Source: Corey Nickols / Getty
While Black girls are relishing in Halle Bailey being the new Ariel in The Little Mermaid,–racists are fuming. The trailer for the Disney film was released just a few days ago and has racked up 1.5 million dislikes, presumably from bigots. This led to YouTube disabling the dislike counter, Newsweek noted.
There have also been offensive memes of Hailey Bailey as Ariel floating around the internet. Newports and watermelon have been photoshopped into pictures. The name has been changed from The Little Mermaid to Da Lil Mermaid. Bailey’s image has been replaced with a drawing of a darker skinned character with bigger eyes and bigger teeth. One white person even dressed in Black-face and said she was dressed up as Ariel.
They also shared their ugly rants via Twitter. One person joked that Ariel was going to be “hoarding fried chicken and macaroni salad in her trove.” A #NotMyAriel hashtag was even started.
“Bruh she was WHITE why the f*** did Disney do this[?], one person tweeted. “I can’t WAIT to see a white tiana ’cause guess what? Since anyone can be a princess then a white girl can be tiana #notmyariel and this is coming from a girl who isn’t white.”
Someone else had an issue with Disney making a Disney princess who was originally white a Black character.
“35 years? This makes a black Ariel all the more disrespectful. Disney had 33 years to create an original black mermaid princess but instead they turn Ariel black. Representation matters. Black women should not have to recycle white princesses in order to be royalty #NotMyAriel.”
One person said instead of focusing on the racism surrounding Bailey being chosen, ignore the racists and focus on this being Bailey’s moment.
“Yall can keep the pics of Halle/Little Mermaid photoshopped with Newports and watermelons and whatever other racist tropes. Keep all that. No “omg ppl are so mean”. We know. We don’t follow those ppl for a reason. Delete that screenshot.”
Take a look at some of the tweets below.
