Tokenism or "Woke Casting" Analysis of the Little Mermaid Movie

The new Little Mermaid movie, starring Halle Bailey, is a culturally and historically significant film that represents underrepresented voices. It challenges traditional norms and promotes inclusivity and representation in media. The casting choices, cultural sensitivity, and visual storytelling make it a significant media artifact for the Disney Company and multicultural America. The movie has faced controversy and mixed opinions, but it reflects the evolving representation of minority voices and the broader societal impact of diverse narratives in mainstream media. The historical context, distribution, and interpretation of the film also play important roles in its significance. Overall, the film is a successful example of advocating for diversity and representation in American film. This is, under the surface, a critical analysis of the new Little Mermaid movie, with Emmy Sanders. Growing up, I loved Disney movies, especially The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid was an iconic Disney movie to me, and it was most recently reimagined, starring Halle Bailey, this past summer of 2023. The movie is a culturally and historically significant movie that represents so many underrepresented voices. The movie stars so many different cultures, races, and ethnicities. The historical, social, and cultural context are all components that contribute so much to this media artifact. The new Little Mermaid, through its casting choices, cultural sensitivity, and visual storytelling, serves as a significant media artifact in the United States and for the Disney Company. However, it has been argued that it's not represented correctly compared to the original movie by people. But I believe it serves as a significant cultural media artifact that reflects and contributes to both evolving representation for minority voices and a broader societal impact of diverse narratives in mainstream media. Today, we will dive into the origin of the story, the historical context and its significance, cultural and societal context, the distribution of the film, and interpretation of the casting and why it's so important for Disney and for multicultural America. Let's first start off with the origin of the story. The origin of the story is a little bit different and a little weird, honestly. It's originally a story written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1857. This fairy tale is about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. However, in this adaptation, the mermaid must kill the human to save herself, which is very different from the Disney film, Little Mermaid, as the little mermaid falls in love with the prince. This story has had many adaptations, most famous by Disney in 1989. The original classic, Ariel, is voiced by Jodie Benson, a white female. Ariel is light skinned with red hair and blue eyes, as well as all of Ariel's sisters being white. The movie recently reimagined with Halle Bailey. The new portrayal of Ariel features dark skin tone, braids with subtle red hues and brown eyes, a very different comparison of Ariel compared to the original. This brought about so much controversy to people who watched it. Next, let's do historical context and significance. The historical context and significance of this movie includes breaking traditional norms, promoting inclusivity and representation, cultural impact and symbolism, and contributing to social discourse. In the United States, there is small representation of minority voices in film. The film industry tends to cast actors within certain historical roles for specific races or ethnic groups. Casting Halle Bailey challenges this norm, especially for Disney. The movie's colorblind casting contributes to the broader push for inclusivity and representation in media. Film director Rob Marshall stated in an interview, There was no agenda. With Halle Bailey, we saw everybody, but the role was hers. In this, Marshall hints at colorblind casting by disregarding Bailey's race and focusing on her talent and cultural relevance to a younger audience. This type of movie, however, follows the storyline of Mermaid, which aren't real and are mythical creatures where race is really arbitrary. Casting from a color-conscious perspective, however, other films like Disney's Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians need color-conscious casting and need to have a black or Asian cast for the sake of their storyline. This brings into question for The Little Mermaid, the reason behind casting Halle Bailey as Ariel. Was it tokenism or the Twitter term, quote casting? The next question is, what is the cultural and societal context of this film? The cultural and societal context play a huge role in the consumption of this movie and later we'll talk about the distribution as well. The last Disney animated movies that were not white-based were Encanto and Raya and the Last Dragon, both released in 2021. Disney has had very few movies that star black actors. Casting a diverse class to reimagine a classic Disney movie is taking a huge risk for the Disney brand in film. Disney is a very big brand and company, nation and worldwide. However, it has had backlash in inclusion over the years. Although Disney has been increasingly inclusive, they do lack inclusivity in film. One major aspect in film is music in its composition. Lin-Manuel Miranda was actually a voice actor for one of the characters in this new Little Mermaid movie. He also composed music for the film. He created music for the Disney movie Encanto and he also was the star Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton. This is societally significant because he is such a huge representation of Puerto Rican culture in the United States. Ashley Simon played one of the sisters in the Little Mermaid movie and comes from Indian descent and is also a lead actress in the Netflix Bridgerton series. There are so many other ethnicities and cultures represented in the movie that are impactful and it also answers the question of why it's culturally and societally significant. Next, I'm going to touch on the distribution of film and why it's important. The media artifact distribution plays a huge crucial role in the interpretation of the movie and how others portray it. This included all types of mass media like radio, news broadcasts, social media, magazine articles, and more. The announcement of black actress Halle Bailey was announced in July of 2019 and already backlash had begun. Five days after the trailer was released on Disney, there were a total of 2.1 million dislikes on this year. Social media platforms, however, were filled with clips of young black girls reacting to the trailers with audio videos like she's like me or her hair looks like mine. Many young girls felt connected to Bailey playing Ariel as an apparent reference to the absence of representation for black children in movies, specifically Disney movies. Halle Bailey said in an interview with Sherry Shepard, I've seen the Brandys and the Nika Roses and I knew how much it meant to me to be able to see myself in a character like them. She also said in that interview, I was excited to be a part of a monumental film, especially in black history. Bailey references actresses that played and voiced Cinderella in the Cinderella 1997 film Brandy Norwood and Anika Rose, who voiced Tiana in the Princess and the Frog 2009. She elaborates on the impact and importance of these women in Disney film and black history. Lastly, let's talk about the interpretation of the film. The movie casting was interpreted with many mixed opinions, both positive and negative, because what's a movie without a few haters? People argued that the movie was not reflective of the original movie because of the cast race and ethnicities differing from the original animated version. The hashtag NotMyAriel circulated among the campaign against the movie in the United States in 2023. People commented on the lack of a nostalgic feeling. Many films in the United States represent heroes as white people. When heroes aren't white, the extent of their influence is limited to characters who look like them. Because casting a black woman would disrupt the hierarchies that have been embedded into the national narrative. Roland Williams says in an interview, this version of the Little Mermaid is great for young people because it allows them to better appreciate diversity and gain a better sense of the world. A Kenyan sophomore at Georgetown University in Qatar says, seeing a black woman play the role of a princess with a kingdom backing and living a lifestyle that seems so detached from the black girl reality is like placing a crown on my head and not feeling like a mannequin in a store just for display, but a young girl who humanizes and embodies it. Adding that Halle Bailey playing this role allows black children in society and the world to feel beautiful as well. Overall, reimagining the film was not to bring back the nostalgic feeling or a way for Disney to make more money, but to signify and give a voice to the black community and a broader push for inclusivity and representation in film. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. To conclude, The Little Mermaid was a successful film, and it was a success. The Little Mermaid reimagined movie is a significant example of a media artifact that advocates and represents underrepresented minority voices in American film today. Thank you so much for listening to, was it tokenism or woke casting? A critical analysis of the new Little Mermaid movie.