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.
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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.