Plog Number 70
The Little Mermaid
Hello Ploggers, Happy Saturday Night to all of you. I am feeling buoyed and upbeat. I am used to plogging away about mostly dystopic subjects. Things like stripped away rights, women’s suffering and oppression, political, economic and cultural opposition are usually on my radar. But tonight I am feeling very whimsical as only Disney can induce.
Yes I am talking about the new version of The Little Mermaid. The first version came out in 1989. That one was great and has remained popular to this day. My daughter was born in 2004 and she watched and loved it as a toddler. We have seen the characters at Disney on ⛸ Ice several times. I was not the Mom who was going to have my daughter go without live entertainment. These Disney shows are a way for adults to re-live and enjoy child appropriate movies. Disney is smart enough to put adult jokes in their Pixar movies that go right over the heads of kids, but hit the parent’s right between the eyes.
When I was a child in Geneva, Ohio, all of the beautiful images of girls and women were blonde haired and blue eyed. I came along after the Debbie Reynolds era, but there were always 2-3 Debbie’s in every class I was in as a kid. The Brady Bunch girls were popular. Models like Cheryl Tiegs and Cybill Shepherd ruled the runways. There was no Oprah, Beyonce, Lizzo or Whitney Houston to look up to as a beautiful brown role model. As a young, black girl there was no way that I was going to ever be considered beautiful or desirable. I felt very invisible when it came to aesthetics. I looked at my Mother and older sisters as my role models 💞 . I hate that I grew up that way but I am so thrilled for the young girls growing up today. They have Halle Bailey as the new Little Mermaid.
The release of the movie 🎥 is 8 months away but there is a huge stir about it now. Some people saw the trailer for it and heard her amazing voice and frowned upon the whole concept. They had so much hate in their hearts that they argued that she shouldn’t be portrayed by a black girl because the original cartoon was a white girl. WTF, Excuse me? Did you just say that Disney shouldn’t take license with the skin color of a cartoon for racial consistency? Why can’t they do as they please? A lot of Mermaid lore has involved black girl magic. Just because many black women have hair issues and don’t swim a lot, 🏊♀️ it doesn’t mean mermaids couldn’t be black. After all, this is about myths and fairy tales. When Will Smith played the Genie in the remake of Alladin I didn’t hear any push back about that change. But as always, I choose to be happy and positive because life just goes better that way. I cant wait to see the movie next May. RECLAIM
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