Recently, a controversial movie will be released, it is Disney's latest version of "The Little Mermaid".
Many people should be familiar with the story of "The Little Mermaid", which is from "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales", formerly known as "Daughter of the Sea".
In the original work, Andersen made a very beautiful description of the Little Mermaid:
Her skin was as delicate as rose petals, and her eyes were as clear and pure as seawater.
The following is what the Little Mermaid looked like in the 1989 Disney version of The Little Mermaid.
Red hair, blue eyes, clothes made of shells, no legs, only a slender fishtail.
Because the image of "The Little Mermaid" is full of classics, she is also the childhood memories of many young Chinese audiences.
However, this beauty has been "tampered with" by Hollywood.
The little mermaid in the film becomes a black mermaid.
With the blessing of the light filter, this little mermaid seems to be okay.
But in the teaser video, I can't bear to look at it directly.
When the previous trailer was released, this little black fish rushed to the hot search in the United States.
When many people saw such a "Little Mermaid", their brows unconsciously wrinkled.
American netizens even couldn't stand it, and the answer to "should I boycott "The Little Mermaid" was all "too should".
On foreign social media, some netizens even set up a "community to boycott "The Little Mermaid" overnight, and the number of subscribers instantly increased to 30,000.
Some girls called out on their social media: "Those of us white girls who grew up with the Little Mermaid deserve an authentic Ariel."
Even the Koreans can't stand it and spit on "Disney is crazy"!
But in this regard, local black girls and media in the United States obviously have different opinions.
There is a video dedicated to recording the reaction of black girls abroad after seeing the live-action trailer of "The Little Mermaid".
Some little girls turned their heads and loudly told their parents: The little mermaid is a black man like me!
There was also a little girl who smiled and her eyes lit up the whole time, and the black little mermaid instantly became her favorite Disney princess.
More directly: she has dark skin, she is very similar to me.
Tomato-kun understands this reaction.
On the one hand, the audience of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" live-action version is not the group of people who grew up watching the original "The Little Mermaid".
The selection of black actors to play The Little Mermaid is an important part of Disney's multicultural strategy, and it is precisely black and colored people that it strives for.
On the other hand, these children do not have an inherent impression of "The Little Mermaid" in their hearts, so they are naturally very happy to see the princess who looks like themselves.
But what puzzled Tomato Jun was that after the media reputation of the world premiere of "The Little Mermaid" came out, the media's opinion on the film exceeded expectations - the black version of "The Little Mermaid" was not only praised as Disney's best adapted film, even the heroine Harley Bailey was called the "perfect" Little Mermaid.
Film critic Zoli Ross Bryant said bluntly: The heroine's performance is simply the birth of a star, and she is the reason why this new film is worth watching.
The film media "DiscussingFilm" said: The heroine is simply a little mermaid.
Film critic Grace said: The live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" is the best live-action adaptation.
The media "Atom" is even more blunt: it is one of the best family movies of all time.
Film critic Amber called out: A new Disney classic is born!
So, as an audience who has seen the original "The Little Mermaid" since childhood, what is it like to watch this movie from the perspective of Tomato Jun or the general public?
It's probably another victim of Hollywood's quest for some kind of rightness.
To evaluate whether a work is good or not, it is not an actor who looks at what skin color it uses, especially for a classic film, the dimensions of evaluation are nothing more than two.
One, is the fit with the original; The other is the quality of the film itself.
And as a senior fan of the original "The Little Mermaid", she does not fit with the original, and Tomato Jun still has the right to speak.
Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid has skin like roses, eyes like the deep sea, and gorgeous hair.
Look at Harley Bailey, with these 16 words, it cannot be said to be exactly the same, it can only be said that it has nothing to do with it.
Black skin, impermeable underwater, without the aura of the "Little Mermaid"; A "dirty braid" hairstyle that looks muddy and watery, neither sunny nor pretty.
In the close-up, the eyes are cloudy, and there are no blue eyes.
After becoming a person, he is also very short, and standing with the male protagonist is simply the "most cute height difference", and there is no beauty at all.
When she hides behind a rock and sings, from her appearance, eyes and body movements, she doesn't look like a mermaid princess who secretly loves the prince.
It's like staring at the delicious "fish demon" on the shore with bad intentions.
How can such a little mermaid be compared with Mr. Andersen's princess?
Of course, in the face of this question, there are many objections, the most representative of which is the rhetorical question: Andersen did not say that the Little Mermaid is not black?
This rebuttal is not correct.
Although Andersen did not explain the "skin color" of the Little Mermaid in the original work, it is basically certain from his description that the Little Mermaid is not black or brown skin.
In addition, "Daughter of the Sea" was written in 1837, a time when the status of blacks was still very low even in Denmark.
According to the thinking and class limitations at that time, blacks are unlikely to appear in "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales" as princesses, and the film and television adaptations of many previous versions of "The Little Mermaid" have also proved this iron law time and again.
Therefore, there is a fact that is basically certain, that is, Disney casting is by no means based on the original book or story as a reference, and the consideration of correct skin color accounts for a large proportion.
In Disney's official poster, the image of the little mermaid Ariel with six sisters is exactly seven people of different skin colors and races.
Among them, there are whites and blacks, Asians and Latinos, Indians and Africans...
To be honest, the skin color plus the fishtail, the color is almost not enough.
On the road to pursuing so-called "cultural diversity", Disney is also gone, Disney executives have put down harsh words at company meetings: of all the characters launched in the future, a small number of people should account for more than half.
What does this mean? It means that minorities such as blacks, and even LGBT groups, will appear in Disney (classic) movies together.
Others are not clear, and after that, Disney has decided to shoot several classic animations, and it has begun to "ruin childhood".
In the live-action version of Peter Pan and Wendy, Tinkerbell the fairy will become a black fairy;
You know, the elf is originally blonde and white-skinned, and like the elf prince in "The Lord of the Rings", this time the main evolution into black actress Yara Shahidi is really eye-catching.
In the live-action version of "Snow White", the snow-white skin Snow White will become a darker-skinned princess;
Take a look at the appearance of the previous live-action version of Snow White, and judge highly.
What's even more ironic is that the vicious queen in the live-action version of "Snow White" is played by Gal Gadot...
It is foreseeable that more and more childhood classic characters will slowly change their skin color and go further and further on the road of "dark" and "few".
Over the years, under the background of various movements in Europe and the United States and a large number of people frantically pursuing all kinds of correctness, many film and television works have gradually fallen into the "pursuit of skin color" and "minority pursuit" like "The Little Mermaid".
For example: in "Cinderella" in 2021, the godmother looks like this.
Also in 2021, the Queen of England was also quietly replaced with a black version.
What is even more infuriating is that the action blockbusters we are familiar with, superhero blockbusters, and sci-fi blockbusters, none of the genres can escape the shadow of "blackening".
First of all, "Transformers" "Fall", the heroine of "Transformers 7: The Rise of the Power Warriors", is a black actress named Dominic Fishback, who looks like this.
As a popcorn blockbuster, although the Autobots in "Transformers" are the protagonists, the human heroine cannot be too outrageous.
You know, in the first 6 parts, the heroines are all super beauties.
The heroine Megan Fox in the first part is overwhelming in Hollywood.
Rosie Handington in the second part, Guo Dasen's wife, a famous supermodel of Victoria's Secret.
Nicola Peltz in the third part is a real American sweetheart look.
Even if the heroine's appearance drops slightly after that, it will not be as crotch-pulling as the seventh part.
Just looking at the back, it is even difficult for you to distinguish who is the male protagonist and who is the female protagonist.
The superhero "Superman" independent movie we are all too familiar with, Warner Bros. is also looking for a black actor to play.
Henry Cavill in the DC universe is perhaps the last "white" superman.
As soon as the news came out, fans did not buy it, and even began to attack Warner's social media.
Warner reluctantly said that Black Superman will not replace the position of Superman in the DC Universe, but a new image and story.
But in fact, "Superman" independent movies have no plans to continue filming, and "Black Superman" may gradually replace Superman's position in the audience's field of vision, and eventually replace it.
In addition to "Transformers" and "Superman", "007" was not spared.
We all know that Daniel Craig has played 007 5 times, and in "No Time to Die", his Bond is also officially "killed", so "007" urgently needs to introduce new blood,
But the strange thing is that "007" must not only achieve "blackness", but also achieve "gender transformation", and the title of the latest generation 007 is likely to be inherited by a black woman.
According to anonymous Hollywood sources, "007" will be replaced by the black heroine Rushner Lynch, who has starred in "Captain Marvel".
She will also officially become the first female agent codenamed 007.
In the face of a black "female Bond", can you accept it?
If film, as an artistic processing work, blindly inserting black protagonists is acceptable, then looking for "right" in documentaries is simply speechless.
Netflix's new documentary "Cleopatra" identified Cleopatra's actor as a black man.
Because of tampering with history and arranging characters at will, this film has only 1.1 points in IMBD and touches the historical floor.
On Douban, it only has a rating of 2.6, which is inverted with the consistent high score of Netflix documentaries.
You know, in real history, Cleopatra was of pure Greek descent, that is, Caucasians, which is probably what it looked like in the 1963 version.
Under the influence of the background, Hollywood is destroying those familiar film and television works or historical fragments.
It is foreseeable that in casting, Hollywood directors have ranked other factors such as skin color to the first place beyond other decisive factors such as story, script, idea, core and so on.
If a film, when casting, is not primarily the artistry and story of the film, there are no requirements for the fit and completion of the role, but how to install a dark person, then the decline of this market may only be a matter of time.
You and I both know that in Hollywood movies that are wrapped up, choosing a black man to play "The Little Mermaid" is just the beginning.
There will be a large number of classic reboots or remakes in the future, waiting for them to go to disaster.
The Western world, along with Western films and artworks, has embarked on a path of decline.
(Movie Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Office: Miao Miao)