Talk:The Little Mermaid (live-action film)/@comment-38350502-20190706213403/@comment-4889892-20190706224550

I think with Ariel being a mermaid, she doesn't really have a set race as opposed to other fictional characters, like Belle, where it is known that she is from France. I do find it racist though, to cast someone just because of their race. It's more about if they can portray the character, and part of that is resembling the character (which isn't only about race but could also include things like height and voice). Maybe a Mexican actress could resemble Belle, or a Native American actress could resemble Mulan. Halle doesn't resemble Ariel at all though. I personally don't see Emma Watson or Liu Yifei resembling Mulan or Belle as much as Naomi Scott resembles Jasmine, but it still felt believable enough for the acting to override it (well, hopefully this is true in Mulan's case anyways, but that movie has different issues). If Jennifer Lawrence had played Mulan though, it just wouldn't make sense and no level of acting could pacify that. Halle's acting may be able to override my preconcieved idea of Ariel since mermaid race might not even work the same (I don't know if they're changing Triton's race or not, but since he's a mythological figure, I think there's more argument for him to remain the same and the mom can be changed, or just to make new parents entirely), but I think the closer you get to a character the better and probably wouldn't have casted her myself. You do have a good point about Hollywood's general laziness when they can just make more diverse characters and entirely new stories to begin with. All these remakes are entertaining, but I'm sure most people know it's a bunch of cash-grabs and that stories get recycled for almost every generation. Many characters, fictional or historical, already do have an established nationality that should not be overlooked. Considering the whole controversy about Zendaya playing Ariel early on though, I think it's possible Disney was just testing people's reactions. Of course, I'm not much of a Little Mermaid fan, so I don't know if that would have made any difference for me.