Does is matter that a Black actress will play the Little Mermaid in a new live action sequel to the animated classic? YouTube hides the downvotes that might give a more accurate gauge of fan reaction. This comes on the heels of Amazon’s ‘The Rings of Power’ blowback for a similar reason. Are people who oppose this casting inherently racist?
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44 replies on “Fair Criticism? Live Action Little Mermaid Backlash Follows Amazon ‘Rings of Power’ Blowback”
Having made it through six of the eight episodes of ‘The Rings of Power’ before I gave up on it, I finally sat down and thought about the issues.
I don’t care much, if black actors are cast, IF they do a good job, AND!
It’s the AND, that’s the problem.
The black elf was a good actor but he didn’t represent how we see Tolkien elves. My wife’s description is ‘ephemeral’. He was anything but ephemeral; he was a solid chunk of a man, and no amount of acting was going to overcome that mis-casting.
The black dwarvish queen was jarring to see but, I could have accepted that IF she had acted like a queen. She GIGGLED! Her part was destroyed by the writers and director because she was NO queen. Queens in Tolkien’s writings acted like queens, not like schoolgirls.
Some of the casting was done via wokeness, but the series was ruined by bad writing, characterization, and directing.
Bill, Hollywood prioritizing “the message” over story and character to the detriment of the quality of the entertainment reminds me of why Christian movies have been so bad for so long—it’s the same phenomena—putting the message over character and story.
In my opinion(uh oh), it’s an insult to the intelligence of their so-called “audience”. It’s not racism, it’s reality within fantasy.
Why do other parts of the world have populations that have darker shades of skin? Because of the environment in which they live. They get more sunshine so their skin is darker in varying shades.
Where the hell are the tropical or desert locations either in Middle Earth or under the ocean? A black dwarf, really? Or an elf? It’s nothing but virtue signaling. A black mermaid? Hey Disney, go pound sand.
We’re not watching any of this crap because all they’re trying to do is send “The Message”. Women are just as good as men in any situation, there’s more than 2 genders, men can have babies. It’s all bullshit!
The woke colonization of our native culture will continue until the natives throw out the colonizers.
I saw that 55% of all people depicted in American TV commercials are black. A European acquaintance of mine was surprised to learn that only 13% of the American population was black – he was under the impression that it was much more. Is this how the American culture gets appropriated?
Successful casting without regard to race exists in 1997’s Cinderella for TV, 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing (I think that’s the Branaugh film Bill means), and the Tom Clancy movie series beginning with 1990’s The Hunt for Red October. Back then we all loved the Michaels (Jordan and Jackson) and watched Oprah.
Something happened to undo all the successful unification of American society.
It is a political message from communists akin to pulling down statues They want to rewrite history and tear down what was good and replace it with their ideologies
I thout is was Irving Thalberg who said call Wester Union.
Bill, I heard told once, that Sex and the City was actually a show about gay men in NYC. They just cast women in the gay guy roles.
I seem to be missing the point here. I couldn’t get past the first episodes of Game of Thrones. Its fans assured me that the quality (writing, directing, acting, etc) improved and that I should stick with it. Sorry, I couldn’t, and I can’t get past the dreck I’m seeing in the first episodes of this prequel. Well, as the Romans said, “De gustibus non est disputandum.” (Each to their own).
As for the Rings of Power, my wife and I are enjoying it. Are we woke? Hell no. So, I suppose that the disconnect lies in the definition of “woke.” Well, here’s what the Woke have to say about that:
woke
[wōk]
VERB
ADJECTIVE
informal
Not a bad definition. Sadly, it doesn’t seem consistent with the behavior of the woke. Their behavior screams “Woke: A state of awareness only achieved by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything but their own behavior”. That would seem to describe those taking offense at The Rings of Power.
Yes, they have used a diverse cast of ethnic actors. So what? I have read Tolkien’s works several times and loved them. I was far more offended by the license taken by Peter Jackson, especially in making The Hobbit, than in seeing a black elf. Thus far, the Rings of Power have been truer to the spirit of Tolkien’s works than a weird wizard racing around on a sled dragged by a team of rabbits. And if you have a problem with strong women, how about the female elf played by Evangeline Lilly. Where does that character appear in the original story? Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy seeing Ms Lilly in anything, but her character doesn’t appear in The Hobbit.
Honestly, I think that the folks at Amazon started the rumors that The Rings of Power is “woke” just to attract that audience and get y’all complaining to broadcast free advertising for their show.
I attempted to post my response here, but got an ‘invalid email’ message multiple times. So this is a test. My post can be found on the blog instead:
https://billwhittlecom.wpenginepowered.com/our-stories-matter/
Great post and video. So much truth!
When Guy-ladriel appeared I knew that something was horribly and forever wrong about Amazon’s “Ring!” As the Tolkien historicist in the video said, When Jeff Bezos got the Ring, he put it on his middle finger instead of delivering it to the fires of Mt. Doom. When a Tolkien classic is touched by heretics it is not respected. Those who defile such a classic piece of literature and culture, deserve to become sources of ridicule and disdain.
Not only did they turn Galadriel into a Warrior Princess, they wimped out all of the men as well. That is not Tolkien. He made heroes out of the smallest and most flawed of the male characters – even Gollum.
I read the Bridgerton series and don’t mind that they use different races in the TV series. The actors are good, and after I bit, I forget they are a different race than described in the books.
I don’t care what race an actor is, as long as they are good at their job.
I wrote a rather lengthy comment on this subject for the backstage episode where it was mentioned. I’m not going to go into all of that again except to re-emphasise that I have a dog in this fight. If you want to know why that is, go find and read that prior comment. I also posted that comment on the YouTube release of this video if you want to go look there.
The thing is, I have absolutely no problem at all sharing these myths and tales with people of other races and cultures. They’re grand stories and should be shared. So long as others give them the same respect they militantly demand for theirs.
I will not sit idly by and countenance an attack on my heritage by people that insist on reverence for theirs. Why would I do such a ridiculous thing? Demanding that is not only unreasonable, it’s irrational.
Doing that is STEALING from me, personally, because this belongs to me every bit as much as ‘fish tacos’ (ala Dr. Shrill Biden) belong to Hispanics. Or slavery which is no longer occurring in America and so has become an historical and cultural issue — Belongs to black Americans who can trace their ancestry back to pre-Civil War days?
I love Mexican food but I don’t claim Danes invented it. I would never dream of opening a Danish Pastry shop (Danish pastry is far, far superior to French in my not so humble opinion. I grew up eating it, made by a real Dane who also happened to be my Mom.) and serving enchiladas and burritos. Can you even imagine the outcry if a white woman who looked like my Danish Mom played the role Oprah Winfrey filled in Roots?
Hans Christian Andersen is the author who gave us “The Emperor’s New Clothes” among many other well known, famous works. Go look up a picture of him, he looks very much like my great-uncle Paul Petersen. He sure as heck doesn’t look like James Earl Jones, whom I also greatly admire for his skill in his craft. Andersen was contemporaries with and knew Charles Dickens. Is it OK to portray Miss Havisham as black or Pippen as an Asian?
I’ll make that one easy for you. Hell no it’s not. That would be disrespecting the images the author intended to portray. Let the English have Dickens, he belongs to them. Let the Danes have Andersen, he’s one of ours.
Africa has a very rich folk tale heritage also. These tales are as well crafted and as entertaining as any fairy tale. Pick one of them, show us something new and interesting about African Culture. Don’t steal my culture and expect me to like it. If you do, don’t display your unmitigated gall in calling me a racist when I object.
What makes these people think they can be such bald faced blatant racists and then accuse me of racism? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I’m happy to share and I think sharing is a great idea, but I’m not at all happy in having my heritage stolen from me by morally bankrupt politically correct thieves.
You mentioned your great-uncle Paul Petersen. Is that the same Paul Petersen that was on the Donna Reed show in the 50’s/60’s?
No, my Uncle Paul was my maternal Grandmother’s younger brother. He was a radioman in the US Navy in the Pacific during WWII and when he came back home he worked an office job in a foundry. He was a jolly man with laugh lines around his eyes that smoked too much. He lived to be 82 years old anyway.
I’m certain he was never on the Donna Reed show.
I don’t care if Ariel is black if they cast the best actress for the part and she happened to be black, but that’s not how the left operates. This is the woke agenda at work, and if not–oh well. They’ve cried wolf a few dozen times too many.
Like Scott, I’m okay with being unfaithful to the lore. Disney’s first movie wasn’t very faithful, and I’m glad it wasn’t. The original is depressing.
I would have liked “Smallville” more if Lex Luthor was not fated to become the villain. His character was better when he and Clark were friends. The show had a good thing going, and Lex’s father Lionel was already the best villain.
However, both of those previous points have limited mileage. A LotR story is not something you mess around with lightly.
“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom”–Gandalf
Amazon could have introduced a darker people from a distant land. That would make a lot more sense than black and brown people randomly sprinkled in. Middle-Earth is not a Starbucks.
Instead of pushing “the message,” Amazon should have prioritized writing the best story they could. That would probably result in an all-white cast (*gasp*), unless their artistic vision landed on the aforementioned faraway people being in the story. Either way, I’d have given “Rings of Power” a chance.
Mermaids are in the folklore of every culture, be it Korean, African, Indian, Scandinavian, Japanese, Spanish, …, you name it. And I bet that the half woman/half fish in the stories of those peoples look like them.
Anyway, it’s fantasy. It’s a cartoon brought to life. We will see how much these injections of virtue signaling matter by the $$$$$ brought in.
Bill asked to have us recast our favorite movie and see how we’d like it if the characters were another race. “Princess Bride” would hold up fine with an all black cast, I think. It worries me, though. It might seem incongruous that a black grandfather would read a book to his grandson in this day and age to that demographic, so white people would still be the primary audience to watch after all. (Boy, did that come out “racist”. I just left a meeting where we are trying to get books to the underprivileged, both white and black. Most of these homes have no books at all, so this has been on my mind.)
Casting should be appropriate to and in support of the story being told. I don’t care if a story is about Africans but if it is, it should have African characters. Imagine if the Black Panther of Wauconda were as blond and blue eyed as Thor? That would make the story ridiculous.
The Princess Bride, as it was written and framed, is clearly a European fairy tale type story. It would look ridiculous with an all black cast. However, write it and frame it in Ancient Zimbabwe, pre-colonial Namibia or Pharaonic Egypt with appropriate casting and the story could be every bit as good as the one we both know and love. (It’s one of my favorites too, along with Second Hand Lions.)
It’s not a matter of race. It’s a matter of making good entertainment as good as it can be. Making things about race is shallow and counterproductive. I’d love to see more stories about Africa with a lot of Africans in the cast. One of my favorite authors is Wilbur Smith. He’s a white guy who was born in Zambia, grew up in South Africa and spins some pretty good yarns. The “Warlock/River God” series and “The Sunbird” are some of my all time favorites. “The Sunbird” would be fantastic as an adventure movie and very conducive to a nearly all black cast. I’d love to see a “black” take on some of his stories and they would be both entertaining and appropriate.
Casting a black Viking just to place a black person in the Viking world is just an insult to the whole enterprise. Casting a black mermaid in a Hans Christian Andersen tale just to get a black person in there is equally preposterous. Doing this kind of thing is petty and insults the audience.
Anyone who does that sort of thing, casts a black person in a role better filled by a white or vice versa, isn’t trying to entertain me, they’re trying to lecture me. I don’t need their petty, shallow lecturing. They’re the racists, not me.
Totally agree that “Princess Bride” would have to be cast somewhere outside of England-ish land.
If they are adapting the Hans Christian Andersen “Little Mermaid”, a black Mermaid would be stupid, too.
I’m Viking heritage, so I tell myself I care about truth in race.
Just looked up “Mermaids” on Wikipedia and thought the pervasiveness of the myth across cultures was cool.
Hello Bill, Scott and Steve. I’ve been away for a while but am glad to be back. Bill I definitely know how you feel about this. I experienced the same feelings when Amazon brought out the first season of Robert Jordan’s the Wheel of Time. Now I can understand that the series is comprised of 14 books so some editing is needed, but Rafe Judkins the director, decided not only to make outlandish changes to the plot and characters but he even injected a lesbian relationship between Moraine and Suan two of the female Aes Sedai that was never brought out in the books. When asked about the changes and about the outrage from the fan base, Rafe Judkins just doubled down on his decisions. After watching the entire first season, and believe me that was a struggle, I decided that’s it I’m sticking to the books. And a lot of fans are saying the same thing.
This has become a big thing in the history/heritage sector here in the UK. In fact, it was a big part of why I left my fulltime job at Hampton Court to concentrate on being a tour guide.
One of the straws that broke this camel’s back was when it was said that we would be playing with “blind casting” for our live, costumed interpretation. Being Hampton Court most of this interpretation is of the 16th century, mostly the reign of Henry VIII.
Now, although the history at Hampton Court is overwhelmingly white, there are non-white figures. John Blanke, the black trumpeter at Henry VIII’s court. The Moroccan ambassador, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, who visited Elizabeth I in 1600. And there is Sophia Duleep Singh, a Sikh princess who was a palace resident in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. All of these figures have been brought to life at the palace by modern interpreters, all of a reasonably appropriate ethnicity.
Do you think that, when the term “blind casting” is used with reference to interpretation, the thinking is maybe have a white or Asian John Blanke? Yeah right. The prospect of being involved in delivering an event with a black Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, or Jane Seymour did not fill me with delight. As this is rapidly becoming a blog post, I’ll leave it here and go and write the post.
I just had a weird thought – is Gulag Barbie (aka AOC) the female, Latinx reboot of Biden*?
Latinx … properly pronounced Lah – tinks, and its definition remains a mystery to me.
If AOC is the reboot as you suggest, then all I hear is a mindless echo of stupid.
The thing about little mermaid that gets me is its yet another attempt to erase gingers from cinema. They only make up about 2% of the world and they are always erased from cinema in the modern day.
Just had the thought that if you really want to expand the presence of black people in film, etc., then cast them as whites and display the film as negatives: then the whites will look black, and the blacks will look white. Problem solved!! [I guess that doesn’t work for digital imaging, does it?] It probably makes more sense for “racial justice” or whatever to focus on ensuring blacks have suitable representation among the 200 to 500 people that are required behind the scenes to create and develop a decent movie: producers, directors, light and sound techs, camera people, CG programmers, scheduling and location staffing, catering, etc. [Oh, and let’s not forget responsible armorers when necessary.]
More seriously, is there merit or a problem with the increased display of black families, or simply black users, in various advertisements, shown enjoying the benefits of our advanced prosperous society, its products or medicines or recreation or whatever. And any ad portrayal of any large group now includes at least one black person or couple. That is, shown as equal to whites in a well integrated society. Is this intended to provide balance (or equity?), so that 13% of the actors, or 13% of the ads show black people? And the number of ads with mixed race families, often including a mixed race child, seems to be on the rise as well. Is that a message of increased racial acceptance and decline of prejudice? Or even close to full acceptance of race parity? Is this a healthy and justified move to promote a more integrated society, showing both white and black observers or viewers of what our society should look like. Or can it be overdone?
Perhaps it is simply a recognition that there are now quite a few successful blacks, as individuals and as families, who are beneficiaries of the various civil rights laws, affirmative actions, EEO law suits, their own hard work, etc. and in turn now have more money to spend on the products and services being advertised. So the focus is not really on black or white, but on the green!!
Actually, black couples in ads are rare – they’re almost always interracial these days
Intriguing … black face with film.
PT Barnum said, ” I dont care what they say about me, just as long as they are talking about me!” (or something similar)
It is “showbusiness”.
The greatest movie ever made was The Blues Brothers, and recasting it as a woke film starring two black lesbian Muslim sisters would still probably be less painful to watch than Blues Brothers 2000
HBO did a Sex in the City remake with men – it was called “Entourage” and was equally painful to watch. I always like ruining SITC when my female friends would mention it when I’d tell them my favorite episode was the one about “The Sores that Don’t Go Away”. The glares I’d get were priceless
Matt Walsh has been having a field day with this by turning it into “The Translucent Rights” movement – this is brilliant.
I’d include a link, but for some reason the site isn’t letting me post or embed links
Steve said he was ok with a black actress in Little Mermaid because, well, what color are mermaids, anyway?
However, he objected to some of the casting of The Rings of Power because it conflicted with the very established source material.
There’s with problem that. The problem is that, in the equally or even more established source material for Little Mermaid, Anderson carefully and often describes the ‘whiteness’ of the little mermaid. He describes how white her face is. How white her hands are. How white her arms are… Anderson goes pretty far out of his way to establish the whiteness of the little mermaid.
Scott, meanwhile, doesn’t have a problem if source material is violated so, this argument doesn’t apply. But I wonder if Scott would be ok if Ryan Reynolds was cast as Kunta Kinte in a remake of Roots.
The Babylon Bee has Ben Shapiro as the next “Black Panther”.
So, what’s his super power? Intelligent, constant and rapid talking?
I’m reminded of the gender reversal trend of the 70s and 80s (e.g., “It Happened One Christmas”, “Ebbie”).
I’m no literature expert, but “To Kill a Mockingbird” is still the best story I’ve ever read and watched that addresses the evils of racism. All of these more modern attempts are pathetically weak imitations of such brilliance.
It is a really good story.
David, I meant to give you a single thumbs up, but somehow it showed 4 thumbs up. I only clicked on the icon once. Still a good comment on your part, but I thought we could only provide one thumbs up per person?? Otherwise the endorsement count from the group really has no meaning.
???????
maybe your vote counts for four. or three others hit the button at the same time.
George,
Well, my thumb is not as powerful as yours, because I was only able to reciprocate with one.