JWeinCom said:
Are you even vaguely familiar with how Disney works? The whole concept that Disney was built on was taking fairy tales and other similar types of stories and changing them for no particular reason aside from the fact that they thought it would be more appealing to their audience. In the original story, Prince Eric winds up with some other girl, and Ariel's tongue is cut out. King Triton is a Greek God with horse legs and a fish tail and has nothing to do with the original story. There were no talking crabs or animals. In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Esmeralda was kind of a stuck up bitch who barely tolerated quasi modo, Pheobus was a moron, and Esmeralda is killed. Rapunzel never had magical healing powers in any version of the fairytale. In reality Pocahontas was 12 when John Smith came to America, and she did not talk to Willow Trees. We could go on with tons and tons of examples of Disney changing and adapting stories to what they believe their audience wants. And we can give plenty of examples of other companies doing the same, and I have already presented several way more drastic changes. Yet, generally these types of changes don't elicit much anger. So, why is Ariel being black especially problematic? |
There are multiple reasons. One I already explained multiple times, whether the change makes sense or not. It makes sense for Disney to adapt existing fairy tales and changing the plot for entertainment purposes like to kids. The character "Ariel" is based off of the original story and Disney made it a character. It doesn't make sense to change the appearance of a character that already exists. Disney's "The Little Mermaid" is copyrighted whereas Anderson's is a public domain. One of the reasons for copyright is to protect the image and sell on that image. Idols and celebrities are perfect examples of selling an image, they create an image and people become fans because they like it. The recent film is a "remake" of the original. If Disney really wanted to make a different looking mermaid, the least they should have done is separate them with Ariel. In fact just make one with no connection to "The Little Mermaid" because it's described as white in the original as well, and people are going to complain regardless. I said this in my other comment, this isn't just about appearance but characteristics. People will argue if the way they talk is different, their voice, their unique traits like exaggerated gestures. Why are people mad with most adaptations? Because it doesn't share the same vibe with the original. Sometimes change is okay with the fans, sometimes it's not. That kind of understanding naturally develops within the community. Let's think what the purpose of changing Ariel black was. It's for inclusion, representation, but they are also taking away the representation of a red hair white female main character. It seems like some people in modern society are biased towards "minorities" doing whatever they want for the sake of representation, but red haired white people could also be considered as a minority. Would people want to hear that Michael Jordan is now considered Asian for Asian representation in the NBA? I'm sure people would be pissed. Fictional characters are no different if it's already established.
It's not an easy answer, reality is that sometimes there's multiple answers, sometimes none. It's not just a yes or no, but in this case it does feel a little forced resulting in angry people. Tbf there will always be angry people no matter what, but there were lots this time around and for understandable reasons. I personally think this is an example of crossing the "line" I talked about earlier.
