Black girls deserve Halle Bailey’s ‘The Little Mermaid’

OPINION: Whatever that undeniable, indescribable thing is that a movie star has, Halle Bailey’s got it; she’s an inspiration to Black girls everywhere.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Cynics and racists have been dumping all over Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” since the 2019 announcement that a Black girl, Halle Bailey, would play the iconic princess Ariel in its latest live-action remake of an animated classic. 

While the racists’ rage over the Black-washing of their favorite red-headed mermaid is irrelevant, the cynics who saw the reboot as yet another soulless cash grab aren’t wrong. But I just don’t care. 

Black girls deserve this reboot and its pitch-perfect star in Bailey as Ariel. 

If director Rob Marshall did anything right with this reboot, it’s casting Bailey in the starring role. Known for her siren’s song, Ariel must have a voice that can make a man fall in love and desperately search for her after hearing only a few chords. Bailey has that gift in spades.  

Calling her voice angelic is cliché at this point; the five-time Grammy-nominated half of sister duo Chloe x Halle has long been declared one of heaven’s strongest vocal ambassadors. But the chills she gives even after multiple listens to her rendition of “Part of Your World” pale only in comparison to the chills she gives when she’s also acting out the scene on the big screen. It comes early in the film and is a make-or-break moment; she nails it. 

But it’s not just her voice; Bailey’s Ariel spends a good chunk of the movie unable to speak, let alone sing, thanks to Ariel’s deal-with-the-devil Ursula trading her voice for a human life. While the former “Grown-ish” star is no stranger to acting, “The Little Mermaid” live-action remake of the animated classic is her first time leading a movie, and she’s just as expressive and moving in her silent scenes as she is when she finds her voice. Just like Jonah Hauer-King’s Prince Eric learns, it’s easy to love Bailey’s Ariel, even when she isn’t saying a word. Whatever the undeniable, indescribable thing is that a movie star has, Bailey’s got it, and we deserved to see it.

While I absolutely roll my eyes at stories that tell girls to do anything for a man, let alone give up their voice – I stood outside the theater of 2009’s “The Princess and the Frog” and pleaded with all the girls not to give up their dreams for some man – I think this is a reductive view of “The Little Mermaid.” Ariel is curious and passionate and adventurous; she longs for a life beyond what she’s known and craves the freedom to make her own decisions rather than adopting the views of her overbearing father. Having a Black girl express these desires to a global audience matters.

Of course, representation isn’t liberation. Black girls deserve more than just a story where the lead is Black in appearance but not specifically or culturally in the story. We also deserve big bucks behind original stories starring, written and directed by Black women. But representation shouldn’t be dismissed as nothing, either. 

The internet is flooded with precious videos of young Black girls getting everything from teary-eyed to mesmerized at the sight — and sound — of a Black mermaid. These videos are a treasure trove of Black girls’ imaginations expanding before our eyes. 

But it’s not just for or about those girls. I’m also talking about us – the pushing-40 Black millennials whose earliest memories are going to the theater and being in awe of Ariel. Our inner Black girl deserves this, too. Bailey’s Ariel is a retroactive healing, a revision of history for all the headstrong Black girls who grew up to chart their own paths, and there’s no time like the present to give it to us.

I also believe these reboots are an opportunity for the soulless cash-grab conglomerate to right the wrongs of its classic faves. And original “The Little Mermaid” had quite a few wrongs. To start, the age difference between the film’s lovers is gross, even for 1989. And while a 16-year-old going goofy over a hot 21-year-old prince might make sense for her, it’s certainly a bad look for him and for her dad, King Triton, who decides (although begrudgingly) to bless that union. In the remake, Bailey’s Ariel is at least 18 to Prince Eric’s 21. At least they might’ve gone to college together in the modern age. 

The new version of “The Little Mermaid” also takes an opportunity to correct some of the sexism, which is out of control in the original. Instead of Eric saving the day at the film’s climax, Ariel is the hero the entire film, including ending Ursula and restoring her father’s life and crown. 

Where the original evil number, “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” had these horrifyingly sexist lyrics:

“The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber … On land, it’s much preferred for ladies not to say a word …It’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man.”

The new version omits these lyrics altogether. Supposedly, this song has new lyrics written by Lin Manuel-Miranda (or, Lin-us the Menace as I call him after what his “Hamilton” musical has done to both history and rap cadence), but the changes are insignificant and hardly noticeable from the original. The fatphobia in the original is also still present As Ursula details helping a fat mermaid become thinner so she could get a merman, though the visual image of the fat mermaid becoming thin is not in the new version. 

Eric and Ariel also have a lot more in common this time around; both are collectors of whosits and whatsits galore; both are trapped by overbearing parents; both long for a life beyond what their parents and society have chosen for them. 

Of course, only Ariel knows that they have all this in common, but at least in the new version, Hauer-King’s Eric gets to sing a totally unhinged ballad begging his mystery mermaid to come find him again so they can travel uncharted waters together. If Ariel is giving up so much for a life on land with him, it’s only fitting that Eric be at least as goofy for her. Give us longing and desperation for this Black girl! Give us Tom Cruise jumping on the couch! I’m here for all of it — especially Bailey’s and Hauer-King’s electric chemistry. 

Still, “The Little Mermaid” isn’t a perfect film. If Marshall (as the memes suggest) will always be famous for casting Bailey as Ariel, he might just be damned for casting Awkwafina as Scuttle. An exasperated woman at my screening yelled out “My God, whose voice is that?!” After which the source of my own exasperation with her grating, unfunny, overripe performance crystalized: Awkwafina is lost if she can’t do the minstrel blaccent that made her famous. 

And Daveed! I love Daveed Diggs. But I need more actors to say no to roles, even if they’re offered to them. Sebastian the Crab was supposed to be Caribbean and instead of having an uneven accent, we could’ve had a Caribbean icon in the role. That was a missed opportunity on Marshall’s part.

Still, the movie is an indisputable success, raking in $117 million over the holiday weekend — thanks in large part to Bailey’s box office magic and the Black girls who came out in droves to celebrate her. Whether Disney will use its profits to pay its writers fairly and invest in original Black stories is yet to be seen. But a win is a win, and we deserve it.

Brooke Obie is an award-winning critic, screenwriter and author of the historical novel “Book of Addis: Cradled Embers.”

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