Talk:The Little Mermaid (live-action film)/@comment-31200270-20190710001648/@comment-1672596-20190710010226

With all due respect to Jodi Benson, and I have a lot of respect for her, and not just because she voiced Ariel mind you, I suspect she only "gave support" for the direction Disney took Ariel in with the remake because she would have been fired if she didn't. She's made some rather uncharacteristic statements about Ariel lately (such as claiming Ariel was a character of her time or agreeing to voice Ariel in Wreck It Ralph after the rather insulting description of the DPs that it gave), and she's not exactly the type to just lie there and let Ariel get slapped around like that (remember, Jodi Benson is pretty much the only reason why Ariel even HAS any aspect to her original characterization in Ariel's Beginning. Originally, they were going to make her more like Hannah Montana). Let's not forget that Disney and Hollywood blacklisted James Woods simply because he dared speak openly about his conservative politics, and Disney was responsible for the initial cancellation of Last Man Standing. I suspect if she didn't parrot the party line so to speak, she'd meet James Woods' fate.

And as far as Freeform's statement, so, by that logic, it's perfectly alright to depict Black Panther as a white guy? After all, he's a fictional character with different aspects to different people, nothing stopping him from being depicted as white by that exact same token (even though if someone even voices that idea, people would understandably denounce that someone as a racist). I think they failed to think this through (not to mention it makes NO sense whatsoever for Ariel to be black given she lives deep under the sea, and based on Scuttle being a diving bird instead of a seagull specifically to allow Scuttle more underwater scenes to interact with Ariel, she's even LESS likely to surface in the remake than in the original). Besides, One Angry Gamer gave quite a bit of a rebuttal for that statement here: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/07/disneys-freeform-tv-posts-condescending-message-defending-the-little-mermaids-race-swap/88307/