Disney's Live Action Films





Disney’s recent onslaught of live action remakes of their beloved classics has created a lot of controversy amongst fans. The most recent two announced, Mulan and The Little Mermaid in particular, have caused debates amongst fans about whether they should be made at all.

Before we were given the trailer for Mulan, there were rumours that Shang has been cut out of it, Mushu is being replaced with a Phoenix and the songs are being replaced with instrumental versions. A lot of fans of the 1998 animated classic have expressed their feelings on these rumours and not all of them have been positive. Even after the trailer was released, loads of people took to twitter to complain about the lack of Mushu and the songs.




After having seen the trailer, I for one thing that the decision to leave out these aspects of the animated version are a good thing. As much as I love the classic, from what the trailer showed Disney are going in a completely different direction for this remake. It looks like it’s going to be gritty and intense and this is really the only Disney film they could have done it with as Mulan is a warrior, not a princess. She doesn’t need to be rescued by a man, she doesn’t even need a love interest. And replacing the songs with instrumental versions is the right move if this is the path they are going down. I love singng along to I’lll Make A Man Out Of You as much as the next person, but just hearing the instrumental version will have a bigger impact on this new version.

Perhaps the biggest controversy that Disney have caused recently is announcing that the actress they have chosen to portray Ariel in The Little Mermaid is black. Halle Bailey is a young black actress and singer. This caused a lot of hate due to the fact that in the 1990 animated film, she is white with red hair and people believe that its too much of a difference and that children won’t recognise her as Ariel. A hashtag was even started on Twitter #NotMyAriel, where people were defending their beloved animated version, saying that they don’t believe the new one is a true The Little Mermaid Story.

What it boils down to is racism.

Those people who were saying that a black mermaid isn’t realistic are just plain ridiculous. For one thing, mermaids are mythical creatures, they can be any colour they want to be! One argument was that they wouldn’t get Ariel’s iconic bright red hair. Well this picture started circulating soon after the news was announced and guess what? It’s not only white people who can have or dye their hair red!



Then I saw this video of her singing and I instantly knew that her version of Part of Your World, will be beautiful.

When this casting choice was announced, Disney said in the tweet that it was a RE-IMAGINING rather than a RE-MAKE. There is a distinct difference between those two words. Remake, means they are going to pretty much just copy the original and maybe change one or two small things. Re-imagining means that they are potentially coming up with a completely new story, which I am excited about!

The original fairy tale of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson is dark and twisted. Not only does she lose her voice, but she also has her tongue cut out and every step she takes makes it feel as though her feet are being stabbed. She doesn’t even get her happy ending, the Prince falls in love with and marries a princess so, as per her agreement with the Sea Witch, the Little Mermaid turns to sea foam and that is the end of the story.

This version of The Little Mermaid will be such an important role model for so many young black girls who will be able to identify with a princess other than Tiana. The colour of her skin is not an important part of the overall story so why does it matter that they have cast a young black girl?

I personally like the direction that the live action Disney remakes have been going. They’ve taken risks, and whilst some people might argue that they haven’t paid off, all of them have been box office hits. They’ve been adding more background story to the characters and fleshing them out which adds so much more depth to them.

Disney aren’t getting rid of the animated classics and no one is going to force you to go and watch them if you really are that outraged at the choices they have made. As much as I wish they would start making original films rather than sequels or remakes, I have been enjoying the films they come out with and am excited to see where they go with some of them.










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