Let’s face it. The late night shows have always sucked.
Not always
Humor is a matter of interpretation, which is a subjective experience.
I will perhaps try to watch it tomorrow.
I think Trevor said it pretty well, Ariel is a mermaid, a fictional creature, and the character isn’t defined by her skin tone, but by her having a tail. Where as being an black African is the defining characteristic of Black Panther.
Mermaids used to be hideous creatures that lured their pray in using their beautiful voice, and it’s just another word for sirens. They were associated with floods, drowning, storm, and shipwrecks. By getting rid of those traditional associations and just say people and mermaids just have misconceptions and misunderstandings due to the lack of communication, Hans Christian Andersen already altered the original story.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote his version as an allegory for his struggle about hiding his sexual orientation, and his own unrequited love. The little mermaid’s journey reflected the fact that he was silenced and couldn’t tell the truth about how he really felt, as well as his yearning for being able to be true to himself. The music of the 1989 animation was written by Howard Ashman, who was also a gay man, and he expanded on that theme in songs like Part of Your World.
Disney even changed the name of the Little Mermaid to Ariel and gave the story a happy ending. These are all evolution of the story, and these classics remain timeless because they can get adapted for a new age and new audiences.
As long as it’s along the theme of challenging the social boundaries in search of true self-expression, whether it be challenging the social boundaries on sexual orientation, cross-species romance or inter-ethnic romance, I think it’s in the spirit of the Little Mermaid. That’s why I think the remake’s casting simply adds on another layer to the Little Mermaid’s core premise.
Also, Halle looks great. While the Hans Christian Andersen version of the story is probably set in Northern Europe, the 1989 Disney movie obviously was set in somewhere much warmer, hence all the tropical fish. The music also suggests a Caribbean setting. I’m guessing the new version is set in a fictional world where African Caribbean formed their own kingdoms.
If they’d gone further and made the guy Asian/Taiwanese, box office sales might be up.
I was going to say, perhaps @hansioux you’re over thinking things, to me it’s a cartoon I will never watch nor would I no matter who they cast as the little mermaid, it’s their movie, they can do what they like is my begining and end of thinking about that.
But then @hansioux posts a wall of text, clearly having given this a great deal more thought than I and brings up “cross species romance” whats that about?
Merpeople and humans obviously aren’t the same species. Hence this post…
Scuttle and max are changed as well.
Merpeople don’t exist, what a strange topic for people to be discussing.
It’s the original premise of the story. Don’t shoot the messenger.
It is no different from the White Snake Legends in China. That one is two snakes wanting to get together with a human male.
Oh, it’s a love story.
Anyway seems some are putting a lot of thought into this while at the same time accusing anyone who didn’t like how the role was cast of thinking too much, there’s an irony in there I believe.
We used to call it beastiality
East Asia is getting better for Black people, but it’s still extremely racist. When my illustrious ESL career was beginning back in 2007, I taught at a buxiban in South Korea (called hagwon there). My director was observing one of my first classes. Some 10 year old shitheel in the back of the class thought it was hilarious that a Black guy was one of the characters in the book we were reading and kept calling him “gorilla” or “monkey.” Instead of reprimanding him, the director of this educational institution was nodding and laughing along with the little snot.
Reminds me of a Futurama episode where Atlanta ended up underwater and all their residents turned to mermaids, and then Fry fell in love with one of the mermaids and married her… well their method of reproduction made Fry run away.
There was a time when they were good, but that was an embarrassingly long time ago.
If by “great” you mean her eyes are so far apart she practically looks like a tropical fish. 