The Little Mermaid (2023) | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

FAQs

Why did Disney make The Little Mermaid black? ›

Representation of an African American woman as a love interest and a beautiful being should become natural. This version of The Little Mermaid is great for young people because it allows them to better appreciate diversity and gain a better sense of the world.

According to Showbiz Galore, she was reportedly paid $1.5 million to don the tail and seashells, though some news outlets reported slightly more modest earnings of $500,000. Despite the online backlash about casting a Black Ariel, this project made Halle Bailey a household name, especially among young Disney fans.

Here's what critics are saying about it. Disney's "The Little Mermaid" remake, starring Halle Bailey in the lead role, is in theaters Friday. Critics give unanimous praise for Halle Bailey's performance as Ariel. The new music pales in comparison to the original and contains "surface level" diversity.

Queen Athena

Ariel / Mother

At the beginning of the film, we're introduced to a rainbow collection of mermaids, from Asian to African – in what made-up a kind of all lives matter pool of mermaids. And then Queen Selina, Eric's adopted mother, played by Noma Dumezweni, is also a Black woman (who does not have a Black king as a husband).

Disney's Ariel is not the same as Anderson's little mermaid. The movie is loosely based on the fairy tale, so Disney has the freedom to give Ariel any skin color they want. In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish.

Character Info

Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” has been headcanoned as autistic, because no one who sings a song about wanting to not just learn about an interest, but literally be in that world, is neurotypical.

Amid Ariel's fascination with forks and seeking advice from Scuttle the Seagull, most of us probably didn't realize the extent of Ariel's collection of human gadgets and gizmos. ' Looking back, however, it's clear to see that the 16-year-old mermaid likely suffered from a hoarding disorder or disposophobia.

The conflict is that the little mermaid falls in love with a human prince and she wants to become a human. The solution of the original story the prince falls in love with the wrong girl and the little mermaid dies.

One theory is that each of Ariel's sisters represents different oceans that are home to various cultures and ethnicities. It's pretty problematic to have mermaids who all look the same representing such an expansive underwater world.

Why does Ursula hate King Triton? ›

In this novel, Ursula is King Triton's younger sister who was betrayed by him as a child for choosing a tentacled form instead of a mermaid's tail, and grew up as a human in the town of Ipswich with an adoptive human father.

In the animated film, Ursula was a villain who enjoyed messing with people and getting what she wanted. In The Little Mermaid live-action, however, Ursula's backstory gets an adjustment — she is upgraded to Triton's sister and Ariel's aunt, making her revenge and motivations all the more sinister.

The Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall on the 'dark' lighting. One key inspiration point was the BBC Earth's 2001 documentary series The Blue Planet, Marshall reveals, which made them want it to feel just as believable as that acclaimed series. “We all spent a lot of time watching Blue Planet.

1. The little mermaid in the book was white. Here is how Hans Christian Andersen described the little mermaid: “They were six lovely girls, but the youngest was the most beautiful of them all.

In Hans Christian Andersen's original story, things don't end so rosily. In fact, the story is tragic throughout, with Ariel's transformation to human causing her constant agonising pain, before her heart is broken when her prince marries someone else.

Yes, in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, he describes the mermaid as having a “white skin.” Andersen was a Dane, he lived in a place where anyone who wasn't pasty-white (or the sun-damaged variation of pasty-white) was a rarity.