In mid-2019, it was announced that actress Halle Bailey would be playing the role of Ariel in the upcoming live-action reboot of the film. This sparked a huge uproar and she received loads of negative comments about her race being different from that of the animated princess. The people who weren’t happy with this decision even spawned the hashtag NotMyAriel. What do you think? Should she have been cast as Ariel?
Yess!! I can’t wait for it lmaoo
Same. The Little Mermaid was my favourite movie growing up and honestly, as long as she has red hair and a tail, I’m happy.
I think she will be a great ariel. Even the og animmated ariel actress said she supports halle Bailey being cast as ariel
damn these b*tches really pressed a black woman got a role as there fave disney princess. theres a reason why SHE got it and not some OTHER actress did…
Yes, she’s too good not to. She has REAL talent and great music. We need more black representation in the media. Not to mention, she’s stunning and if you can’t accept that she will play ‘your princess’ then don’t watch the movie but I know I will.
I mean we’ll just have to see how she does as Ariel .![]()
I do have the feeling Hollywood seems to have something against redheads for some reason? A lot of characters from animation and-or comic books who are supposed to have red hair tend to get replaced in their live-action counterpart.Very odd.
Not to shade but I think the post was talking about her race rather than her hair colour. I don’t know if that’s what you were getting at or what?
I think it still kind of fits the topic though as Ariel is still a famous red head in mainstream media and the question of this topic is about the casting of this character. Besides it’s not like I did not acknowledge the racial side of the topic in my first sentence.
Here I’m just letting everyone know that I’m unbiased of the actress race and will just decide whether I think she should have been cast after seeing the movie. With a followed up message of why Hollywood is replacing redheads for some reason which is just an observation I made over the recent years…
She has talent. They casted her for a reason! She has a beautiful voice. She deserves the role and many more!
Good point.
I don’t know a lot about the actress herself, I here pretty mixed reviews about her in general. When I first heard about it I was kind of pissed because it’s obviously just Disney trying to get brownie points, but I’m pretty neutral about the whole thing. I have a few qualms, not really issues moreso than just opinions.
Honestly, I don’t like race swapping in general, whether it be whitewashing or blackwashing. The last racewashed movie I saw was the ATLA movie and lord know that was awful-
I would have preferred if they actually cast a redhead actress instead of a black one, like LHT said redheads get so little representation in the media already, and little girls that imprint on Ariel (like I did when I was younger) that look like her are probably going to be confused when she suddenly doesn’t look like them anymore, it could make them feel like they are bad for no reason and need to be changed.
I also hope they change her color palette. I saw an edited picture of her with the hair and tail and it doesn’t work at all. I mentioned before that black hair and a blue tail would be more aesthetically pleasing, and someone even saida yellow tail would look nice.
And how about, instead of race swapping princesses for brownie points, Disney makes a live action movie about one of the best Disney princesses that’s already black? Tiana is such an awesome role model and she has a great story but Disney isn’t ready for that. smh
You know, how about Disney stops making crappy remakes and actually makes original movies? Moana was amazing, Frozen was the bomb, seriously, why do we even need the same thing twice?
In conclusion: f*ck Disney
I love Chloe x Halle’s music so I’m happy for Halle!
The redhead thing is so tired when her hair is red in the behind the scenes pic and redheads aren’t exclusively white. I find it interesting that the common #NotMyAriel argument bounced from “race doesn’t matter” to “the race of the actor should match the character” to “we should cast based on talent” when Halle is signed by Beyonce, but then again, racists aren’t exactly the most consistent group of people ![]()
Anyway we will be streaming the Ungodly Hour in the mean time ![]()

I did too. I still have all my Ariel dolls.
I did not know that yet thanks for informing ![]()
I agree, I’m just not keen on how red heads seems to get replaced in a lot of film adaptations not just the Little mermaid.Knowing she will have red hair in the movie does help a bit though.
While that might be true, most natural redheads have fair skin. It’s an effect of the mutation that causes the red hair.
I see your point, but that’s for you. Not every young girl has a disney princess to compare themselves to as the majority of them are white. There’s only 1 black disney princess and not every black person can compare themselves to her. I think that it’s nice to have a change in race as it lacks diversity. They’re two different movies though, so I don’t think little kids will view it how you’ve said it would be - you say it as if they’re changing all the movies and making her OG self a different race altogether.
I didn’t know who she was until I searched her up! She honestly looks like a mermaid.
I think she’ll do great!
That is true. She does have very mermaid-y facial features.
Agree!