman has been commented on in numerous articles the casting of the other roles is also worth a mention … At the same time the Little Mermaid’s father is White while her Mermaid sisters are of various different races and ethnicities. Race as a social construct, as we know it, clearly does not exist underwater.”
However, in the blog titled “Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Caribbean Slavery, and Telling the Truth to Children,” Ryder argues that the film appears to take place in the Caribbean during the 18th century, a time of African chattel slavery, but the islanders depicted in the film appear to live in a world free of this inhumanity.
He wrote –
“In this setting, I do not think we do our children any favors by pretending that slavery didn’t exist.”
“For me Disney’s preference to try and wish the inconvenient truth away says more about the adult creatives than it does about children’s ability to work through it.”
Even though he acknowledged that the film is a fantasy and therefore does not need to be historically accurate, he stated that Disney should not be “encouraging historical amnesia.”
“But the total erasure and rewriting of one of the most painful and important parts of African diasporic history, is borderline dangerous, especially when it is consumed unquestioningly by children.”
Do you know that The Little Mermaid 2023 was one of the most anticipated films of 2023? The adored characters introduced in the 1989 Disney classic make a triumphant return.
However, the Producers have taken a different route than the one depicted in the animated film, particularly with regard to Ariel’s journey’s conclusion. In the linked article, the conclusion of The Little Mermaid is discussed:
- The Little Mermaid 2023 Ending Explained: Live-Action Adaptation Ends Differently From the Original.
Ryder suggested that Disney could have set the live-action film in Haiti after the abolition of enslavement, with Ariel meeting Prince Eric in the aftermath of genuine racial harmony, without sacrificing historical accuracy.
Ryder said –
“We owe it to our children to give them the most amazing fantastical stories possible to help their imaginations grow.”
“We do not do this by ‘whitewashing’ out the difficult parts of our history. We do it by embracing our rich history and empowering them with the truth.”
Ryder took to Twitter to elucidate his comments to readers after his blog went viral. He wrote in the Twitter thread –
“The sad reality is this great film left me concerned that Disney did not take seriously this very sensitive time and place which due to the atrocities that happened there should be treated very carefully – especially for impressionable children.”
“For the record I liked the film. There are a lot of positive elements – one of them being the casting and normalizing of Black beauty – but that does not mean I don’t think there aren’t flaws that could have been addressed better.”
This comes shortly after the news that IMDb altered its rating system for the newly released film amid “unusual voting activity.”
“Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied,” reads a note on the US, Canadian, UK, Brazilian, and Mexican “Little Mermaid” pages, after “review bombers” gave the film unjustified negative ratings.
In any case, “The Little Mermaid” has topped the box office since its release last Friday, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo, with a worldwide total of nearly $224 million.