The Little Mermaid doesn’t look bad at all btw
Disney has some of the best water rendering technology in the world. All we got was a teaser and a cam rip of in-progress work. But oh no it looks so bad!
I'm mainly focusing on the lack of color (ironically). This is a big problem with a lot of the live action remakes—the original movies were vibrant and brimming with color, but for whatever reason—lack of effort, lack of imagination, or just simple lack of proper technology—they never seem to match up to that. All their movies (minus the Cinderella remake, which actually looked pretty good) are very bland and monochrome. Granted, the Little Mermaid teaser was short and didn't show us much, but what it did show us wasn't very impressive from a visual angle.
YOU are the cynical one, dude.
I agree that more narratives made by PoC starring PoC should be produced, make no mistake -- and they are HOWEVER Disney is making these remakes regardless of what anyone wants. They're going to make them anyway.
Disney reinterprets their work all the time and they always will. When Toni Braxton was cast as Belle on broadway, did you say anything? When Auli'i Cravalho was cast as Ariel for The Little Mermaid Live!, where was the outrage? Could it be that you realize that these smaller-scale reinterpretations are fun artistic expressions that live outside the animated canon and don't impact it? WHY IS THE MOVIE DIFFERENT?
Why is it so fucking hard to believe that Halle, on her own merits, was the best choice for the role and not because she fit into some corporate plot? Beyoncé's protege isn't good enough on her own!? Who would you have had?
You saw black Ariel and said "I'm not mad because she's black, I'm mad because they made her black as a plot to seem inclusive" and even if that is the case...bro, where is the proof that this is some affirmative action shield? Where's the leaked corporate memo?
It's a bad take, AR, I'm tired of reading it and it's outstayed its welcome
First of all, don't get so bent out of shape. I'm not some kind of anti-SJW railing against "woke media" or any of that stuff. I'm merely explaining that big corporations have a financial incentive to engage in shallow, phony shows of progressive lip service in order to make a profit. If you like Ariel being black, I have no beef with you about that. I think it's great that lots more kids have people who look like them in major motion pictures to look up to. But even you have to admit that there is a difference between a story crafted around exploring other cultures in-depth and presenting people of other backgrounds with their own unique stories, vs. taking a traditionally white popular character and just changing their race and calling it progressive. Don't get sucked into the trap of believing that the decision to make Ariel black is borne out of genuine interest in giving young black girls a heroine to look up to—frankly, Tiana is already a great representation there, and a character like her—a hard-working, active woman with a lot of intelligence, wit, skill, and personal agency—is a much more respectful way of giving people a black Disney princess than just color-swapping a white one. This is hand-me-down representation, and it shouldn't be the baseline. It would be different if the change actually ADDED something to her character, but as far as we can see, it doesn't look like it will. Decisions like this always happen for a reason, and in this case, the only explicable reason is corporate pandering to create marketing buzz and therefore profits.
Now to be clear, I'm not universally against race/gender-swapping. I've seen race-swapping work very well in recent years, for instance. Changing Nick Fury from a white character to a black character with Samuel L. Jackson did a LOT to boost his character appeal and emphasize his personality. Changing Namor in the new Black Panther movie from a white submariner to an ancient Mayan king added a lot of interesting elements to him. Race-swapping can work well, but there has to be an artistic reason for it. If the only reason is, "let's make a white character black so people will gush at how progressive we are and go to see our movie" is not an artistically legitimate reason. What you're defending is called rainbow capitalism, and you're playing their game to a T.
Studios do this because they KNOW there will be people like you who use the superficial appearance of progressivism to dismiss criticism of a sub-par product. When you give companies like Disney money for these kinds of shallow bare-minimum shows of political activism, what you're actually doing is funneling money to a corporation that doesn't give a damn about people of color or oppressed social groups. Don't forget that the same company that reveled in the PR it got from announcing gay characters in its live action remakes, edited those characters out when releasing the movies to the Chinese market overseas. This is the same company that edited out John Boyega from Star Wars posters and (I kid you not) COVERED UP Chadwick Boseman's face in the original Black Panther poster to keep from offending racist Chinese moviegoers. Disney literally filmed Mulan NEAR A CONCENTRATION CAMP where Uyghur Muslims are being genocided by the CCP.
So please understand, there is so much more to this situation than "black girls like seeing black Ariel so Disney is progressive and should be defended." I have nothing against Halle Bailey, and I'm sure she's a wonderful actress and singer and all that. But we're not talking about her, and we're not talking about Ariel—we're talking about Disney. We're talking about corporate America and the tactics they use to ingratiate themselves to Western audiences while not caring about any of it. I'm not saying people should launch a crusade over stuff like this—just recognize where it's really coming from, and don't give them brownie points for doing the most embarrassingly minimal appeals to social progressivism by financially rewarding them for it. If social progressivism weren't the dominant mode of thought in our society, Disney would be just as reactionary or conservative as Fox News.