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That's what grinds my gears; the smug assumption that the only reason anyone could possibly object to such race-swapping is because they're a horrible racist. (Payne and McKay are playing that card, too, in their most recent interview; "no, people aren't objecting because we are ten-time losers who can't write for shit, it's because they're racists!")
And would your Facebook friend who is so eager to change things up for the sake of diversity be happy to recast Mulan so that a Black woman could get the lead role? And if that's different, how is it different? "The Little Mermaid" is a story by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, however it was adapted by Disney. If they're going to recast Ariel, then every cast member should be Black for internal consistency and coherence.
Can your Facebook friend explain to me why new Black Ariel is still a redhead, and not having her own ordinary beautiful natural hair?
Nobody is objecting to "let's do a new movie about a black mermaid" if they can write a good story and hey, maybe there are even folk tales and legends about black mermaids, who knows? But this isn't about 'let's give little Black girls a character they can identify with, so they can dress up as Ariel for Hallowe'en', it's about wringing every last penny out of their property by re-tooling it to get another extension of marketability.
That wasn't atheism winning, that was Christianity no longer being a sufficient cultural force to stop people saying "fuck the sky-fairy". So long, of course, as it was the Christian sky-fairy you were mocking; the Jewish, Muslim, or other indigenous traditions sky-fairies were out of bounds.
When it lost you money to support gay rights, companies didn't support gay rights. When it lost you money not to support gay rights, companies slapped rainbows and photos of same-sex couples on everything.
I think a big problem is that people are not only not taught to think, but are actually taught to avoid thinking (while being told that they’re being taught to be “critical thinkers”(tm)). Even in schools—especially in schools— you are much more likely to be graded worse for original thinking and skeptical thinking about the common narratives than by simply parroting what you’ve been told is true. And now, watching the way our culture treats those few brave souls who do speak out, they’re well aware that questioning means losing your livelihood for saying the wrong thing.
Given the lack of logic and statistics taught, I dare say that the vast majority of Americans are incapable of noticing the inconsistencies in their ideas. They haven’t been taught to notice that we were against X until we were for it because they never thought through the logic of X. They don’t notice that ideas A and B rely on contradicting ideas and that it’s thus impossible to logically hold both to be true at the same time.
It’s really weird to watch people trust the science when the science tells them two or three mutually exclusive things and they believe them all.
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Good question! I'm glad it's my friend who I know a little about and not a rando on twitter. Her quote surprised me because it seemed to imply that a black person happened to try out for the role and was picked on merit, just as when somebody applies for a random office job. I look at the situation and see politics in movie casting, she's assuming some poor actress did her best and is getting attacked by people looking to disqualify her on ostensibly artistic but actually racist grounds.
She's what I call a social-justice Mormon: very Mormon, but also posts lots of SJW stuff. If she sat down and thought about it, I don't think she'd be on board with the extremist smash-the-patriarchy stuff. And one of my criticisms of a lot of SJW stuff is that it obfuscates things like this -- it's happy to let her believe that the role was based on artistic and acting merit. But I think she'd be sympathetic to my white friend who's a children's book author and keeps getting discriminated against for being white.
That's why I think it's more productive to focus on the deeper principles than the pre-drawn battle lines. She could probably have a productive conversation with us about the hazards of putting politics where it doesn't belong, because she remembers at some level that her grandparents were wary of that. But when people say "artistically it's just not appropriate for Ariel the mermaid to be black" while BLM is telling her they're secretly white supremacists, well, that's a much harder sell, and we'll have to have the argument all over again when it's trans Joan of Arc.
The trouble is, people are leaping from "if you say it's not appropriate for Ariel to be black" to "then you mean it's not appropriate for any mermaid to be black", which is a whole other conversation and assumption.
If they made a new movie with a black mermaid and gave her a different name and a different costume (and that's my point about the red hair: these are the identifying elements of Ariel as created by Disney, she has red hair and dresses in blue, just as Snow White has black hair and a red ribbon, and Belle has a yellow dress - little girls are very insistent on these elements to be correct or else it's not really Ariel or Belle or Cinderella or whomever) then yeah, objecting to black mermaids could be put down to "this is racism, would you say the same thing to a black woman applying for a job?"
But it's not, this is very specifically Ariel the Mermaid, an already created character with her set iconography and years of marketing to establish her, and making her black (while retaining all the rest of the iconography, including the red hair), then it's about cash grabbing and about hopping aboard the DEI bandwagon with as much sincerity as a cannibal declaring he's vegan (because my last meal was vegan, I asked him before I cooked him and he told me he was a vegan).
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I was raised in a religious community and I marvel at how many of today's social justice advocates are literally the same people who were the nosy church ladies in decades past. Not just the same sorts of people--the same specific people. Some of them are still church ladies, too--but those who have stopped being church ladies did not ride out on a wave a new atheism. Instead they rode out on a wave of righteous indignation concerning gay marriage or some other social issue they saw their church as being "out of touch" on. Thinking through my extended family, this category covers about a third of the women, but not one man in ten.
Actually, now that I'm drawing up tallies, I'm realizing with a dull non-surprise that none of the formerly-religious men in my extended family who took up atheism in the last, oh, three decades or so have adopted any "social justice" views as a result, while far more than half of the women (a smaller absolute number) who severed ties with their churches are now extremely vocal leftists. This harmonizes with demographic reports I've seen but I'd never before sat down and really thought about it.
It's hard for me to model such a complete lack of principles without referencing the NPC meme. But the best I can manage is just that these are people who are predisposed, for whatever reason, to enforce social expectations to the best of their ability. One day they woke up and saw that the social expectation that they go to pride parades was stronger than the social expectation that they go to church potlucks, so they stopped making casseroles and started making rainbow flags. Charitably, social cohesion is just the point for them; less charitably (but maybe more accurately from an evopsych perspective), the opportunity to snub others while raising one's own status in the most powerful in-group may also be an attractive position.
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People assume that there's some sort of racial issue behind the Ariel situation because: A) the scenario is so inconsequential and B) the arguments against it are either weak or slippery-slope assumptions. This doesn't mean that anyone who is anti Ariel is racist, but it does leave the door open to wonder why anyone would be so vehemently against this move.
Most Disney princesses are white, including Ariel. Mulan isn't. Disney is (openly) pro-diversity, so it makes sense that Disney would want an Asian princess too.
There aren't any rules or reasons as to why the recasting of one character should lead to the recasting of all characters.
Why does Ariel's hair have anything to do with race of the character? Moreover, Ariel's red hair was one of the characters' defining features in comparison to the other princesses of the time.
The functional difference between "let's do a new movie about a black mermaid" and "let's do a remake about a black mermaid" are quite inconsequential. Both versions exist, and given that we're talking about a children's character, both characters existing has no real ramifications for practical life.
Look, I hate the shameless antics of Disney as much as anyone, but is that really what this discussion is about? What does Ariel's red hair have to do with Disney's endless greed? And did this penny-wringing really start with Ariel? More importantly, if the Ariel was white, would this still be an example of Disney's greed?
If you can recast a white mermaid, why can't you recast a Chinese warrior princess? The fact that there is any denial that you can do one but you can't do the other, because - well, because isn't it obvious why?
Yes, it's obvious, and it makes nonsense out of the claims that it's all about Representation. If one set of fairy stories or legends can't be touched, but another set can, then it's not about "little Black girls want to see princesses like themselves". If that were the case, then more stories like Tiana (in the revamped version of "The Princess and The Frog") are what you do. Why can't little Black girls see themselves as warrior princesses, if it is so important they see themselves as mermaids? Why not have a Black mermaid - who isn't Ariel?
If we accept Disney's reasoning that they want more diversity in their princess lineup, it doesn't make a ton of sense to recast Mulan as non-Asian. Mulan is the only (I think?) Asian princess, recasting her would a) remove the only Asian princess and b) keep the princess lineup diversity numbers the same. Both options wouldn't make sense under Disney's explanation of wanting more diversity. Plus, you could argue that Mulan's race makes logical sense as the movie is set in Asia whereas Ariel's race doesn't have any relevance to the movie's location.
I'm not saying that I totally disagree with this but I also don't think this is a significantly better option than black Ariel. FAriel as a character (& IP) is much more culturally relevant & valuable than Tiana. The 'classic' Disney princesses are icons worldwide. In terms of 'equality', it's simply more meaningful to add diverse characters to an iconic group of characters rather than creating a brand new character without any prior history or cultural significance.
It really depends on how you define and value diversity. For me, diversity isn't about simple quotas or shoeing in as many minorities as possible. It's about true inclusion and an honest effort to make things as practically equal as possible. Making a black mermaid would be the easy way out for Disney and these corporations always choose the easiest, most performative route in terms of public acceptance. This move surprised me but I encourage it since it's a better way of doing diversity than we've done in the past.
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They're not wrong--but "racial issue" doesn't mean "the complainer is racially prejudiced".
If companies prioritize race above things that otherwise lead to better quality works, and if this manifests by creating a black Ariel, that's a "racial issue". If they do so by race-baiting their audience so they can make more money, that's greed.
I disagree with your framing completely. What if the black actress was the best actress for the job? What if she's the one who worked the hardest? Who says that an Ariel movie with a black actress will be lower quality than one with a white actress? These are all huge assumptions that you're making. The movie won't be released for months anyway, it's far too soon to make any quality judgements. This is only a conversation because Ariel is black. No one is wondering if choosing a white actor for Willy Wonka is the right decision, or if there were any 'racial issues' surrounding casting his role. No one is asking if a black actor would have led to a higher quality movie. It really just seems like people have a problem with the black actress and that's racial prejudice.
Further, why is it suddenly news that Disney is greedy? They've been this way since the 50s and they're not stopping now. Plus, Disney as a company is driven by money - pandering to audiences has been a valid sales tactic since the beginning of time. Why is that suddenly not ok? And why does choosing a black actress spur this discussion so intensely?
There are more white actresses than black ones, so it's likely that the hardest working one is white.
Because the OP claimed that Disney was doing it because she's the best person to fit the role, which implies "not greed, except by coincidence".
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What evidence is there that this is the case in this situation, what if they simply thought a black actor was the best fit for the part?
What evidence is there that they thought a black actor was the best fit for the part?
What does “best fit” even mean in this context? Most faithful depiction of the original character? (Clearly not.) Most likely to win an Oscar? (Considering their progressively racist policies, probably yes.) Most likely to appeal to the fans of the original movie? (Probably not.) Most likely to gain media attention? (Probably yes.)
There's not really any evidence either way. So I will default to 'they chose them for normal acting reasons' not that they chose her as a diversity hire.
The actor they thought would do the best job representing the character that they wanted to depict. Presumably whether they were white or black was neither here nor here in terms what they envisioned for the character.
Why should perfect physical representation of the character described necessarily be a goal? Why not cast a black actor if you thought they were the best, was race ever a factor in the original fairytale?
Race was a factor in so far that in the vaguely-defined epoch in which the fairytale is set, Danish princes didn't commonly marry black women, so a black Ariel would be out of place for reasons unrelated to the original fairy tale.
But why stop at race? Is age or sex a factor in the original fairytale? Let's make Ariel an old man played by Robert de Niro; he's a great actor, arguably objectively better than Halle Bailey, and if you oppose the idea of a young Danish prince falling in love with an older man, you're an ageist homophobe. So you'd be okay with swapping Halle Bailey with Robert de Niro, right? Or if not, why not?
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