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Meesh
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AladdinsGenie
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 Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| It's been super disheartening to watch the reaction to Hailey's casting, but my pettiness to spite racists is making this a must see. |
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Meesh
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zitagirl
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| AladdinsGenie wrote: |
| It's been super disheartening to watch the reaction to Hailey's casting, but my pettiness to spite racists is making this a must see. |
Apparently the outrage on Twitter was manifactured though. If you look at the tweets with the hashtag NotMyAriel, you will mostly see people complaining about people, not actual racist comments on the cast choice. It's definitely fishy if you ask me.
At first it threw me off guard, knowing where the story originates from, but then I heard how Disney will take the story to the Carrebeans so I guess it fits. Honestly would have preferred if they just make a new character in this case with their own story(at least that would have been a bit more original)but if they can work it out properly, I'm all for it.
Plus let's not call people racist just because they are fond of the old look of Ariel and wanted to see that. Sure there are possibly some actual racists that hate the casting choice out of petty reasons, but I doubt everyone is like that.
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AladdinsGenie
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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| ....there's no way for me to engage in this conversation with you on the level that it needs to be explained without it turning EXTREMELY personal. And as the only mod here, I'd like to stick around with you guys incase you need something as I'm rather fond of this place. So I'm not going to say anything further on this. |
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zitagirl
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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As you wish. Either way I do believe the actress will do her best and I actually hope she will succeed.
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Edward Falcon
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| I am not trying to be racist. I just don’t know why they would cast a black actress for a character that was originally white. I got nothing against Halle Bailley. I’m sure she is a nice person, but I just don’t get why they would do this. |
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arisha
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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As a white person with zero problem seeing a black actress cast as new!Ariel, here are some reasons why I think Disney may have made this decision.
- The most cynical and yet perhaps most understandable reason: money. Movies starring PoC actors have been BIG BUCKS these past few years. Black Panther made over a billion dollars. The new Aladdin probably will too. I don't have much time to hunt down articles right now, but this article talks about films with black leading actors making a lot of money and this article talks about how movies with diverse casts outperform those with homogeneous casts - notably, "a cast of at least 30 percent actors of color outperformed those with a primarily white cast."
- Representation in media is SUPER IMPORTANT. This is why I personally have been wanting Disney to make more diverse casting decisions. Many of us live in multicultural societies, plus these movies are getting shipped all over the world, plus we're supposedly living in a global age, plus plus plus. It is really important for PoC to see themselves in pop culture and it is really important for non-PoC to see PoC in pop culture. Articles on this topic are endless, but here are the first four I stumbled upon: here, here, here, here.
- As for why Disney specifically would decide to cast a black actress for Ariel specifically, well - do you remember how much excitement there was when they announced their next heroine would be of Chinese descent? when they announced their next princess would be black? Yeah there might be backlash, but I think they also get a lot of praise and positive buzz when they have a lead character who is a person of colour. People have wanted to see Disney diversify their characters for YEARS! Well, it's not 1989 anymore and Disney has realized that their audience isn't a monolith of white people. And if they're going to commit to this, what better character to show their commitment through than Ariel, one of their most popular princess characters ever? Nothing says "we are all about diversity in movies" than taking one of your most famous characters and casting a black actress to play her.
- Like has been brought up multiple times in the Aladdin remake thread, yes these movies are live action versions of animated movies ... BUT at the same time they are new versions of the stories put together by different people with different ideas and aimed at a different audience living in a different time. Why should Ariel be white again? They already made that movie. You can watch it anytime you like. The creators of the remake are looking to do something different with the story and I'm fine with that. |
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zitagirl
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| Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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I can understand your points, arisha, just I'm not a big fan of changing a character's basics, even if the reason for it is noble. I rather just make new characters with their own stories instead of taking already existing ones and change them. The latter just doesn't feel sincere to me really, especially when we consider in the more cynical reason.
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arisha
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| Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 1:57 am Post subject: |
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But taking already existing stories/characters and changing them has been the Walt Disney Company's M.O. for its entire history. They made Robin Hood a fox and Oliver Twist a cat. They made Pocahontas older than she historically was. They made Quasimodo hearing when in the original novel he is deaf. They decided Hercules shouldn't kill Megara. They decided Tarzan shouldn't kill Kerchak and Jane should be British instead of American. They took Jim Hawkins out of England and the Caribbean and put him in outer space. They took Aladdin out of China and changed his princess's name from Badroulbadour to Jasmine. The 1989 Little Mermaid ALREADY makes HUGE changes from the original Hans Christian Andersen story, in which all of the nameless little mermaid's sisters have visited the surface of the water, the mermaid's human transformation comes with intense and unending physical pain, she contemplates killing the prince, and at the end of the story she dies.
What makes this change so different from any of the above? |
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zitagirl
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| Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| arisha wrote: |
But taking already existing stories/characters and changing them has been the Walt Disney Company's M.O. for its entire history. They made Robin Hood a fox and Oliver Twist a cat. They made Pocahontas older than she historically was. They made Quasimodo hearing when in the original novel he is deaf. They decided Hercules shouldn't kill Megara. They decided Tarzan shouldn't kill Kerchak and Jane should be British instead of American. They took Jim Hawkins out of England and the Caribbean and put him in outer space. They took Aladdin out of China and changed his princess's name from Badroulbadour to Jasmine. The 1989 Little Mermaid ALREADY makes HUGE changes from the original Hans Christian Andersen story, in which all of the nameless little mermaid's sisters have visited the surface of the water, the mermaid's human transformation comes with intense and unending physical pain, she contemplates killing the prince, and at the end of the story she dies.
What makes this change so different from any of the above? |
You bring up good points. I might be very wrong here, but I feel like the previous ones were more of artistic decisions (although I personally do not agree with some of them even if I do see that for that story they work for the better or worse) them finding the story better that way. If I ignore the cynical option this would probably the case here as well, as I did hear that Disney sets this live-action movie to the Carrebeans (sorry for mistyping it), just hard to not think cynically given in how today's world is and how coorperations function.
Plus for the most part their live-actions remained mostly true to their cartoons, especially with how the characters look. Them suddenly change a main character like that just can be off-putting for many, even if they accept it as time goes on.
(Hope I don't sound aggressive or anything. Try to remain polite as much as possible)
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arisha
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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Nah, you don't sound aggressive. Actually I was worried after I wrote my previous post that I made it sound like people HAVE to like EVERY change that Disney makes or they can't be a Disney fan. Of course I don't think that at all. I just get a little frustrated when people say "I don't like this because [reason]" when that reason has (as far as I am aware) never bothered them before.
I think setting the new Little Mermaid in the Caribbean is a really good idea. "Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl" already have some Caribbean influences. And the original Sebastian has a Jamaican accent! So the 1989 movie was already a mixture of different places.
| zitagirl wrote: |
| just hard to not think cynically given in how today's world is and how coorperations function. |
Well, I have no problem thinking cynically about the businesspeople at the top of the Disney company and thinking more generously about the creative people who are more hands-on involved in making the movies. Ultimately I figure a lot of the decisions that go into movies are a mixture of business and creative goals. I think I'm less resistant to thinking of Disney as a money making machine than some people are ... I always see people talking about how Disney has "sold out" and I'm just like "??? yeah? they're a major business? in a capitalist society? what do you expect them to do???"
Don't hate the player, hate the game! |
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Meesh
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Meesh
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| Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2022 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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We got chills listening to that score. The original's score is good, but the recording is so dry. I'm really excited to listen to this!!
IMO this movie could use an update, so I'm pretty pumped! Hoping for more relationship-building between Eric & Ariel and for a better conflict-climax than the original.
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Meesh
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