DIVERSITY MISLAID THROUGH ANIMATION

Disney’s lack of diversity in their contents ranging from movies to books has been a persistent issue ever since its beginning. From the creation of Walt Disney Productions to now, the Walt Disney Animation Studios has released up to 61 animated movies and only 11 of them contain a main character that is a person of color.

Personally, growing up with the Disney movies and witnessing mainly caucasian princesses was pretty disheartening. I did not look like any of the pretty princesses. The single princess that represented my race and ethnicity was the warrior princess, Mulan.

With such lack of inclusivity, this inability to become diverse faced much criticism throughout the years. Coupled with the usage of racial stereotypes such as making Mulan more rebellious and Pocahantas more savage-like compared to other more feminine white princesses, Disney’s non-inclusive productions have been portrayed as unwelcoming towards minorities.

Another example of Disney’s racial caricature would be Tiana, the only princess that struggled financially throughout her story and the only one that turned into an animal.

Taking a look at some recent live action movies, Disney does attempt to have a wider range of actors. Unfortunately, they missed the mark.

“The Little Mermaid” is Disney’s newest live action remake featuring main actress Halle Bailey as Ariel. Quite a few changes were made to the 1989 animated version. These changes to the classic

STORY BY ARIEL SHAN

DESIGN BY TAYLOR JOE

sparked debate across Disney’s global audience.

With such drastic changes to such a comfort movie, the most controversy came with the unexpected switch in the race of its main character. In the 1989 film of “The Little Mermaid,” Ariel was animated with bright, crimson hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. As an official adaptation to the original story of “The Little Mermaid” by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, this Danish mermaid was a direct interpretation of the fictional story.

However, in the live action movie, Ariel was portrayed by Halle Bailey, a black singer and actress. The casting faced heavy backlash, with complaints over the race of the actress and her not-so-crimson natural hair. Bailey and director Rob Marshall have made the creative decision of keeping her locs, which led to some more skepticism from the audience.

Of course, Disney’s attempts at diversifying the brand by adding inclusivity into its characters has been moving on an upwards trend. There are improvements. But, they are not enough. In this particular movie, the change was too unprecedented. There has never ever been a change in the character’s race before. The live action movie also seemed like it was produced carelessly, with its tacky, outdated CGI.

Rather than changing an old classical character, Disney should have just created a whole new persona. The brand just seems lazy by switching up the casting of one movie in attempts to gain inclusivity. Yes, having Disney princesses being represented by multiple different cultures is amazing, but does it make sense when one specific character turns into two different races? The Little Mermaid was not the right movie to take a shot at “diversity.”

On the other hand, Disney’s 2024 live action “Lilo & Stitch” is facing something similar.

Contrary to the native islanders portrayed in the animated version of “Lilo and Stitch,” the newly announced castings revealed mainly white actors. Even when it was clear that the movie was composed of POC and represented the Hawaiian islanders, Disney did not hire an accurate cast, unable to do the bare minimum for their audience. While Disney’s attempt at diversity is seen to be a failure, all I could say was that I was disappointed but not surprised. Seeing how Disney barely succumbed to constructive criticism, it is crucial that they make a change in