Disney’s fans are raving about the newest live action movie portraying the storyline of the classic tale, “The Little Mermaid.” The live action film’s trailer came out in September of 2020, and to the viewers’ surprise the main character, Ariel, is being played by Halle Bailey, a young black American singer-songwriter. This shocked many viewers because the original animated Disney film starred a white Ariel with cherry red hair. When the movie announcement was released, there was an uproar of excitement towards the diversification of Disney’s classic. Disney is well known for its takes on children’s entertainment, but has a history of including different races, LBGTQ representation, and disabled communities. Though some of these qualities are slowly being added, Disney fans are aware that the basis of these films follow the same white-dominated straight stories. Now “The Little Mermaid” is being judged by some of the public as a stride forward for Disney and simultaneously facing backlash from other fans who hate the idea of a black protagonist playing a traditionally white character.

What Disney fans should take into consideration is the fact that all stories told by Disney have been adapted from different cultures, religions and more. To start, Grimm’s Fairy Tales are adapted and changed each time they are told. Not to disclude, the multitude of Cinderella movies are all changing factors of characters, storylines and so on.

In fact, “The Little Mermaid” is not Disney’s story, rather it was adapted from Danish folklore. The original Author Hans Christian took the tale of the Mermaid who saves the drowning prince and published the story “Den Lille Havfrue,” in 1845. The story is considered the first version of “The Little Mermaid,” but this is not the only version. There are other versions where Ariel is a goddess who kills her husband for immortality. There is another version in Japan where the little mermaid is actually blonde. The story changes depending on who’s telling it. How many Disney fans are raving over the change in race of the beloved Ariel character when truly the original story does not need to nor does it specify what race Ariel is. This is a factor that does not diminish the story.

The racial controversy surrounding the remake has hit the mainstream discourse like a storm. Black Lives Matter groups fighting for equality in Disney films find this to be a step in the right direction. The actress who plays Ariel herself expected the response to her role.“As a Black person, you just expect it and it’s not really a shock anymore,” Halle Bailey told The Face in a new cover story interview about the film. When the trailer hit social media, platforms like Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter and so on began to take this controversial movie to storm. Examples include videos tagged with “#DisneyRuinedTheLittlemermaid,”And videos of people reacting to the movie making fun of the fact that Ariel is played by Halle became a trend- making the fans and media very aware of the race of the main character rather than the fact that the movie was actually coming out.

This new take on the classic is to be released in theaters May 26th. The first animated version of the film came out in 1989. 34 years later, the fact this film is going to be live action rather than animated is going to be a new twist on the story and fans of the film should find themselves watching if they enjoyed the storyline of the last film regardless of the race of Ariel.