With her shimmering tail and powerful singing voice, The Little Mermaid’s Ariel swims back onto our cinema screens this week.
The live action remake of Disney’s 1989 animated feature, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy story, is causing huge ripples of excitement.
The reason? This time it’s a black Ariel taking on her strict father, King Triton, and Ursula the power-hungry Sea Witch.
Actress Halle Bailey, 23, won a global following after the first trailer dropped.
Parents have been sharing viral videos of their little girls’ joy and amazement at seeing a black mermaid Disney princess.
And pupils at Reay Primary in Oval, South London, are among millions thrilled at seeing someone who looks like them in such a major cinematic role.
“I was a bit tearful, happy tears, because I’ve never seen a film like that,” says 11-year-old Soraiya. “Halle’s a really good singer, she’s a really good actor.
“Since Black Lives Matter I’ve become more political and proud of my skin tone. In the film Halle has a hairstyle called butterfly locs and I love it. It shows black people should wear their hair howthey want.”
Her classmate Zari, 11, agrees.
“We’re getting represented as something else, I know in a few movies the black person is usually the villain or something, so it’s very important someone like me has the main part.
“I’ve grown up with a lot of the Disney films where most of the main characters have been white, so it will be nice for my little sister, who is five, to grow up seeing black people on screen in positive roles.”
“It’s fair to have a black person being the main character,” says Rakeb, nine, “rather than the black person being the baddie. It makes me want to grow up and be like Halle. I already know the words to Under The Sea!”
Nova, also nine, was “confused” when she first saw the trailer. “Normally The Little Mermaid’s white but Halle being black is really interesting,” she says.
“It seems magical to me. For World Book Day normally all of the cool characters are white people and it’s hard for me to dress up, but next year I might go as Ariel.”
Arianna, nine, says: “Seeing a black princess, it’s like, ‘oh wow, she looks like me!’.”
Meanwhile Avery, seven, knows what she’d do if she were a real-life mermaid. “I’d go everywhere and explore,” she smiles shyly.
Disney’s first official black princess didn’t arrive until The Princess and the Frog in 2009. And film critic Kelechi Ehenulo believes this casting of Ariel has been too long coming.
“If you think of roles black actors were cast in, they were stereotypical” she says. “Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her Mammy portrayal in Gone With the Wind, and since then black women were often slaves, the black best friend, or the mammy figure.
“It took a good long while before we saw more empowering roles like Marvel’s Black Panther and Wakanda Forever.
“To see the embrace of diversity and empowerment, especially for black female kids, is a treasure to behold.”
As well as the gruelling filming – 13-hour days in the water, or wearing a harness and being suspended to simulate swimming – Halle had to put up with a vocal minority of racists. “Seeing the world’s reaction was definitely a shock,” she said, “but seeing all the babies’ reactions, all the brown and black young girls, tore me up emotionally.”
The best way to counter the trolls, Kelechi feels, is to continue highlighting black creators and inspiring them to tell their stories.
“For us in the black community, there’s a wealth of stories to be told,” she says. “We come with the nuance, the joy, with every facet of emotion that will enhance the story.
“So now it’s on the productions and studio heads to allow access to black creators, as our story isn’t just told in front of the camera, it’s behind it as well.”
The Little Mermaid - review
Cert PG ★★★
In cinemas from Friday
Newcomer Halle Bailey makes a splash with a star-is-born performance in Disney’s new live action remake.
The 23-year-old brings charm and fearsome pipes to Ariel, a teenage mermaid who loses her voice, gains a pair of legs and has just three days to seduce a prince.
The set-up, from Hans Christian Andersen’s story, felt old-fashioned in Disney’s hit 1989 animation. In 2023, the idea of a girl winning a man by staying quiet and looking pretty sounds decidedly fishy.
Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) doesn’t cut much from the original, instead gently modernising it with extra characters, songs and plot threads.
The previously macho Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) is now a sensitive lad unsure of his place in the world. There’s also more to Ariel’s relationship with her strict dad, King Triton (Javier Bardem), who wants to keep his headstrong daughter safe.
At 135 minutes, this version is too long for a kids’ film but charismatic Bailey keeps us hooked. With her first showtune, Part of Your World, she reels us in with a refreshingly unshowy voice.
The director is in less restrained mood, transforming the opening shipwreck into a CGI spectacular with crashing waves, burning decks and a daring underwater rescue.
After dragging the dying prince to dry land, Ariel brings him back to life before disappearing beneath the waves. While the prince desperately searches for his beautiful saviour, love-struck Ariel falls prey to evil Ursula (Melissa McCarthy).
To be with him, Ariel strikes a deal with the witch to exchange her voice for feet. There’s a sizable catch, the mute Ariel will be forever cursed if she doesn’t enjoy “true love’s kiss” in the next three days.
During the courtship, returning composer Alan Menken gives Ariel new voice-over songs, although Bailey seems perfectly capable of expressing her inner feelings with her eyes.
New songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda will be a matter of taste. As will the three critters – Sebastian the crab (voiced by Daveed Diggs), Flounder the fish (Jacob Tremblay) and Scuttle the bird (Awkwafina) – who are now rendered in photorealistic CGI.
I missed Sebastian’s cutesy human expressions in the new version of Under the Sea. There’s something creepy about a real-looking crab who sings calypso.
