Halle Bailey lands lead role in the live action remake of The little mermaid. Ariel is black now. Bye.

The Lion king is barely out the door, and already Disney are sucking up all of the headlines with their next live action remake of one of their animated classics.

Disney are basically running through all of their classic animated films and giving them live action remakes that nobody asked for. We've had The jungle book, Cinderella, Aladdin, 'bout to have The lion king, and one of the next remakes to go into production is The little mermaid; for which Disney has cast one half of the singing duo Chloe x Halle and Grown-ish star Halle Bailey in the lead role as Ariel.

This is BIG news, as it marks the first time we've seen a Disney princess be raced swapped from white to black since Brandy took on the role of Cinderella in the 1997 TV special. This of course means that King Triton will also be race swapped, and leaves the door open for Disney to do the same with Prince Eric and Ursula, whose race was always ambiguous, but some probably saw as black. Disney probably did too, as they love to code their villains as 'ethnic'.

Undoubtedly, there will be people who are not happy with Ariel being black, but they can all stay mad. This is going to mean the world to young black girls, for them to be able to go to the cinema and watch a big ol' Disney movie that has a black princess. It's also necessary viewing for white kids too, for them to see that black girls can be princesses.

I really hope they leave Halle's hair as is and just colour it, and don't put her in a Ronald McDonald wig.

Chloe x Halle were signed to Beyoncé's Parkwood entertainment back in 2015. So in my mind, Beyoncé walked up into Disney's offices and told them...

'I'm going to be in The Lion king, because it's Blue's favourite movie. I will also have an original song on the soundtrack, for which I will have a songwriting credit, even though I ain't write the song. I will not be doing any of your press junkets, but I will give you 3 Instagram posts. But they won't have captions. 

You're welcome. 

And in return, you will make Ariel black in y'alls little mermaid remake. And I've already decided who you gon' cast'.



Trust that when Ariel first comes up out of that water with her legs, she gon' be wearing Ivy Park.

Talk of The little mermaid remake started when news hit the web that Melissa McCarthy was in talks to play Ursula. I immediately screwed my face and wondered why the fuck Disney didn't hit up Lizzo, who I think would be perfect for the role. But as soon as Halle was cast it didn't make sense. This Twitter user put it perfectly as to why.

Is it wrong that I kinda want Ursula to be white now because it would make a lot more sense now that a white woman is stealing a black woman's voice... Imagine the symbolism.

— Laura (@lsirikul) July 3, 2019

It's going to be interesting to see what Disney do with the story, because race swapping aside, the original deal of Ariel trading her voice for a set of legs for some boy ain't gonna fly so well today. Especially in light of how Disney have been portraying their Princesses over the past 10 or so years, and giving them stories and motives which have absolutely nothing to do with trying to please a dude. Halle sat on those house steps in Lemonade and heard what Beyoncé went through when she tried to give her everything for a man, and she said 'Not me bitch'.

In slightly related news, a teaser trailer for Mulan was released yesterday. It would seem that July is 'Fuck white Princesses month' at Disney HQ.