Greetings, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, and welcome back to another video!
I hope that you are well and I hope that you are fighting because there is a lot to be
fighting for.
So, something that has caused quite a lot of conversation recently that I am sure we
are all very well aware of is the release of the trailer for the live-action remake
of The Little Mermaid.
And the reason it has caused such a stir is because the actress who is going to be portraying
Arielle is Halle Bailey who is a Black woman.
So obviously, all the racists have come out and are absolutely outraged by the fact that
a mermaid is going to be...
Black.
[laughs]
And I wanted to sit down and I wanted to make a video about this because a few people have
been asking me to talk about it and The Little Mermaid is something that is very personal
to me, it's very close to my heart;
I am actually named after The Little Mermaid, my middle name is Arielle, after The Little
Mermaid, um- there is a whole story that goes with that, but yeah, so.
I grew up a lot with The Little Mermaid and knowing that I was named after her, and I
live on an island, obviously.
So I spent a lot of my life in the ocean and water, I did like competitive swimming, I
spent a lot of my childhood wanting to be a mermaid, pretending that I was a mermaid.
And it was a very core part of who I was, and you know, I've grown with that and I still
absolutely hold so much adoration for the ocean and for The Little Mermaid.
I- I don't understand the big kerfuffle that's been going on.
I don't know how people can sit here and be so p***ed and so mad, that this cartoon they
grew up with from what, like 25 years ago is casting a Black actress to play a mermaid?
Like, calm down, the story is the same, okay?
I'm gonna be talking about the main arguments that have come out of this, for the people
who think that they're making a point about being upset about this, and the number one
talking point that people seem to bring up is "hypocrisy."
A lot of the people who are mad about this are calling it "black-washing" and are just
like super upset that this "white representation" is being taken away.
Matt Walsh: As the anger about white-washing increases, so in equal proportion does the
demand for what must in reverse call "black-washing."
And there are people who are like genuinely fuming, because they think this is like, super
hypocritical, because you know, we pick up a fuss if a character of color is played by
a white person, so why are we celebrating that a white character is played by a Black
person.
And a lot of the time, all of the time, these people have not put any critical thinking
into this sort of speaking point.
Uh, because there are a few things, right?
An argument I've seen come up a few times is someone being like "well, what if they
got Mulan and cast a white person, then you wouldn't be happy."
No, you are right, we wouldn't be!
Because Mulan being Chinese is very, very important to her character.
It is set in China, it's about Chinese culture and their family values, it's about their
history, it- she's Chinese, he has to be in order for that story to make sense.
And we wouldn't just be upset if you cast a white person to play her, you could cast
anyone that isn't Chinese to play her and we'd have a problem.
You can't cast a Black person or a Latinx person or a Pacific islander to play Mulan
either.
Don't act like this is just a switching out a white person thing.
Just as, say like Black Panther I've also seen people bring up.
Matt: Having a white actor play Black Panther is horribly racist, but it's also horribly
racist to complain about a Black actor playing The Little Mermaid.
But that rule is indefensible, and hypocritical in the extreme.
You're not gonna get a white person to play him, because absolutely not.
His Black identity is very important to his character.
But you're also not going to get an Asian person to play him, you're not gonna get a
Native American person to play him.
It has to be a Black person.
This isn't just about replacing characters with white people, this is about their identity
and their ethnicity being so linked.
But then you have situations like Arielle where her race and ethnicity have literally nothing
to do with the story at all.
Like, if you think about it a little bit, Sebastian isn't he Jamaican?
[laughs] Pretty sure he's Jamaican, right, and um, so if we're gonna say it's in that
area then surely it would make more sense if Arielle was Black.
Just a- just a tiny little thought there.
Arielle could be any race, she could be European, she could be South American, she could be African, she could
be South Indian, she could be a Pacific Islander.
She could be wherever and it literally doesn't impact her story, at all.
Arielle's race and ethnicity has absolutely nothing to do with the story, like at all,
it doesn't impact her, there's no like significant cultural or historical significance in her
story that directly relate to origin and ethnicity and race.
So she can literally be played by anyone without it making a difference.
Unlike those characters that I mentioned before.
So why don't you, cishet white man who has never once ever been denied a representation
in his life ever, sit down and shut up and let people have just a tiny piece of what you
have had your entire life.
Alright?
Sorry to interrupt myself there, I just realized that I forgot to say that and I wanted to,
so... back into it.
And then you get people taking that and being like "okay, so what if you got a character
of color from like a fictional work, and their race or ethnicity is not a significant part
of their character.
Could we then switch them into being a white person?
Why are you still mad about that, why is that still a problem?"
And the problem with that there lies that is just getting rid of representation.
There is already a lack of representation within the media, there are already way more
white characters than there are anything else.
So if you are getting a fictional work that has like six characters in it and like, two
of them are people of color, and you recast one of them as a white person, that's a problem
because you are erasing the very little representation that already exists there.
It's a problem.
Because although their race isn't important, you're still removing it for another white
person.
Which is not only taking a bit of representation away, but it's also taking away a job from
a person of color who already struggle to get acting roles because of how white the
stories we tell are.
Yeah?
There's always so many of these talking points, such as like Matt Walsh, for example, whose
video I watched uh, when I was writing this script.
"I don't care what the race of a fictional character is, I don't care that Arielle is
Black, but at the same time I also don't care when this Black character was played by a
white person.
I don't care, they are fictional characters."
Matt: And if they can complain about Black erasure, then why can't we complain about
"white erasure?"
Any kind of erasure on racial grounds sounds bad to me.
"Anyone can do it, just hire the best person for the job."
"Back in the day, like in the 90s, nobody cared, this representation thing didn't matter,
no one was asking for more representation or getting mad about the re-casting of races
et cetera et cetera"
But like, that's just not true!
[laughs] It's always been a problem, people just didn't have the power to speak up nor
were they listened to.
There were other things going on that made that a really difficult fight to fight.
You have to fight to get to the place to be able to make your next fight, right?
Hollywood was even more white back then, it was so difficult for people of color to even
be able to break into that industry, it still is!
But it's a lot easier now that it was then.
You take one issue at a time, you can't fight all your fights at one time.
So many people like to sit and say that like, you know, representation is not that important,
it is not that big of a deal, it doesn't really matter, but like, it really really does.
If you don't see yourself in the media, then you feel less than, you feel different, it
feels very isolating.
It's a cause of things like bullying and depression and self-doubt and wanting to change yourself,
because if you don't see yourself in the media, you don't think you're normal, and the other
people around you don't see you in the media, they don't think you are normal and that's a really isolating feeling.
And that's gotta be really fucking hard, and there is such little representation in major
franchises and mainstream media for people of color.
You look at how many Disney princesses there are, right.
How many of them are of color?
Very, very few.
And of those few, less of them are Black, less of them are Asian, less of them are Pacific
Islanders.
There is very very little representation for them and for some reason, people like to think
that one person of color is representation for every single race and ethnicity.
That's just not true at all!
You could have 50% of your characters be people of color, and 50% be white.
Your white representation is still way way higher because there are so many other races
and ethnicities than white, you know.
Like?
And people say like "why don't you just make your own princess, for them to get their representation.
Why do they have to get our princess?"
I agree, they should be making more princesses and they should be having more diversity among
newer characters, absolutely.
However, I also think it's really cool to take an iconic character from our childhoods
and then add representation there, because they are characters that everybody knows.
That these young people have grown up with, and love and adore, and seeing that become
more inclusive is powerful in and of itself.
Having that story that you already connected to, connect to you on a deeper level and become
something more special to you, there is something really cool about that, and it literally doesn't
affect anyone negatively, it does not- it doesn't have a negative impact.
It does, however, have a positive impact.
I was going through the TikTok reactions to the trailer yesterday, and I like literally
was just like sobbing because it made me cry so much.
I'm gonna play a couple of them.
[TV playing music]
[Arielle starts singing]
I think- I think she's brown.
Brown Arielle.
Brown Arielle is cute.
Watching these young girls see like a Black Arielle, and just like lighting up, is so
so beautiful.
It's so lovely and it's exactly why it's important.
And you see the people being like "the race doesn't matter, kids don't care" and it's
like yeah, you're right, young white kids don't care, they don't notice, they just see
Arielle, right.
And that is how young Black kids also see Arielle, typically, but seeing a Black Arielle
makes them feel seen and as though they can also be a part of things which they have been
excluded from for a really long time.
And it's just really cool to see.
And I'm really really glad that people are able to get more representation and are able
to see themselves more in the media and feel more a part of something that other people
have felt a part of for a really really long time.
Woman: Watching the trailer!
I'm dressed like this, I'm shaking already, okay.
Oh my god!
Why am I so emotional?
I literally don't cry this much I swear.
Stop.
[giggles behind the camera] [Arielle starts singing]
Woman: I am crying.
[sniffs] Shut up.
[laughs behind the camera] Woman: Shut up.
I'm crying.
Woman 2: I can see.
Woman: I'm dying, that's so cute, I'm so excited.
I ca- I can't deal with it anymore.
That's so exciting.
Don't cry.
Monica is crying, you can't see her, but she's gonna start crying.
Because!
Woman 2: You're so cute.
Woman: You know, you know!
Like, I'm literally dressed like her.
A lot of people like to argue that you know, "Disney is just doing it for publicity, they
are doing it so they don't get under attack for not having representation, dadada."
Yeah, okay, maybe they are.
It's a big possibility, a lot of s*** is done just for publicity even if it doesn't reflect
the actual ethics of the company.
However, I don't always think that's a bad thing.
Because sometimes, action is more important than intention.
Because regardless of the intention behind it, it's still happening and it's still going
to make a positive impact on people's lives.
I don't know if that's a popular take to have, but that is the take that I have, um performative
activism not great [stifles laugh], when it comes from everyday people it's really unhelpful,
but when like such big massive corporations and stuff do performative activism it's still
kind of acts as actual activism.
Which is kind of frustrating but also really good.
The action helps way more than the intention harms, you know.
So I think it's a great thing.
And I'm really excited to watch this movie, it looks incredible.
She looks beautiful and her voice is stunning.
And I'm just really excited to see what they do with the story.
I have had really mixed feelings about all the Disney remakes, like some of them are
incredible and then a couple of them are like not so good.
So I'm excited to see what they do to Arielle, and how the story looks, because as I said,
The Little Mermaid is a big part of my- my being.
Um, the ocean has been a lot of my life, for my entire life, and yeah I'm excited to see
it.
I hope this video made sense.
I kinda went really rambly.
I am exhausted at the moment, so half of what I am saying is just like not registering in
my brain, but I hope that it made sense.
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I don't know what I was gonna say, actually.
I hope that you enjoy the rest of your day, stay safe, keep fighting, I love you.
["Monsters and Faries" by Savannah starts playing]