Disney’s new Little Mermaid shows that Hollywood “still has the need to shy away from Blackness, even in diversity efforts,” according to a University of Baltimore professor who questioned the “point of having a Black little mermaid if she’s just going to be thrown into a center of a white world,” as he fantasized over a means to “turn all of the white characters Black.”
On Wednesday, award-winning author Dwight (D.) Watkins grappled with the live-action Little Mermaid film as he questioned whether its “whitewashed diversity efforts” are still considered valid efforts, in an op-ed published in Salon, where he serves as editor-at-large.
The essay, titled, “The Little Mermaid’ and Disney’s dilemma: Why no Black prince?” begins with Watkins describing his decision to take his three-year-old daughter to see the Disney remake in our “racist, sexist, divided country.”
“I’m old enough to remember the first ‘Little Mermaid’ from back in ’89 and to know that Disney princesses were historically white women,” he writes, noting that it “took Disney, a company founded in 1923, all the way up until 2009 to introduce its first Black princess, Tiana, in the original animated film ‘The Princess and the Frog.’”
Watkins, a noted former drug dealer, explains how watching the trailer had initially introduced him to the “diverse, star-studded” cast, “with all the bells and whistles.”
However, noticing the prince’s complexion, the author claims he turned to his wife and asked, “Am I tripping, or is the prince and her father white?” to which she responded: “I think her father is Latino.”
Watkins then googled Javier Bardem, discovered his background, and informed her otherwise.
“Nah, that dude is Spanish, like he’s from Spain, which kinda means white in America,” he said, admitting that he considered shuning the film as a result.
“We laughed before agreeing to take our daughter to see the film anyway,” he writes. “After all, she was so excited and had viewed the trailer with joy a ridiculous number of times, so there was no turning back.”
Despite that, having seen nothing but a short trailer at that point, he noted there were several black actors who would have played the “best” role as king.
“You know Morgan Freeman is still alive, and James Earl Jones is putting in work, and my favorite actor Forest Whitaker would probably be the best king you could find for a little Black girl, but I guess Disney is gonna Disney,” he said.
When movie day arrived, Watkins admits to having struggled to avoid obsessing over any racial matters.
“Don’t make this about race, don’t make this about race, please don’t make this about race – swirled around in my head,” he writes, adding that “the attempt is easier said than done because America, business and especially Hollywood continues to make everything about race.”
However, he claims, he “snapped” from his thoughts after having seen “little Black girls in red wigs and mermaid dresses,” and it reminded him of a feeling he once had when he realized he “actually matter[ed] in cinema.”
Yet, in the new movie, he laments how Ariel saves a man, trades her beautiful voice, and “displays the willingness to abandon her sea royalty, ability to breathe underwater, beautiful tail, culture, family and all of her friends in an effort to pursue that love,” all while the prince “doesn’t have to give up anything.”
“[L]ike he doesn’t even have to learn how to swim underwater, so you know all of the holiday dinners will take place with his side of the family,” he writes. “How fair is that?”
While Watkins acknowledges the film features “a rainbow collection of mermaids, from Asian to African – in what made-up a kind of all lives matter pool of mermaids,” with Queen Selina played by a black woman — he still grumbles over the fact she “does not have a Black king as a husband.”
“All the races are here in some way or another – every box seemed to be checked, even though we weren’t there to check boxes, we were there to have fun,” he writes. “Sadly, race dictates fun.”
Watkins, who previously wrote about how having a daughter would require him to educate her to “navigate a society that specializes in being both racist and sexist,” insists it’s not “strange to question why the first Black Ariel had a European (white) father; [while] her aunt Ursula is white and sets her sights on a white prince.”
“What is the point of having a Black little mermaid if she’s just going to be thrown into a center of a white world?” he asks.
“Ariel could not even save a Black dude from the shipwreck, because everyone on Prince Eric’s boat is white – she doesn’t even have a Black option,” he adds. “What is Disney trying to say?”
Noting that both Marvel ‘Black Panther’ films “did extremely well with a mostly Black cast,” the author asks: “Would giving ‘The Little Mermaid’ a Black family turn the production into an undesirable Black movie?”
“If Black lives matter, then shouldn’t Black families too?” he proposes.
Despite his gripes, considering his daughter enjoyed the film and “had a ball” doing so, Watkins vowed he “wasn’t going to ruin” the experience for her, recalling how a former student of his who claimed to have once experienced racism at an anime convention, had her experience ruined then.
Instead, Watkins imagined a better experience, one where all the white Disney characters could be viewed as black with the help of advanced eyewear.
“I just sat back in my chair and watched, wondering how cool it would be if Disney or Amazon created some special 3-D glasses that turned all of the white characters Black so that even when they made their attempts at diversity, Black parents like me didn’t have to leave theaters having to explain colorism to their kids,” he writes.
Pointing to Grammy Award-winning R&B singer Brandy not being “allowed to have a Black prince when she played Disney’s “Cinderella,” just like Tiana’s prince in “The Princess and the Frog,” Watkins insists “a conversation about race will be had at some point, which has been a constant for Disney films.”
“Maybe Disney doesn’t believe in Black fairy tales?” he suggests. “Or maybe they feel like the multiracial fairy tale is an easier sell at this point.”
The essay concludes with Watkins boasting of having “settled for my daughter having the opportunity to feel represented in a world where there’s no such thing as a regular Black Disney prince and will try to push that conversation off until she’s old enough to understand why Hollywood still has the need to shy away from Blackness, even in diversity efforts.”
According to box office analysts, Disney could lose millions on the classic remake, which opened over Memorial Day weekend.
The matter comes as the progressive left continues to push racial double standards, and as more and more attempts at pushing “woke” ideology are continuously deemed insufficient.
In April, Disney released the new, live-action Peter Pan & Wendy featuring a diverse cast with non-white actors playing the roles of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (though Captain Hook, played by Jude Law, is still white) and girls as members of the Lost Boys, which marked a revisionist departure from J.M. Barrie’s original novel.
Though the film, directed by indie filmmaker David Lowery, has been described as “woke” and “multicultural,” Chicago-based writer Noah Berlatsky charged that racism and colonialism are “built into the workings” of the Peter Pan story.
According to Berlatsky, switching to non-white actors “isn’t enough” to address the tale’s core issues.
Disney, seeing profits plummet and its stock tumble 44 percent coming off a rough 2022, is still reeling from a number of woke flops, including the animated environmental movie Strange World, which featured a gay teen protagonist, and Pixar’s Toy Story spin-off movie Lightyear, which featured a lesbian kiss.
Last month, Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss stated Hollywood’s new “thoughtless” diversity inclusion standards make him “vomit.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.