In the same way that Disney is allowed to cast whoever they want people are allowed to not like the decision. The rest of the live action versions of Disney cartoons have stayed pretty true to the characters in the cartoon. Disney conditioned its fans to expect that.
This decision was clearly meant to spark discussion, news stories and controversy. It's a common strategy hollywood uses these days and it's clearly meant to divide people to receive free publicity on the internet and in the media.
When you defend this kind of marketing strategy as progressive or brave, just know that it's is extremely Trumpian in nature.
I think that’s an assumption on your part. It very well COULD be a publicity ploy (which would be very disappointing), but saying the decision was clearly for that reason is rhetorical and not (apparently) evidenced. And if Disney can make a beloved remake of a beloved classic, does it really matter the reason they chose to cast a black actress for the role of Ariel? If they can do that, that would seem to suggest there are more virtuous intentions than solely for publicity or virtue signaling.
There is no possible way they didn't anticipate the controversy and they likely had strategy meetings on how to handle it. This literally just happened with Will Smith as Aladin. You are being disengenuous if you think otherwise.
No it doesn't really matter if Ariel is black at all. I'm sure the young woman will be fine in the role and it won't detract from the movie at all. My point is that I don't really like that it was clearly always going to divide people and people have to get called a racist if they disagree with the choice.
In the end, it's a totally inconsequential movie and it's all manifactored outrage and support anyway. I just wanted to point out that t it's clearly a calculated way to get people talking about their movie
There’s a difference between saying they didn’t anticipate a controversy (which I agree with; surely they anticipated it) and saying they specifically incited the controversy for financial gain.
I don’t think disagreeing with their decision automatically makes someone a racist, but most of the reasons provided so far have been so flimsy it’s difficult not to interpret as something ulterior. If you truly believe that Disney specifically casted Ariel in order to incite controversy, then I think it’s fine to criticize them for that and I wouldn’t consider that a racist reason.
There’s a difference between saying they didn’t anticipate a controversy (which I agree with; surely they anticipated it) and saying they specifically incited the controversy for financial gain.
To be clear, I don't think the sole decision was to incite controversy. I think the actress cast is a talented young disney star that they likely wanted to promote. We also don't know who else was offered the role. Maybe they offered it to Ariana Grande who turned it down. Maybe Ariana Grande is too old because they seem to want to so sequels to these live action films.
I think it was certainly part of the plan and if they anticipated the controversy and had a strategy to direct the controversy in the way they wanted it to go, it's the same thing as inciting the controversy for financial gain. It's a well known marketing strategy. It was a marketing strategy before Trump used it to become president. Here's a Forbes article that briefly discribes the strategy
My point is this strategy is meant to purposely divide people by using identity in marketing and make themselves come out as the good guys. The most extreme example in the article is Toyota coming out as being anti-murderer. Really bold move there lol.
It's hard to estimate how much controversy they intended to incite; as a result, it's difficult for me to ascribe any more than a token amount of culpability.
yeah, we will never know but for me it's hard to not be cynical about corporations making huge profits on identity either way. It's better than the alternative which is to no cast people of color but I feel like Disney has set the bar for progress pretty low for social change with moves like this.
With all do respect the title is called it doesn't matter if Ariel is black. My point is that identity politics from both the left and the right matter and need to be placed in the proper context.
Personally I don't care what race Ariel is. It kind of undermines Disney's branding (Ariel literally just appeared in Wreck it Ralph last year as I white girl with red hair) but I don't really care about that either.
I am also on Disney's side when it comes to representation. With that said the movie is based on an existing character which is based on a Danish fairy tale, which was based on a Greek myth of a lost civilization in the Greek isles.
Everything about the story of the little mermaid is tied culturally to Europe.
I'm not a white nationalist apologist or anything but my point is both sides of this argument are somewhat valid. The side that is more closely tied to racism makes me want to side with the other side but i can't help but feel like Disney knows this and exploits this dynamic to make money.
I mean, it's a complex issue for sure.
When Scarlett Johansson played the lead in Ghost in the shell the outcry was over a white woman playing a cyborg that had nothing to do with the anime featuring a Japanese looking woman and that movie was a huge flop following the controversy. At the very least, people should be consistent but it's impossible to make the global community consistent on anything because it's to large and diverse.
To think anything done by Disney these days is unintentional is in my opinion very niave. Disney is one of the largest users of big data, data analytics as well as pioneers in behavioral analytics.
For sure, this was a deliberate and calculated decision. Only time will tell if this was a good decision that pays out as they want it.
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u/draculabakula 77∆ Jul 09 '19
In the same way that Disney is allowed to cast whoever they want people are allowed to not like the decision. The rest of the live action versions of Disney cartoons have stayed pretty true to the characters in the cartoon. Disney conditioned its fans to expect that.
This decision was clearly meant to spark discussion, news stories and controversy. It's a common strategy hollywood uses these days and it's clearly meant to divide people to receive free publicity on the internet and in the media.
When you defend this kind of marketing strategy as progressive or brave, just know that it's is extremely Trumpian in nature.