Ariel Was Meant to be White
In the upcoming year, we will all get something that was not asked for yet very much anticipated — a Black Ariel. Disney’s 1989 classic about a young princess-mermaid falling in love with a human prince will come to life with a young, Black girl as its titular character. Since the announcement of this casting, there has been backlash, defense, apathy, mockery, and celebration. However, the conflict behind all of the discourse for why or why not Ariel should be Black is far deeper than keeping the Golden Age of Disney pure or bringing voices to certain communities. It is based on the fact that Ariel — as she is presented in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” — embodies characteristics such as kindness, beauty, and feminine fragility that historically are meant to only be attributed to white women. Therefore, attributing them to Black women is unacceptable — even impossible — to some, and uplifting to others.
In 2019, Disney announced a live-action remake of their 1989 animated film, “The Little Mermaid”. They also announced that Ariel, the aforementioned “little mermaid,” would be played by singer, songwriter, and actress Halle Bailey, a Black woman. However, the remake was pushed to the back of many people’s minds until Disney released a teaser-trailer for the live-action remake in early September of this year, which featured Halle as Ariel singing the popular song from the movie, “Part of Your World.” The backlash was immediate — featuring arguments that Disney was pandering to minorities, that the story should stay true to its roots, or even the racist “scientific” argument that Ariel, living in the deep sea, would have to be pale or even translucent in skin color.
But why is it so important for Ariel to be white? Or why is it so incredible that she now comes in Black? With the backlash also came much defense and celebration, with social media sharing videos of Black children and adults giving joyous reactions to the trailer. However, there have been no records or requests from anyone — on any political or racial extreme — asking for decades-old Disney princesses to be remade, yet everyone has an opinion of it. Why? It is because Ariel was meant to be white.
In the original version of The Little Mermaid, Ariel is pure — refusing to kill the prince that rejected her. She is rewarded or dies with dignity, based on Andersen’s different endings. In the Disney version, Ariel is the prettiest of her sisters and the best singer — the crown jewel of the sea, if you will. She is kind, naive, and curious. She has a soft voice and thin, soft body features. In both design and character, Ariel is white — she is what has been historically depicted as the antithesis of Black women. This can be seen from everything to how Black and white women have been portrayed in historical classics such as “Gone with the Wind,” “Heart of Darkness,” and even more recent media like a comic strip about Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.
Upon further analysis of the Disney film, you can see Ariel’s embodiment of white femininity clearly, especially amongst her less traditional counterpart, Ursula, inspired by a drag queen and often played by a plus-size Black woman in live-action musical renditions. At the end of the movie, Ariel glides out of the water in a glimmering dress and is spun around by her prince. Ursula literally busts out of her wedding dress and begins to maniacally crawl to the end of the ship. Ariel has flowers put in her hair and little fish sing around her while Ursula has a shrine of poor, unfortunate souls and a witch-like crystal ball.
The point is clear — Ariel is supposed to embody soft, feminine and desirable traits, and she gets her happily ever after. These concepts in Western thought are not meant to be in Black women — Black women are the very concept that makes beauty, kindness, and femininity possible by being the antithesis of them. From science to art to style, Black women have exemplified either what not to be or what to costume around as. Simply put, Black women are constructed in Western society as Ursulas, not Ariels. So, for America to see a Black woman playing the titular character of this much loved classic evokes powerful emotions in them — whether negative or positive — because of cognitive dissonance from their social norms.
Additionally, one can argue that Halle Bailey does in fact embody these traits — most Black women do. It is easy to look at Halle and discern that she is gorgeous, thin, and a graceful singer, much like the animated Ariel is portrayed. However, these traits are white in Western culture, and when attributed to Black women, they are no longer themselves.
Black Feminist Thought explores the impossible standards and stigmas of Black women — white women who are smart are just smart. Black women who are smart, due to the intersectionality of race and gender, become “Black ladies,” a stereotypical know-it-all who cannot find love due to her strictness and status. The same happens with beauty — Black women are oversexualized and exceptionalized, thought to be pretty despite being Black rather than because of it, or in addition to it. The same can be done for kindness — kindness is exemplified in the Mammy trope, in which Black women love to serve others, namely white people, before they serve themselves. The list goes on and on. The fact of the matter is, in Western thought, being a Black woman with these traits is not the same thing as being a white woman with them — they were made for white women. We, unfortunately, seem to only be trying them out for size, and they never quite fit.
Moreover, when people celebrate a Black Ariel, they too are celebrating this mesh of contradicting factors — the remake suggests that Black women can be all of these things that they have never been portrayed as. They can be young, pretty princesses — one may ask why Tiana from “Princess and the Frog” did not award this to Black women. Tiana was a hard-working woman who not only faced racism in the Disney film, but still had to pay for her own restaurant despite marrying a prince and having a rich best friend. Moreover, she is punished in her own film and turned into a frog. Tiana represented what Disney believed to be acceptable for Black women to be — hard-working, strong sister-gurls. Ariel, on the other hand, has all of the white femininity that Black women have been denied, and so she is celebrated as such.
Unfortunately, neither of these takes — celebrating Black Ariel as a step in the right direction or defending racism by gatekeeping characters — is very appealing. Turning everything that was once white into a different color or culture will result in the same backlash and disrespect that Halle Bailey and the live-action remake have been receiving. People will remember her as the “Black” Ariel — not Ariel, but a version of her. This was exemplified when Keke Palmer tried to defend Halle on a talk show, and Keke introduced herself as the “Black Cinderella.” White femininity in blackface is just that — it’s still white femininity.
So, instead of reworking white femininity into a Black face, Black women should be portrayed as their own fictional characters — there are plenty of them already. However, it is not enough to place a Black face on the television or in the books — Black women must be behind these efforts of representation to actually make them genuinely representative. Take for example, The Little Mermaid remake in which all of the producers are non-Black — and men at that. How are they going to capture how Black women want to be represented without making the same assumptions as The Princess and the Frog, or ignoring Halle Bailey’s racially gendered position altogether? Authentic, original Black women portrayed by Black women is what is needed — not a white character with a Black face.
Ariel is white — it’s not about skin color, it is about what it means. Race is not skin color, it is the meaning given to it. I am sure that Halle Bailey’s rendition of Ariel will be great, but it will not change the crooked rooms in which Black women have purposely been placed. If we as Black women want to be represented adequately, the best course of action is not to redo something already done to portray us as a purple sea witch. But it is to make being a Black woman an irrefutable fact of the story, rather than a 34-year late add-on to a story already told twice.
