Halle Bailey as Ariel: Part of Our World

Disney’s casting of Grammy winning artist and actress Halle Bailey, as Ariel in Disney’s new live action film version of “The Little Mermaid,” makes history.

Disney’s new live-action adaptation “The Little Mermaid” is one of the most talked about of 2023. The film is a remake of the 1989 award-winning Disney animated classic of the same title, in which a mermaid princess gives up her voice and becomes human in an attempt to gain the affections of a human prince.

Halle Bailey, a 23-year-old woman of color who is a multi-Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and actress in the Emmy nominated sitcom “grown-ish,” plays the live action version of mermaid princess Ariel in the new film. Alongside her is a racially diverse A-list cast, including Javier Bardem as King Triton, Awkwafina as Scuttle, Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, David Diggs as Sebastian, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Chef Louis.

The casting was met with backlash, including petitions stating that the casting choice was actually a betrayal toward Ariel’s original creator, Hans Christian Anderson, and disrupted the legacy and image of the classic Danish tale. The hashtag #NotMyAriel also trended on Twitter.

Another reason used by critics was the notion that a Black mermaid did not adhere to historical accuracy. Many fans of the classic animated version, in which Ariel is illustrated as white, said they were not upset about a Black mermaid — in the 1991 Little Mermaid animated television series, there was a Black mermaid who was African from the Ivory Coast.

Actress Jodi Benson, the original voice of Ariel, came to Bailey’s defense saying “the most important thing is to tell the story … the spirit of a character is what really matters.”

Other supporters of Bailey included Anika Noni Rose, who voiced Disney’s first African American Princess Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog,” and singer Brandy Norwood, the first woman of color to play Cinderella in the 1997 musical television film “Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella” for “The Wonderful World of Disney.”

In an interview with Variety Magazine, February 2023, Bailey said to Variety Magazine that she tried to ignore the racial criticism voiced on social media during the film’s promotional campaign, and instead focus on the positive anticipation of its release.

Videos of young girls of color reacting in excitement seeing a Black Ariel in the film’s trailer went viral. Marshall said in an interview with People Magazine that the casting was an important reminder that people of color should be represented, and that it is “vital that people see themselves and can imagine themselves and don't have to feel like outsiders.”

“The Little Mermaid” has earned 68 percent critics and 95 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As of May 28, the film has grossed $185.8 million in worldwide box office sales as it ranks as the fifth highest Memorial Day opening in history.