When it comes to live action remakes of decades-old movie classics we loved as kids, there are high expectations to maintain the level of affection we had for those films as when they came out.
Since I was a kid, “The Little Mermaid” was one of my favorite movies. I had the VHS tape and would watch it on repeat, patiently awaiting the day I sprouted a tail and became a mermaid myself. I even had the VHS tape of the second movie, “The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea” (not many people know about that one, I would highly recommend it), and would watch that movie again and again. When I went to Disney World and got to go to the Bippity-Boppity Boutique, I chose Ariel as who I got to pretend to be for the day. I even started waving at random strangers as if I were in a parade.
I was elated the moment I heard the live action version was coming out. There had been other live-action remakes done before like “Mulan” and “The Jungle Book,” but those were not movies I felt a particular connection to. I watched them and liked them well enough, but, finally, here was a movie that seemed like it would bring me straight back into my childhood — when life was good and I was not in a constant state of stress.
When it was announced that Halle Bailey would be starring as Ariel, I cannot lie, I felt disappointed. While Bailey is an amazing actress, singer and beautiful person, she looks nothing like the Ariel I grew up with. She did not have the vibrant, flowing, firetruck-red hair that Ariel was known for, the epitome of what made Ariel stand out amongst a cast of princesses with the typical blonde and brunette hair. Bailey did an amazing job, and the movie was great. It hit all the right points, the music was top-notch, but it did not produce the nostalgia that I was hoping for. The same thing can be said for the upcoming, live action “Snow White” casting. Rachel Zegler is a top-notch actress and deserves all the recognition in the world. However, the character Snow White is known for her pale, almost-translucent skin. This is not something against Rachel Zegler because she does not have a pale-white complexion but because her description is a key part of what makes Snow White distinct.
Disney did a great thing in diversifying the cast and giving the story a new look. The idea of adding people of color to a cast is something that is becoming more popular, and it is allowing people who felt marginally discluded from a predominantly white industry to feel seen. “Hamilton” is my favorite musical, and I cannot imagine if they had cast anyone different to star in it. The difference to me between what “Hamilton” did and what Disney did is that there were no expectations for “Hamilton;” that cast was the only version of those characters to take the stage.
For movies like “The Princess and The Frog,” “Mulan” and “Pocohantas,” there is no question that those roles need to match what was in the animated movie. The culture in Louisiana and Tiana’s background makes it practically impossible for anyone not of color to play that role. There are staples of culture in those movies that cannot be altered because it would change the movie and not make sense to those who had seen the original. But when it comes to remakes of other movies, I think the same standards should be held. It would be remiss not to mention that some people advocating for story-oriented casting do it out of bias against people of color — this is different.
The goal of a live action movie is to recreate the nostalgia these movies provided when we were younger and revive a story that is somewhat tired. To do this, the cast needs to be able to give the audience what they knew from when the movie came out, and I think this can be done even with casting people of color in those traditionally white roles. However, there needs to be some effort to recreate the look and feel of the movie as it was originally produced, and there needs to be a standard upheld across the board. The best solution, in my opinion, would be to write these underrepresented people their own stories. Everyone deserves to have representation and a story that lasts through generations, and it should not be by trying to force other stories to fit around them. Do not repackage the representation people ask for, make it its own.
