For many people the first footage of Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid was enough to sell the upcoming movie and its lead star Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel. However, following the original backlash over the casting of Bailey in the title role, the film’s teaser trailer has been bombarded with dislikes and racist comments on YouTube since it dropped on the weekend.
The Little Mermaid will be following in the footsteps of Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King in reimagining one of Disney’s biggest hits from their late 80s, early 90s renaissance in a live-action environment. While the movie has had a number of delays, the first official footage was finally revealed at D23 Expo and subsequently online for everyone to see, and hear, Bailey’s Ariel in action. While the trailer saw a huge number of views in its first few days, it also saw a veritable tsunami of negativity which harked back to the original announcement of Bailey being cast in the movie.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Although the dislike figure is not available on the YouTube page itself, it has been estimated via a Chrome extension that the total number of dislikes is around 1.5 million and growing. This is based on a number of factors and analytics, so is only an estimate, but one look in the comments section of the video and it is not hard to believe that number to be quite accurate. However, despite the large number of openly racist comments about Bailey’s appearance in the footage, those in support of the casting have tried their best to counter the hate with memes and counter-comments designed to silence the haters.
Rachel Zegler Suffered A Similar Reaction For Her Snow White Casting
The type of backlash being seen on the back of The Little Mermaid’s first trailer is sadly not a unique or one-off occurrence. Another upcoming Disney remake, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has also seem a similar wave of racially charged comments aimed at it for the casting of West Side Story star Rachel Zegler in the lead role. When Zegler was first announced as playing Snow White, the internet was flooded with complaints about the rising star being cast in the role, and that is likely to see the same kind of reaction as The Little Mermaid when its first trailer is made available online.
Unfortunately, the casting of Black and Asian actors in any role frequently instigates a surge of comments from online trolls that are seemingly made to get a reaction, and they are very rarely disappointed by the number of arguments they incite. This year has seen huge amounts of derogatory comments being made towards stars of The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and even though the cast and crew of these shows, along with the majority of fans, have attempted to counter and shout down the haters, it is proving to be a mountain that is growing more and more insurmountable.
