These days there is a lot of talk about the remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and one of the main reasons continues to be the choice of halle bailey to bring Ariel to life. I for one think his performance is among the best of an acceptable film but clearly inferior to the animated original. Of course, the fact that she is black is irrelevant to me in any case, but especially because of the complaint that mermaids cannot be black. And it is that Disney already introduced a black mermaid in this same universe a whopping 30 years ago.
Ariel’s friend
To find Disney’s first black mermaid, you have to go back to the television prequel to ‘The Little Mermaid’ that premiered 31 years ago, since in the sixth episode of its second season it featured Gabriella, a deaf black siren who communicated with sign language. In fact, one of the main themes of the chapter is seeing how Ariel teaches him to express her feelings through sign language during a song.
Gabriella would reappear in the penultimate episode of the series, in which he helps Ariel break a spell of Ursula’s that makes the treasures Ariel has been collecting come alive and terrify people. Since then we have not seen this character again, but what he did make completely clear is that there were already black mermaids in the universe of ‘The Little Mermaid’ long before some people screamed in heaven for the signing of Bailey.
Until Jodi Bensonthe actress who lent her voice to Ariel in the animated film released in 1989, spoke at the time in favor of Bailey’s signing, making it clear that skin color was irrelevant, since “what we have to do is tell the story” and “what we want is to connect with the audience“. There it is clear that they have achieved it with the North American public, but it is also fair to point out that the film is not doing as well in other countries.
I am clear that this detail is not going to make some people stop complaining about the signing of Bailey, but that they do not come up with empty arguments such as that mermaids cannot be black. Because if you resort to science to explain it, the very existence of mermaids would not make any sense -and that without going into the fact that it is a fantasy universe with a singing crab. And the other “arguments” that I have heard do not say anything good about those who use them…
In Espinof | The 26 Best Disney Movies of All Time