From the initial determination of the cast, Disney's live-action film "The Little Mermaid" is destined to be a work that has attracted much attention and controversy.
The use of black singer Harley Bailey to play the role of mermaid Ariel is undoubtedly the most daring and radical decision made by the film's main creative team, especially in the case that the mermaid image of the original animated film has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and has become a childhood memory of generations, letting black actors play a classic white character is inevitably easy to attract criticism for the film.
In addition, in the European and American film and television industries in recent years, the "political correctness" problem of actors' race and skin color has become more and more serious, and it is difficult not to associate Disney's casting with the political trend of the general environment.
Recently, this film, which has been controversial due to casting issues, has once again become the focus of hot discussion on the Internet because of the flow of a set of photos.
This set of photos shows the scene when the little mermaid first came ashore and entered human society. Harley Bailey, who plays the Little Mermaid, is hiding in a human carriage covered in a coarse cloth, with only her head and hair exposed, as if observing an unfamiliar human world, and in the original animated film, there are corresponding shots to show this plot.
Because of the photo quality and the influence of the shooting scene, the actor's character modeling, looking gray-headed and dirty,Coupled with his own dark skin and a brownish yellow hair, the atmosphere of the whole photo began to become strange. It's hard to believe that this is the Little Mermaid we'll see on the big screen in the future.
Soon, around these on-set photos, netizens at home and abroad launched a fierce discussion on their respective social platforms.
Foreign netizens, who are at the center of the political vortex of "multicultural integration", quickly stand on this issue into two extremely opposing factions of views - one side approves and the other is resolutely opposed.
The approved faction said that there is no problem with black actors playing the little mermaid, after all, the United States is a free country, and people of any color and race should have the equal right to become a real mermaid. A few photos on the set don't tell you anything. What's more, netizens who think that such a role image is still quite good are indeed a lot of people.
The opposing netizens, the reason is also very simple, there are obvious differences between the live-action version of the mermaid and the mermaid image in the original animated movie, especially from the newly released set photos, many viewers waiting for this movie with childhood filters have shown disappointment with the design of the live-action mermaid. Obviously, it did not restore the original work enough, and even the actor did not even have a bright red hair.
Foreign netizens also launched a topic activity called "NOTMYARIEL" (not my Ariel) on the Internet to express their disappointment in the selection of this real mermaid.
In China, the attitude of netizens to this issue is obviously much easier. As a melon-eating crowd on the other side of the ocean, coupled with the childhood filter of the original animated film from childhood, most domestic audiences have not had much expectations for this live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" from the moment the film casting is confirmed.
The flow of photos on the set this time was treated as fun by many domestic audiences, who complained that this was actually filming "Crazy Primitive Man".
Obviously, for most domestic audiences, it is indeed difficult to accept that "The Little Mermaid" is starred by black people. On the one hand, the reason is that the appearance of Halle Bailey, the actor himself, and the animated image of Princess Ariel in the original "The Little Mermaid", can not be said to be hugely different, but can only be said to have no connection. In contrast, most viewers are certainly more willing to accept the following image of a real mermaid restored by AI
On the other hand, as one of the most familiar Disney animation images for domestic audiences, the existence of childhood filters also makes most viewers temporarily unacceptable to the fact that white characters suddenly become black.
And almost at the same time that the "Little Mermaid" live-action movie exposed the on-set photos, Disney finally finalized the actor of Snow White in the live-action movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" - Rachel Ziegler, a Latino actress who had starred in "West End Story".
Once the news was announced, it naturally triggered a fierce discussion among netizens. In the same way, there are those who approve and those who oppose. But perhaps because there has been a case of the casting of the Little Mermaid as a lesson in the past, netizens seem to have a softer attitude towards the real casting of Snow White this time.
The voice of opposition naturally focused on the issue of the actor's skin color. Although Disney did not let black actors play Snow White this time, there is a certain gap between the appearance of Latino actors and the image of Snow White in the original animated movie, "skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, black waterfall-like black and bright hair".
Moreover, Snow White, as one of the classic screen images, has been interpreted by many white actors, including Kristen Stewart, before that. Although the reputation of the movie is mostly more general, but in terms of character restoration, these live-action Snow White performances are not bad.
The netizens who agree with this casting believe that although Rachel Ziegler is a Latino actor, the actor himself cannot find any problems in terms of appearance and acting skills. In particular, she has also starred in many of Disney's live-action stage plays, in which she has played the roles of The Little Mermaid and Snow White, and from these experiences, it is reasonable for her to play the movie version of Snow White.
Rachel Ziegler played Snow White in stage plays
But it is undeniable that having black actors and Latino actors play roles on screen that have long been set as white characters may seem strange to audiences accustomed to these roles. Most of these characters have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people as white people, and it is undoubtedly a difficult challenge to shake their position in the minds of the audience.
Audiences are often more likely to link these subversive reinterpretations with the widespread issues of racial and gender equality in the United States. Reflecting this problem in the film and television drama industry, its performance is that more and more film producers will deliberately engage in some "political correctness" behavior that caters to "vulnerable groups" in their works in order to alleviate these contradictions and further strengthen the multicultural integration of the United States.
The most common of these methods is to enhance the presence of black actors in the film. For example, if you directly choose a black character as the protagonist of the movie, you must ensure that at least one black character is included in the film's starring team. On the one hand, this is to provide employment opportunities for more black actors, on the other hand, it can also improve the influence of black characters in the American film industry system and break the previous "white supremacy" stereotype.
The black film Moonlight Boy, the winner of best picture at the 89th Academy Awards, is widely regarded as the result of the Oscars' compromise on the "political correctness" of the film and television industry. This film, which consists entirely of black people from the director to the main cast, and only tells black stories, became the focus of heated discussion among film practitioners around the world that year.
Since the film was officially announced as an Oscar candidate, the speculation about whether the film will eventually win awards and how many awards it will win has not stopped. At the scene of the award ceremony, the film even made one of the biggest oolongs in the history of the Oscars because of the problem of "getting the list of winners wrong".
While "caring" for the black community, this film does not forget another special group that is now more and more valued in the European and American public opinion environment - LGBT. The protagonist of the movie takes into account the double BUFF of black people plus LGBT, which can be described as enough eyeballs, touching the sensitive words of European and American public opinion that can be touched, and finally won eight Oscar nominations for this movie that year, and won back three Oscar statues. However, whether it is on the FOREIGN IMDB or the domestic Douban platform, the evaluation of this film is lower than that of another popular film that was expected to win the award at that time, "Philharmonic City", so it is forgivable to say that it has received special care because of "political correctness".
Nowadays, political correctness has a more diverse form of expression in European and American film and television works, whether it is black people, or special groups such as LGBT, have begun to convey to the audience the concept of equal rights through the channel of film and television works, which has stronger communication capabilities. In essence, this is certainly not a bad thing, but when similar situations appear in front of the audience too often and indiscriminately, it is of course easy to cause the audience to resent.
Not a genre or theme film must include a black actor's role in it, and not every movie must have a role with a special sexual orientation. But today's European and American film and television industries have adopted this simplest and most convenient way to forcibly distort the audience's aesthetics and values, resulting in the scene of "political correctness" flooding the industry, which is not a benign measure for the audience or the development of the industry itself.
The worst example is probably the british television station's recently aired the episode "Anne Boleyn", which is based on true history. The most famous Queen of England in history, the birth mother of Queen Elizabeth I, was forcibly skinned as black in this version of the series, played by black actor Judy Turner-Smith. In the end, the drama scored a super low score of 1.1 on IMDB, becoming the lowest-rated drama in IMDB's history.
The reason why the audience gave it a low score was obviously because of the excessive "political correctness" shown in the film. As one of the most well-known queens in British history, Anne Boleyn was a pure-blooded white person, whether from the past life or the surviving portrait data, and as a result, she was forcibly resurfaced as a black person by later generations for "public opinion propaganda" for no reason, which is somewhat suspicious of treating the audience as a fool.
The situation of real people is still like this, so the fate of virtual characters is naturally more difficult to control. Even the superheroes who are most familiar to audiences today may face the fate of being "blackened" at any time.
In the early years, many comic hero images had their own "blackened" versions. Whether it is Marvel or DC, these two giants of the American super British comic book industry have replaced the original white characters with black people in their multiverse storylines and comic timeline reboots. For example, the black version of Captain America, the black version of Superman, and so on. The design of these characters also has some "political correctness" needs to a greater or lesser extent, but because they mainly appear in the derivative works of the main plot of the comic, the audience's acceptance of them is relatively tolerant.
In both the comics and the movies, Falcon has served as Captain America
But when Warner announced that it would launch a live-action version of the black superman movie, many viewers were still a little difficult to accept for a while. In particular, Warner officials also specifically pointed out that this film will be directed by a black director, which inevitably makes the audience worry a little more about this movie. Although the film has not yet revealed a specific cast list and script outline, if there is no accident, it may be another work whose "political propaganda" purpose is greater than the actual film value.
While countless viewers are still nostalgic for Henry Cavill's version of the Big Timeout, Warner holds aloft the sword of "political correctness" and ruthlessly pierces the audience's beautiful fantasies. As the behind-the-scenes hero who single-handedly created Henry Cavill's version of Superman, director Zach Schneider also expressed his expectations for the new version of Superman when talking about this black Superman movie. As for whether he is endorsing "political correctness", we do not know.
Of course, the situation of Marvel next door is not much better, although the movie "Black Panther" has received good industry evaluation, but with this film to impact the Oscars, it is still called "political correctness" by many audiences. And "blackening" settings such as "Mary Jane is actually black" have naturally become the basis for viewers to believe that Marvel has "political correctness" tendencies.
In fact, if we want to discuss the "political correctness" of the foreign film and television industry, it is inevitable to think about the international environment of "multicultural integration". In today's European and American countries led by the United States, people from different races, religious beliefs, and skin colors are completing a long-term multicultural integration, and behind the seemingly not glorious "political correctness" problem, what really shows is what these countries have to do in order to maintain their long-term peace and stability, and the new and the old at the level of national culture and faith are eliminated. A country, especially a country with an extremely diverse population like the United States, must learn to cater to the needs of these "new citizens" if it wants to accommodate more races and cultures, otherwise they will not only not integrate, but may also become a destabilizing factor that disturbs social order and causes the entire social structure to be divided.
This does not mean, of course, that the promotion of "political correctness" is the best solution to these problems. Having black people play white roles does satisfy black people's sense of social identity for a short time, but for white audiences who make up the majority of the population in this land, this behavior creates disrespect for them.
The best of both worlds, then, is definitely not just about the feelings of one party. Let black people participate in the stories created by black people themselves, and white people continue to interpret the role of white people, and achieve fairness and justice as much as possible under the premise of not interfering with each other, which is more able to meet the social identity of black people than simple and rough "character blackening".
Last year, when the "Black Lives Matter" movement caused a global sensation, Warner's classic film Gone with the Wind was urgently removed from the HBO for alleged racial discrimination. In the international public opinion environment at that time, a film that has been released for more than seventy years and is regarded as a classic by countless people has been criticized for no reason because of an affirmative action movement in later generations.
After relaunching, Warner added an explanatory video narrated by film media scholar Jacqueline Stewart to the old film — "What you'll see is one of the most enduring films in history, but it has been protested many times since the day it was announced that it was made" "Watching the film can be uncomfortable and even painful." But it's still important to have classic Hollywood movies watched and discussed in their original form. Watching films like this allows the audience to recall their value, the history of Hollywood, and how pop culture can illustrate a bygone era."
Source: Weibo user @ Lacquer Garden hermit in Paris
Similar explanatory content has also appeared in many of Warner's classic animation works, such as "Tom and Jerry", which has been the childhood memories of countless audiences, and these works have been resisted by many viewers because of some shots suspected of racial discrimination and racial stereotypes.
This reply was endorsed by many netizens at home and abroad, compared with the overcorrection of "political correctness", facing history squarely is the first step that needs to be taken to change the status quo.
It is undeniable that there will always be prejudice in this world, and it may remain so for hundreds of years, and if you want to change this situation, it is necessarily not a long-term solution to make up for the loss of the other party by hurting one party. Political correctness to make actors "blacken" or criticize old works cannot change the existing history of European and American countries, and it is also a symptom rather than a cure. In the context of multicultural integration, it is still not an easy task to solve the historical problems facing European and American countries.
And when we go back to the current "The Little Mermaid" live-action movie, its problem is obvious. The audience is not really rejecting the black man playing the mermaid, but the film from the hasty announcement to the finalization of the casting and the beginning of filming, this series of actions itself, more like a simple and rude and insincere, purely for the purpose of pleasing a few races, which will not actually help to enhance the status of black actors in the film industry.
The animated version of The Little Mermaid is based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Mermaid's Tale. Not to mention that as a Danish writer, Mr. Andersen's mermaid is most likely still conceived as a white girl, and has left a deep-rooted character image in the minds of many viewers. Even if Disney wants to launch a black version of the mermaid, it should be an original story that does not have any direct connection with the past "The Little Mermaid" animated movies, and is presented in a new form such as a black princess and a black story. That would not destroy the audience's impression of the white mermaids of the past, but also satisfies the expectations of black audiences for black Disney princesses.
But before that, the current situation of the "Little Mermaid" film crew is not optimistic, in the same period of the release of the set photos, the crew was revealed that fifteen staff members have been infected with the new crown virus, the current film shooting work is not smooth, this topical movie, may be doomed to a fate.
As an audience member, I just want this movie to bring us a really new mermaid image when the next announcement is announced.