Will Buss: Reactions to Black actress cast in Disney remake are racist
When Disney announced that it was remaking one of its animated films and had cast a woman of color for the title role, many responses were negative.
Some were absurd, and others were quite racist.
Of the 1.5 million “dislikes” logged in YouTube from the trailer of Disney’s 2023 live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” tens of thousands of responders from across the country opposed the decision to cast Black actress Halle Bailey for the role of Ariel — a role that had initially been depicted in 1989 by a white cartoon character.
The responses have varied, from hashtags, memes and videos. Racist responses to movie remakes that cast people of color is nothing new, but what was especially unnerving was the extent that some went to make their point. One responder produced a video that digitally whited Bailey’s face and reddened the actresses’ hair to resemble the original animated film’s lead character. A conservative political commentator exerted much time and spent a lot of money to dispute against the Black actress based on science and physiology. Some even argued that the little mermaid depicted in the original movie was of Danish ancestry.
These arguments are baseless, not to mention illogical, given they are based on a fictitious being, a fantastical female fish-human princess.
Race, University of Notre Dame Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Theater Mary Kearney argued, is a human construction. Such a debate focused on a cartoon creation is ridiculous.
Another problem is how Hollywood has historically and racially miscast white actors in live-action movies who portray people of color as well as of those ethnicities and cultures which they do not identify, much less represent. Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, John Wayne played Genghis Khan and Natalie Wood portrayed a Puerto Rican woman in West Side Story. Perhaps the most offensive example of this is when Mickey Rooney played a Japanese man in 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” not to mention the list of actors who portrayed Black people in black face throughout American cinematic history.
Even Elvis Presley is guilty of this sin when he played Joe Cloud, a Native American character, in the 1968 film “Stay Away, Joe.” Until the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” American movies had consistently hired White actors to portray Native Americans. The Kevin Costner-directed movie also revolutionized the way Native Americans were depicted in film with authenticity and accuracy in representing the culture through a rich attention to detail. Hollywood is still learning this lesson, though, as evidenced in 2013 when Johnny Depp played Tonto in “The Lone Ranger,” although his adoption into the Comanche Nation the year before the film was released supposedly forgives him of this transgression.
Positive and accurate media representation of cultures and marginalized groups on film and in media is important because it confronts and dispels stereotypes of underrepresented populations. How Hollywood represents others is also as important. Kearney said that representation matters in media, and that everyone deserves to see themselves reflected in it. This meaning that little girls and boys of color should see themselves represented in film and other art.
This is good for children and really should not bother adults or incite their racist responses.
Will Buss teaches broadcasting and journalism at Western Illinois University.
This article originally appeared on The McDonough County Voice: Will Buss: Reactions to Black actress cast in Disney remake are racist
