Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If Disney really wanted to be progressive, they'd make Ariel transgender or gay. They did that with some characters in the " Beauty And The Beast" live action remake but wimped out with doing it in " Aladdin". I know, I know, Disney was afraid moslems would bomb the theaters or boycott the film in entire countries.
Its just a cheap gimmick to draw some controversy and some attention to a probably weak film. Making it critic proof based on charges of racism is a nice bonus. Disney is spineless and only in it for the $$$$.
The story is supposed to be set in Denmark where the author if from. .
Did you say this when the original came out?
Bc no way there were coral reefs and Jamaican crabs in HCA's Denmark.
Not to mention
1. Disney changed the story in other more significant ways (do you even know HCA's story?)
and
2. European depictions (illustrations, etc) of mermaids going back hundreds of years haven't always made them hot, skinny white chicks.
Go look some stuff up and then come back to this conversation.
There ARE fairy tales that are set in non-white parts of the world like Aladdin, Mulan, the Frog Princess, etc and yes those roles should go to non-white actors. So should they make Mary Poppins black too? Or would having a black nanny be too racist?????
Wait, why is The Frog Princess, a European fairy tale, okay to have non-white actors, but the Little Mermaid cannot because it's a European fairy tale?
They would have a problem if a white person or brown person, or black person plays Mu lan.
I don't think it is a race thing. I think this is just one of those "WTH has just happened" moment for them.
I bet the Chinese are saying, "No, that is not Ariel." based on the books or older cartoons that they watched. There is not much political correctness in China, but this doesn't mean they are racists. This whole "race relationship" business is not that important for the Chinese or Asians in Asia. It is not necessarily a bad thing. They view everybody just the same, so there are no special groups.
The Chinese do have a thing about race as well as skin color, as has amply been displayed in their advertisements.
The Sultan says "praise Allah" in the original animated version. And remember that Jasmine wears a the Muslim burka when she leaves the palace. And he is supposed to be Arab by ethnicity too. Also remember when Jasmine steals the apple they want to cut her hand off that is also a clearly Muslim tradition.
Jasmine does not wear a burka, it's a hijab. Muslims did not invent head coverings. Women had been covering their head for thousands of years before anyone even knew who Muhammad was. But Jasmin wasn't wearing a scarf around her face for religious purposes, it was to conceal her identity so the guards in the marketplace wouldn't recognize her.
Allah is Arabic for God. It is not a Muslim word and has been used by Pre-Islamic Arabians. Even Christian and Jewish Arabs use the word Allah. So maybe the Sultan is Jewish. Who knows, because religion really isn't a part of the Disney movie.
If you are fine with Blackwashing but criticize Whitewashing, despise both which I make a point to do. I will concede that sometimes a story has leeway for the appearance of a character. However, being that the Anderson version was compiled by a White guy, I think it is best to assume she was probably White. She is loosely based off of Hans Christian Anderson's story. Thus, she was likely White in the story.
I checked that just yesterday. Yes, the original story definitely identifies Ariel as having blue eyes and "white" (not just "fair") skin. It notes the white skin a couple of times.
Of course, that might mean dead-white like a bass.
Although I'm black myself and I'm perfectly happy with black actors getting good roles, I do draw a distinction particularly when ethnicity is an integral part of the character. For instance, if the character is supposed to be a radical member of the Irish Republican Army, he should pretty much look like a typical Irishman.
So Mulan should look Asian.
And I'd lean heavily in the direction of the author's description even if the part itself is arguably not a specific ethnicity--such as in this case when Anderson did, indeed, explicitly describe the character as white-skinned.
Quote:
On the flip side, given the Disney cartoon version does have a bit of Caribbean feel at times, perhaps the race-bending was justified here.
That is a point that has been made by others. Disney made the decision to move the story setting to the Caribbean in 1985. It can be argued that they then erred ethnically in not making the characters black at that time.
So their choice in live action is either to move the venue back to Denmark or change the characters to black. Or do nothing. All three choices open them to criticism in this modern day.
Quote:
However, for the moment, I think they should have just had Ariel played by a White girl! I thus see it as a form of Blackwashing. Also, I think Disney made her Black for race-bending and SJW purposes. I hope this movie fails.
Why would you want the movie to fail? I didn't want James Bond to fail for making M a woman.
IMO, caring that much either way is a personal issue.
As for races, I heard quite a goodly number of Southern Baptists in the church where I grew up declare unequivocally that black skin is the Mark of Cain, and he and his descendents were turned black as punishment. The scriptures can be cherry picked to prove anything you want.
Not that, however. Everything Southern Baptists tried to twist to justify slavery and racism simply does not exist in the scripture.
For instance, the story of Noah mitigates everything about Cain. Nobody after Noah can have the "Mark of Cain."
And with regard to the "Curse of Ham," scripture explicitly says that curse was only upon Ham's son Canaan, not Ham's other two sons, one of which was Cush whom scripture then identifies as the progenitor of sub-Sahara Africa.
That's just plain and simple reading from scripture. Southern Baptists were just plain unscriptural.
Aladdin is Muslim? I don't recall religion being brought up in either of the movies.
The story is pre-Islam.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
