Chloe x Halle's Halle Bailey Cast as Ariel in Disney's "The Little Mermaid" Live-Action Remake

So...another year, another Disney live-action remake.
While I believe some of them are good (I got to see the new Aladdin in May and loved it), I wasn't a fan of the idea. The original animated Disney films are well-beloved classics (I got to see the originals of the remakes and am definitely a fan of them all) and we all know them enough to give the company a lot of clout on social media and money from buying them from iTunes and Google Play (yes, the latter still exists). And on the concept of Hollywood remaking films... I tolerate it. But I'm in agreement with a lot of people who say that good films should not yet be remade (actor Michael Caine has said that bad films are the ones that should be remade, which I also agree with). But I also hate the argument some people always throw that Hollywood has ran out of ideas -- seriously, either there's a movie you're not interested in or not even looking for that shows the opposite, and even if one film rips off another older film even a lot, at least they have a different touch to the concept and genre.

All that aside, all the criticism didn't stop Disney from plans of remaking yet another animated classic. The Little Mermaid is joining the other recent films getting the real-life flesh-and-blood treatment (and that's after four remakes this year alone: Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King and Lady and the Tramp [along with Maleficent sequel Mistress of Evil]). And while that news didn't get my attention, this news got everyone's unbridled attention (and then some): who got cast as the titular character herself, Ariel. That lucky lady is Halle Bailey. Not Berry, as in Monster's Ball, BAPS, Catwoman (shiver) and X-Men; Halle Bailey is one half of popular musical sibling duo Chloe x Halle. They also act, as prevalent in their starring roles Jazlyn "Jazz" and Skylar "Sky" Forster on Grown-ish.

They even sang the theme song.


They also performed America the Beautiful at Super Bowl LII (in one of the few best parts of the whole telecast):


So yeah, they're a perfect double threat (triple if they dance too). So you can at least see why Disney would cast her as ... wait. Ariel??

Yeeeaaaaah. You guys know, Ariel is a white female mermaid. And as you saw, Chloe Bailey is black. As you can expect, a lot of people were furious by the casting news. Many (mostly white) took to Twitter and Facebook to blast Disney for casting a black girl as a "white" mermaid and wanted her to be dropped from the production.

In my opinion... I'm cool with this. I don't care about the mermaid controversy because it's stupid, and because mermaids are mythological creatures based on fish, one feature of which is that they were never tied down by race. While the mermaids we've seen in TV and movies over the decades were usually (mostly) white (TLM is one of them), we've seen black and brown mermaids too in both. So it really shouldn't matter who gets cast in the film as Ariel as long as the actress or singer can act and sing. And I very much think Halle can do both. Otherwise she wouldn't have been on Grown-ish or have a music career with sister Chloe. Black Ariel will be only the second black Disney princess in over 70 years of Disney animated productions -- and the last, Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, was introduced only 10 years ago.
And we can't forget this isn't the first time Disney had a black actress and singer portray a Princess.

To anyone who thinks Halle won’t make a good Ariel just because she’s black, throwback to when Brandy absolutely killed it as Cinderella in the 90s 😍😩 pic.twitter.com/cq0WVWo21F

— Common Girl (@girlhoodposts) July 3, 2019

Brandy played Cinderella in the 1997 live-action TV movie, and she absolutely slayed the role (not to mention one of the Evil Stepsisters was also black [implying Lady Tremaine had a black lover] and Prince Charming was biracial and played by a Filipino-American actor).

It's a shame that Disney hasn't had even had more than one Black Princess more years ago than they'd like to admit because it really is time for more diversity in the line of Princesses, and this is a big great step.

The backlash is so unnecessary and annoying and the people who spewed such hate at Halle for starring in a film about a mytho who wants her sea legs to become real legs, please do three things:

• Calm down and take a breather
• At least look her up to know who she is to get an actual legit opinion, and
• Know that mermaids were never legitimately white (or any other race) in the first place

The backlash would've been warranted had people had legit things to say like the film being made in the first place.

As much as the Disney live-action remake-churning machine makes me roll my eyes continuously, I have faith in the new The Little Mermaid. And I wish Halle nothing but the best in her role. Grown-ish already made her a star, but this film will take her star to the stratosphere. I say congrats to Halle Bailey, just like Halle Berry did too post-confusion. (And yes, I was one of the many who thought that Berry was cast as Ariel, and not Bailey). But if Disney wants to have a scene in the future after Ariel marries Prince Eric and features them as royalty with a family, have Ms. Berry's number on Speed dial.

Wait, isn't Ariel a redhead?

    

Okay, good.