August 16, 2019 • 36 mins
When Disney announced that Halle Bailey would be playing the new Ariel in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid, people lost their minds. We're here to break down the nonsense and support an inclusive Ariel.
Tracey Baptiste - "Mermaids have always been Black." - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/black-little-mermaid.html
Tracey Baptiste - "Mermaids have always been Black." - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/black-little-mermaid.html
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
She was one, she was givenan explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,
Hello, and welcome to the Persistence. This is you Persisted the Nasty Podcast.
My name is Beatrice and I'm herewith Elizabeth and today we'll talk about
(00:38):
something that was a huge topic onTwitter and in pop culture generally the last
few weeks, and that is TheLittle Mermaid or the New Life Action version
of the animated classic. Yeah,who knew that they this was going to
be such a big deal? Whowho would have thought? The thing is
(01:02):
Hailey Berry. I knew this isgoing to happen. I knew I was
gonna say Haley Berry because I'm soused to the name Haley Berry. But
she's called Haley Bailey. Ah,but I'm so used to saying Haley Berry
and she's called Haley Bailey and thenames are so similar. So Haley is
part of the music due Chloe andHallie, which you probably know, especially
(01:23):
if you're a Beyonce fan, becauseshe signed them under her label and also
they had an appearance in her visualalbum and she pushed them a lot.
So Haley not Berry. Bailey.One half of the dou was cast it
as Ariel The Little Mermaid in theupcoming Life Action version of the Disney Classic.
(01:44):
And the thing that people had aproblem with is that they're black.
So Haley, Haley and Chloe areblack, and people, unsurprisingly, because
humanity is a stupid parade, evenmostly on the Internet, some people completely
lost a ship because they do notagree with the fact that a black person
(02:06):
is to play a mermaid. Andthey started a hashtag on Twitter not my
area that is excuse my language,bullshit exactly. I mean for a lot
of reasons, but it's bullshit.And they even started a petition to get
Disney to rethink their choice. Themost ridiculous thing is the argument, like
(02:29):
the argument behind it, because peopleargue that a black Mermaid is unrealistic because
mermaids can't be black, And I'mlike, dude, you know what else
is unrealistic? White mermaids because theydon't fucking exist. So there's like a
fucking couple things with this that Ijust lose my shit about. Like number
(02:50):
one, and I read a memeonline or you know a series of tweets
from people the other day online thatsaid, like every like this, the
same thing with like the new JamesBond, that they're gonna have Yeah,
they were. Everybody was like upin arms about the idea of having Idriss
Ilba be James Bond, so like, oh, you can't have a black
James Bond, Like, well,well, the double O seven designation is
(03:14):
just for like the position, notthe person, and like, no,
he won't be James Bond like hewould be double O seven. But they
just like totally doubled down on it, and we're like, no, we're
gonna have a black woman. Soyeah, and everybody just gets pissed off
about it. But the only thingthat it does is it just provides more
attention for the film. So that'snumber one. That is true. That
(03:36):
is true. But you know,the whole the whole debate surrounding this life
action version of The Little Mermaid kindof reminds me of the holy bate surrounding
the life action version of Beauty andthe Beast that came out I think three
years ago or two years ago,yes, where some homophobic assholes got old
furious about the fact that there's aslight implication of a gay relationship in the
(03:59):
film. Wiley, We're being completelyunfazed by the fact that this is literally
a story about a girl falling inlove with an actual beast. So I
mean, get your prioritiestrate people funnot intended, and also throw away a
computer or all your web enable devicesand stop talking. I mean yeah,
seriously, agreed, agreed, Likeit's like none of it makes sense,
(04:23):
Like it's fantasy, it's a fairytale, it's like a fiction. Like,
yeah, there are different ways thatwe tell these stories of fiction,
which leads me to like issue numbertwo, which is like there are a
lot like fairy tales generally, thereare a lot of common tropes in fairy
tales that cross international cultural boundaries.Yes, and surprise their mermaid trope is
(04:49):
fucking one of them. And thereare exactly in like African folk tales.
Yes, And like one of myone of my teachers in college when during
my bachelor's degree, she was aformer nun who had done missionary work in
Africa. Then she met her husband, left the sisterhood and like became had
(05:10):
got a PhD in religious studies,and one of the things that research she
researched was this kind of religious liketraditional religious ceremonies that centered on this figure
of Mammy Water who was oh yes, like mermaid esque type deity that they
would leave sacrifices too. Yes,yes, in Africa there were in fact
(05:34):
mermaid deities, which means yes,they were probably black exactly. So I
also read an article that was writtenby I think she's called Tracy Baptiste Baptiste
in the New York Times. I'mgoing to link it in the show notes
also, and she also talks abouthow there are generations of African and Caribbean
(05:56):
folklore that portray black mermaids. Soshe grew up in Trinidad and Tobago,
and she's also a right, she'sa novelist, she's a feminist. And
in her piece she writes about thefolklore that she grew up with, and
she gives a few examples of mermaidsand mermaid like creatures that are part of
the oral, folkloric traditions of hercultural background. And she also stresses that
(06:19):
mermaid like creatures or other mythological creaturesof the sea are not just existent,
but hugely important to African cultures,and that African cultures have and that those
kind of images have also been coopted by Europeans and turned into Eurocentric narratives.
(06:42):
And she also stresses that Hans KristenAnderson wrote The Little Moment at the
height of colonialism. So I havea quote by her. She says,
quote Black mermaids have always existed longbefore Anderson, Nilan before Disney. Given
the way African stories have been takenand twisted, I want to just where
(07:05):
Anderson got his idea in the firstplace. He was writing at the height
of the colonial period, as peoplewere being stripped from African lands, cling
to the stories that made them whothey were. The focus on Eurocentric stories
and storytelling has done us a disservice, leaving most totally ignorant of the fact
that mermaid stories have been told throughoutthe African continent for millennia. Mermaids are
(07:29):
not just part of the imagination either, but part of the living culture.
So and She goes on to describetwo figures. One is Mamma Law or
Mamma It's like a French d Law, like Mamma of the water. I
suppose it's one figure that she grewup with. And she says in the
(07:51):
oral traditions, that figure is hugeand hideous, fierce and unstoppable. She's
ruling the waters, both the riverembassy, She upturns fishing boats by whipping
her powerful on a conder tail.She watched his victims drowned in the blue,
and she was the Baptiste was,she says, influenced by her lot,
(08:13):
she was delighted by the idea ofsuch a powerful and free woman.
And then she also writes about thelikely origin of that tale. She says,
which is also interesting, that itprobably started during chattel slavery, when
people were kidnapped from the west coastof Africa and brought to the Caribbean and
the Americas, and there was thisidea that the Mother of the Sea came
(08:33):
with them because she already existed inWest Africa as Mummy Water. This is
the character that you talked about.He was also a figure of fertility deity,
actually promising futility and prosperity to herdevotees. And also what is what
I found just so fascinating is thatthink about the Starbucks label that's a co
(08:58):
opter euro euro Americanized, actually aco opted Americanized version of Mummy Wapta.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutelyyeah. And she also of course says
that in Mali, Jogen people havehad stories they actually have an origin story
involving fish creatures called numbers. InSouth Africa, there are people, there
(09:24):
are stories of mermaids. Yeah,so it's been a part of African cultures
since forever. When I was teachinga course on fairy tales, I had
my students go to the library andgo to the special collections section, and
there they had some collected stories fromvarious places. They had some Russian fairy
(09:46):
tales, some of them were fromSouth America, and they had a collection
of like African folk tales that workthat had been collected in like the six
season seventies by American researchers who wentto Africa to collect these stories of black
(10:07):
fairy tales and folk tales. Yes, and one of the stories that was
in there was like a Cinderella storywhere a girl would oh, really yeah,
and I'm not going to remember thestory precisely, but she would I
think she was a mermaid, andshe would come out and she wanted to
be human, but or maybe shewas human and she wanted to be a
(10:30):
mermaid. But she would shed ifshe did it three times, just like
you do in fairy tales. Shedthe mermaid scales. And I don't,
like, I really don't remember whatthe story is. I mean, if
you think about the Little Mermaid,the Little Mermaid is a little bit like
a Cinderella story that like she comesback and forth and then like this is
what she wants, but she hasto give something up and then she gets
the Prince of the end. Butbut yeah, I mean that they're kind
(10:52):
of Cinderella story involved being a mermaidand you know, getting the scales and
shedding the scales and bringing them back. So which was really interesting and from
my students perspective, you know,the students who chose to do, you
know, to do a comparison ofthat story with a fairy with a Cinderella
story, it was interesting to seethis like different mode of storytelling and different
(11:18):
imagery in the stories. I thinkthat we let in the West, in
Western culture, particularly in the UnitedStates, because I think a lot of
the fervor against you know, changingthe race or the gender of a character
in a story, yeah, comesa lot particularly is vociferously like debated by
(11:41):
very fragile men on the internet.Um, and I'm not really sure why
so many men have like such aproblem with fairy tale characters changing gender.
And race, but yeah, whatever, Yeah, I don't know, but
you know, it's a lack ofimagination. It really comes down to the
lack of imagination and a desire tothink that you are the primary culture and
(12:07):
this idea that like, oh,it's it's unrealistic because I can't imagine it.
Yeah, but here's the thing.This lack of imagination is also a
systemic problem because where that's the lackof imagination come from. It comes from
the fact that in our culture wemostly see white main characters represented, right,
(12:28):
yes, yes, absolutely, andyou know absolutely, which is why
a film like Black Panther was soimportant because it was a primarily like all
black cast except for like two orthree characters, who in this case were
the villains, whereas most of thetime what you get is a black person
being the villain. Instead, thetables were completely switched in this case,
(12:52):
and they were they were minor charactersand they were villains instead of being the
main characters and having tokenized black peopleas the villain like sidekick. Yeah.
So I think what's behind this wholething is a lot of white fragility and
also the fear of losing privilege becauseit's a privilege to be represented wherever you
look and not be invisible, andseeing others who look different represented in popular
(13:15):
media also communicates to you, asthe privileged person, that you are not
the norm human, that there areother people on this planet who deserve just
as much space in respect and rightsand power and representation as you do.
And apparently that scares white people whohave considered themselves as the humankind for centuries.
Yeah, well yeah, absolutely,I mean it's it's the whole like
(13:39):
reason behind this like new what dothey call it? Not white supremacy.
They call it something quaint like whatever. I can't even give them, give
them the new needs does a newword for it? I think the word
you're looking for is racism? Ohyeah, yeah, yeah, no,
the whites premising absolutely no. Butthey have like a phrase for it,
(14:03):
which is bullshit. Um, Iit's the whole I didn't know the phrase.
Oh yeah, it's not worth it. It's still like some some media
bullshit crap that okay, white supremaccame up with to make them seem self
seem respectable. Yeah, but youknow, I mean that's the whole thing.
When when all of these organizations andall of these groups, and these
(14:24):
people say like, oh, youknow, I'm here to preserve European,
white European culture. What they're reallysaying is my culture is better than yours.
Your culture doesn't deserve to be preserved, and you don't deserve to be
represented in my culture. Well I'vegot news for you. Like the United
(14:45):
States to be a primarily white Europeanculture for many, many generations. Yeah
well yeah, not only that,but like we're not europe bitches. We
escaped from Europe because we wanted likefreedom from that, so get over it.
Also, I mean, no matterif it's like Europe or America,
(15:07):
but the stories you tell, thestories Disney tells are not Disney's stories.
They've been in all kinds of culturessince forever, as we already said,
So it's not your it's not yourculture to begin with. You know a
lot of a lot of you know, a huge part of you know,
white American culture, but also ofEuropean culture is things that were coopted from
(15:30):
other cultures. Yeah, and andnot just coopted like a misappropriated, like
appropriate, it's like cultural appropriation.Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's
this thought by like now that we'vegot for how many you know, generations
and how many centuries, uh,you know, white culture has has appropriated
(15:50):
from other cultures. Now, now, when when we start to go back
and like explore the origins of thingsand explore like alternate ways of telling stories
and alternate characters and different perspectives inthese stories, then suddenly it's like,
oh, you're you're appropriating white culture. Like no, no, no,
no, no, no, nono no, And it's a co option.
(16:14):
It's appropriation, and it's also thatthings were violently taken from other cultures,
right, so it's not just Butlet's go back to the whole hashtag
not my Ariel thing for a second, because I found the whole debate so
fascinating because it's so stupid. Becausethe racist assholes that were against Hailey Bailey
(16:36):
playing or speaking singing The Little Mermaidalso argued that Ariel cannot only be not
black because she's a mermaid, whichwe already told you is complete bullshit because
mermaids don't exist, but also becauseshe's from Denmark, which, first of
all, yes, the original authorof The Little Mermaid, hence Cristin Anderson,
(16:57):
is from Denmark, but that doesn'tmean that all the characters he ever
writes about are Danish, and evenif they are, there are black people
in Denmark, not nineteenth century,actually there were. And I also don't
(17:17):
think that mermaids. I mean,there's nothing in the in the tale,
it says that she's from Denmark.It's just a tale about mermaids. I
don't think mermaids give many facts aboutlike human maide, borders and states,
like if anything, she's in internationalwater, right, yes, she lives
in international water. She could beanything. I mean, she could be
Yeah, she could be a Hispanic, Oh my god, don't even get
(17:42):
me started. You know what,she could be Asian. I bet there
are Asian stories of mermaids christ I'msure. I mean I would bet that
there are. So. Yeah.Basically, when I read through the Twitter
posts the people wrote, my brainwas bleeding because none of it makes sense
what soever. I don't know whyyou do that to yourself, because you
(18:03):
did that with in cell stuff too. You read through all I know,
I keep just falling into these holes. There was one more thing, actually,
because after being called out as racist, those people started saying like no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, of course
we're not racist because our issue isnot about the skin color. It's because
(18:26):
Ariel needs to have red hair.Stop. But you know what, black
people can have red hair. Soalso, the whole story is completely unrealistic.
So even if it would be completelygenetically impossible for black people to have
red hair, they could just colorthe fucking hair red. I mean,
why does Ariel? Why would thatbe the only thing that needs to be
(18:47):
realistic in the film. Also,no white person on this planet has hair
that is naturally as red as Ariel'shairs in the film, because she's a
fucking mermaid. So there are talkingcrabs and fish and witches in this film,
So I don't know what it's talkingabout, Like it doesn't make sense.
I mean her, it's they talkabout her hair, but they don't
necessarily talk about her hair being redin the film. I mean, like
(19:08):
that's the thing, Like like eventhe fairy tale itself, it talks about
how beautiful her hair is, butit doesn't talk about actually the color of
it. No, it doesn't.But I mean I get that the hair
has become kind of an economic orAriel the animated figure, but you can
you can have a black character withred hair and know what the issue is
(19:30):
like, it doesn't make sense nobecause color the hair. I mean no,
it doesn't. It doesn't actually matter. So it's clearly not the point.
This is what I was going tosay. It's clearly not the point.
The point is clearly that they chosea black person to play the character
and not the fucking hair. Imean, ah, I can't, I
can't. What I also found fascinatingthat is that there are people who think
(19:52):
that Disney only chose her because she'sblack so that they can kind of virtue
signal that they're not racist and thatthey kind of, yeah, so that
they wanted to make a statement bychoosing a black character, which I also
think is fucking bullshit because have youlistened to her singing? She's amazing.
So I mean they chose her becauseshe's incredibly talented and not because she's black.
(20:15):
Yeah, and you know what,even if they did choose her because
she's black, whatever, like,it doesn't it doesn't matter. I mean,
of course, yeah, it doesn'tmatter. But also, I you
know, I think they kind oftry to minimize her talent by saying,
well, she only got a chanceto play the role because she's black.
Yeah, No, no, she'sshe's such a good pick, I think,
(20:37):
but also is a little This isthe argument that people in the United
States have used against a firmative actionfor a long time, like, well,
if they could have gotten the jobon their own merits, then like
we wouldn't you know, yeah,they we wouldn't have to give them a
special advantage because they're black. Wellmaybe she didn't get a special advantage because
she's black. Maybe she's actually thebest singer, and maybe she's actually the
best singer an actress for the position. Yeah exactly. And also, I
(21:03):
mean it's not important, but Iwas actually amazed, but how similar her
face looks to Ariel So her facialproportions are very similar. So even if
you only take that into account,she's a perfect pick, I think.
So here's a question. I mean, I'm all for her, and I
don't you know, I think it'sgreat, especially for little girls of color
(21:29):
who to be able to see someoneand see themselves represented in the films that
they seem and the dolls that aregoing to be created for it. We
already have tons of like white,red haired aerial dolls. I don't see
a problem having darker skin, darkerhaired, like Ariel Dolls like, none
of that matters to me, ButI mean it matters to me. I
think it's great. It doesn't botherme at all. Yeah, I'm waiting
(21:52):
for people's heads to explode when theyI mean, I don't know if they've
chosen who's going to be Ursula,but I'm waiting for someone's had to explode
when they choose a drag a dragqueen to do Ursula. That would be
so amazing because Aslait is actually modeledafter drag queen. Yes, yeah,
(22:15):
so I just like that's the nextstep. The next step is to choose
someone like Divine, because Earthla wasbased on John Waters, like the character
slash like drag dragonformer um who hadworked with John Waters over the years,
Um Divine. Yeah, And I'mwaiting for them to choose a drag queen
(22:36):
like Divine to play Ursula. Ohmy god, I'm so like, Yes,
that will be and then the Internetwill lose its fucking shit. Yeah,
or even a black drag queen.I mean they would, yes,
yes, Twitter would explode and Ihope it will yeah, yes, yes,
(22:59):
No, they need show. Isaw another like like cartoon kind of
thing of you know of mermaids,and it was like two lesbian mermaids,
and it looked like there was likea black man in or a black mermaid
and a like white female mermaid wholike the woman was also holding hands with
(23:21):
the man who was in this gaypair of mermaids. And it was like
so they were like maybe a threesome, like a polyamorous like group. And
then there was like a polyamorous likea multi racial group, and then there
was like a lesbian group with likea baby that the baby was clearly like
from one of the other, likeone of the other couples. And it
was like this fabulous thing of likeyou know, intersectional identities all coming together
(23:45):
in like one picture of mermaids andlike watch people's heads explorers and they do
this, and I mean, listento them mermaids. We don't know how
they you know, how they lived. I don't know how they repeat exactly,
because literally, if they only havefins, where are the genitalia?
That's that's one question I have.And also since they half fish, probably
(24:06):
they don't give Probably they're not verymuch into monogamy. We don't know what
they do. Yeah, I meanthe question I would have and this is
like taking the mermaid thing way toofar, Like I came in, like,
is the fish part dominant, inwhich case they do they like lay
eggs and then they get like likefertilized, and like the babies just grow
out of Like, oh god,you're turning it into a horror movie.
(24:33):
So that's question number one. Questionnumber two, are they more like mammals
and then and therefore like dolphins?And then do they do like live births
like dolphins, in which case dolphinpenises are creepy. That's true, that's
true, but a lot about dolphinsis please don't google it. It's terrible.
But so I would I would assumethat their mammals because they also have
(24:57):
breasts. Oh yes, okay,okay, that's fair. So but I'm
not a biologist. I don't know. I'm not I'm not a mermaid expert.
There are a lot of things thatwe don't know about mermaids, and
you know why, because they're fictional. Oh yeah, but thank god the
(25:19):
fictional, because that's just fucking monstrous, like this, Gary, Uh yeah,
actually, you know what. Therehas been a proliferation of mermaid television
shows and um and series available onlike the I think it's the CW,
but maybe some other channel as well, and the mermaids in them are always
(25:42):
super terrifying. And you know whatelse, there are playmaids in those shows
too. Oh my god, Iknow, but you know what they I
mean, there are There is alsoa lot of European folklore. Mermaids have
been depicted as like really monstrous creaturesthat kind of kill people on boats and
(26:02):
all of that. So sailors likethe the mermaid at Yeah, that's what
I was. Yeah, that's theword I was looking for, Thank you
very much, Liz. People onboats, wasn't It's It's also accurate.
It's also true. It's also saysthat people on boats. Yes, um
no, like the Laureli story inin Germany, she's technically a mermaid,
(26:26):
she's more like a siren. Butbut yeah, I mean she's there like
calling her hair, luring men totheir doom. Um. And then the
stories of like Calypso in Um andthe sirens in the Odyssey that's also an
example. Again not necessarily mermaids,but like nixies and and water sprites that
(26:47):
um and and sirens that are thatare luring men typically, but luring sailors
to their deaths. Yeah. Andthere are also depictions from the Middle Ages,
like actual visual depictions UM with mermaidsand they looked terrifying. So yeah,
I had a there was a professorthat I had in grad school who
(27:10):
was a French professor who was researchingUM depictions of women as like half snakes,
which is also very similar to thehalf like the mermaids things. Oh
yeah, creatures that are kind ofweird and uh yeah, I mean they
are terrifying yea, and very powerful. I mean yes, goes to like
(27:30):
men's frigil not just white man whitefragility, white male fragility. Like they
want to think about Ariel as likea weak white woman who like who gives
up everything for the love of herlife, so that men are like,
yeah, super powerful. But theactual depictions in for the most of European
(27:52):
storytelling about mermaids and water creatures isthat they are really fucking scary and super
powerful exactly. Yeah. So yeahyeah, And and even in the Hans
Christian Anderson tale, the one thatthe Disney version is based on, um,
it's not the love that makes herwant to be a human, it's
that she wants an immortal soul becausein the Prison Anderson tale, mermies don't
(28:17):
have an immortal soul, and shewants to become a human soul to be
immortal. Yea, and not becauseshe wants a prince. That that part
that pot is um, the Disneypart of it that she wanted to marry
rints. Yeah, I mean inin the in the Hans Christian Anderson one,
she um, she wants her soulto like go to heaven essentially,
but she knows that when when mermaids, mermaids live very long lives, but
(28:42):
mermaids they don't have souls and theyjust become like sea foam when they wait
die. Um, And she doesn'tactually get her wish. He like falls
in love with another and and shedoesn't get him to say, I mean
she's not It's not the same asthe Little Mermaid from Disney where she's tricked
by the evil Queen. He justyou know, love is fickle, and
(29:07):
he falls in love with someone else. And and she realizes when she becomes
part of the c foam that sheactually becomes part of some this larger ecosystem
because she's she gets to see whatthat's like, and she ultimately does get
I mean, even though she doesn'tget a soul, she does get what
she wants to become kind of eternalas part of this like circle of life.
(29:29):
One might say, oh, yeah, I took her back to the
lion king. Yeah. YEA.One thing that's kind of the last thing
I wanted to get into is thatsome people also argue that, you know,
it doesn't fucking matter what cola Arielis. The earth is dying,
you idiots. We have bigger problems, um, But the problem is that
(29:52):
racism is always something that we haveto stand up against, and especially is
why people I think so that inan ideal world without racism, I too
wouldn't give a fuck about what colorAriel is. But in a world in
which racism is a very real andalso cruel reality, I celebrate the fact
that they chose to cast a blackactress. Yeah agreed. I mean I
(30:17):
can be both terrified about what's goingon with the earth and yeah, care
about racism, Like the two thingsare not mutually exclusive. Yeah, I
don't have to just focus on oneand not the other. Also, just
one question, I mean, probablynone of them, not my aerial people
are listening to this, But whatdid you do when Hollywood, like because
(30:40):
they do it all the time,when they cause white characters as people of
color, Oh, like Jesus,that's terrible, and it happens a lot
of times with Asian characters, likedon't yes, why why would you cast
Scarlett Johansson as an Asian character?Yes? And ghost to a chi who's
the woman who was in the hLala Lands movie? I don't remember anyway,
(31:03):
they cast her as an Asian characteror a half Asian character, and
it was like, I mean,no, no, no, no.
Do you know how many Asian likeChinese, American Chinese just generally not even
Chinese in American, Yeah, Filipino, Jamanese actors there are out there who
aren't getting jobs because you only castthese jobs for white people. Yeah.
(31:26):
What did you do when Elizabeth Taylorwas in Katra? What did you do
when Noma Scott was cast in Elginas a Middle Eastern or as you said,
Scolett Jensen as Asian and ghost inMichelle or Emma or Jake Gillenhall's Persian
Like yes, okay, because Iwas thinking you were thinking I was I
thought you were you were talking aboutLala Land, and I was like,
(31:48):
Emmastone was in Lala Land. Yeah, yeah, she was in the land.
But I thought you were talking aboutthe film. No, no,
I was talking about her. Icouldn't. You were talking about the film
depicting Yeah. Yeah, yeah,now I understood what you were talking about.
So yeah, she was cast inHawaiian. Yeah. So yeah.
Yeah. There was no out karion Twitter about this. No, no,
(32:08):
because everybody just assumes like, oh, you could just change it to
a white character. But you can'tchange a white character to a black character,
or you can't change a white characterto an Asian character, or you
can't change a white character to youknow, an Indian character like or or
a First People's character or whatever.Yeah, I mean, and in this
case it's and in this case,it's not even a real person. It's
(32:30):
like an animated movie and it's amermaid. So yeah, it's not even
I think you can't even compare itto um people of color being betrayed by
white people because we're not talking aboutactual people. It's even more like ridiculous
to complain about it. I totallyagree, and I think it's it's on
(32:52):
Hollywood and it's on directors and castingpeople to say, you know what,
you know this, this may bewritten for a white character, but that's
again lack of imagination, Like whycan't it be a black actress or a
black actor who plays this role,because yeah, honestly, most of the
(33:15):
time it probably doesn't matter, andyou don't have enough backstory and like information
about that character at all to tojustify it just being a white character except
for the fact that it was purelywritten you know, maybe by a white
person for white people. And again, yeah, it's lack of imagination and
(33:36):
because you consider white people to bedefault human beings. Yeah, yeah,
So I would like to end withanother Twitter, not a tweet, but
this time one that I really liked. Okay by Bond Bond Tindle b O
N t I N d l EBond Tindle. I think she writes The
(34:00):
primary reason I support casting a blackactress to play Ariel is that there is
no group of women who know moreabout having the voice taken away than women
of color. Let us watch onetake her voice back and love her damselves.
Representation matters everything I am, everythingI've done, is because I saw
someone I could relate to. Fightback, and I thought to myself that
(34:22):
I could do that too. Mayall little girls find their hero? Oh
I like that. That's nice.Yeah see, there's also nice things happening
on Twitter, yes sometimes. Yeah. All right, then, if you
want to follow us on Twitter,we're also there at She Persisted Pod.
You can also find us on Facebookand on Instagram at She Who Persisted.
(34:45):
You can write as an email atShe Who Persisted Podcast at gmail dot com.
We have a homepage She who Persisteddot com. We're on patreons.
If you want to support us,please please do that. We also um,
yes, no, that's it.That is it. That's it.
We've like there's no more social mediathat we're on. Yeah. Um.
(35:07):
But if you like our podcast andplease tell a friend, please subscribe so
you don't miss another episode. Pleaserate and review on Apple Podcasts. And
until next time, stay nasty.Bye. Thank you for listening to She
(35:30):
Who Persisted the Nasty Podcast. Ifyou want to reach out to us on
social media, you can reach uson our Facebook page She Who Persisted the
Nasty Podcast the Facebook discussion group perSisters does She who Persisted group on Instagram
at She Who Persisted On Twitter,she Persisted pod or via email at she
(35:54):
Who Persisted podcast at gmail dot com. You can always find us on our
website she who Persisted dot com.Thanks for listening. We hope you'll continue
to join us in thinking about waysthat you can fight the patriarchy, resist
and persist, Stay nasty. Bye,
She was one, she was givenan explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,
Hello, and welcome to the Persistence. This is you Persisted the Nasty Podcast.
My name is Beatrice and I'm herewith Elizabeth and today we'll talk about
(00:38):
something that was a huge topic onTwitter and in pop culture generally the last
few weeks, and that is TheLittle Mermaid or the New Life Action version
of the animated classic. Yeah,who knew that they this was going to
be such a big deal? Whowho would have thought? The thing is
(01:02):
Hailey Berry. I knew this isgoing to happen. I knew I was
gonna say Haley Berry because I'm soused to the name Haley Berry. But
she's called Haley Bailey. Ah,but I'm so used to saying Haley Berry
and she's called Haley Bailey and thenames are so similar. So Haley is
part of the music due Chloe andHallie, which you probably know, especially
(01:23):
if you're a Beyonce fan, becauseshe signed them under her label and also
they had an appearance in her visualalbum and she pushed them a lot.
So Haley not Berry. Bailey.One half of the dou was cast it
as Ariel The Little Mermaid in theupcoming Life Action version of the Disney Classic.
(01:44):
And the thing that people had aproblem with is that they're black.
So Haley, Haley and Chloe areblack, and people, unsurprisingly, because
humanity is a stupid parade, evenmostly on the Internet, some people completely
lost a ship because they do notagree with the fact that a black person
(02:06):
is to play a mermaid. Andthey started a hashtag on Twitter not my
area that is excuse my language,bullshit exactly. I mean for a lot
of reasons, but it's bullshit.And they even started a petition to get
Disney to rethink their choice. Themost ridiculous thing is the argument, like
(02:29):
the argument behind it, because peopleargue that a black Mermaid is unrealistic because
mermaids can't be black, And I'mlike, dude, you know what else
is unrealistic? White mermaids because theydon't fucking exist. So there's like a
fucking couple things with this that Ijust lose my shit about. Like number
(02:50):
one, and I read a memeonline or you know a series of tweets
from people the other day online thatsaid, like every like this, the
same thing with like the new JamesBond, that they're gonna have Yeah,
they were. Everybody was like upin arms about the idea of having Idriss
Ilba be James Bond, so like, oh, you can't have a black
James Bond, Like, well,well, the double O seven designation is
(03:14):
just for like the position, notthe person, and like, no,
he won't be James Bond like hewould be double O seven. But they
just like totally doubled down on it, and we're like, no, we're
gonna have a black woman. Soyeah, and everybody just gets pissed off
about it. But the only thingthat it does is it just provides more
attention for the film. So that'snumber one. That is true. That
(03:36):
is true. But you know,the whole the whole debate surrounding this life
action version of The Little Mermaid kindof reminds me of the holy bate surrounding
the life action version of Beauty andthe Beast that came out I think three
years ago or two years ago,yes, where some homophobic assholes got old
furious about the fact that there's aslight implication of a gay relationship in the
(03:59):
film. Wiley, We're being completelyunfazed by the fact that this is literally
a story about a girl falling inlove with an actual beast. So I
mean, get your prioritiestrate people funnot intended, and also throw away a
computer or all your web enable devicesand stop talking. I mean yeah,
seriously, agreed, agreed, Likeit's like none of it makes sense,
(04:23):
Like it's fantasy, it's a fairytale, it's like a fiction. Like,
yeah, there are different ways thatwe tell these stories of fiction,
which leads me to like issue numbertwo, which is like there are a
lot like fairy tales generally, thereare a lot of common tropes in fairy
tales that cross international cultural boundaries.Yes, and surprise their mermaid trope is
(04:49):
fucking one of them. And thereare exactly in like African folk tales.
Yes, And like one of myone of my teachers in college when during
my bachelor's degree, she was aformer nun who had done missionary work in
Africa. Then she met her husband, left the sisterhood and like became had
(05:10):
got a PhD in religious studies,and one of the things that research she
researched was this kind of religious liketraditional religious ceremonies that centered on this figure
of Mammy Water who was oh yes, like mermaid esque type deity that they
would leave sacrifices too. Yes,yes, in Africa there were in fact
(05:34):
mermaid deities, which means yes,they were probably black exactly. So I
also read an article that was writtenby I think she's called Tracy Baptiste Baptiste
in the New York Times. I'mgoing to link it in the show notes
also, and she also talks abouthow there are generations of African and Caribbean
(05:56):
folklore that portray black mermaids. Soshe grew up in Trinidad and Tobago,
and she's also a right, she'sa novelist, she's a feminist. And
in her piece she writes about thefolklore that she grew up with, and
she gives a few examples of mermaidsand mermaid like creatures that are part of
the oral, folkloric traditions of hercultural background. And she also stresses that
(06:19):
mermaid like creatures or other mythological creaturesof the sea are not just existent,
but hugely important to African cultures,and that African cultures have and that those
kind of images have also been coopted by Europeans and turned into Eurocentric narratives.
(06:42):
And she also stresses that Hans KristenAnderson wrote The Little Moment at the
height of colonialism. So I havea quote by her. She says,
quote Black mermaids have always existed longbefore Anderson, Nilan before Disney. Given
the way African stories have been takenand twisted, I want to just where
(07:05):
Anderson got his idea in the firstplace. He was writing at the height
of the colonial period, as peoplewere being stripped from African lands, cling
to the stories that made them whothey were. The focus on Eurocentric stories
and storytelling has done us a disservice, leaving most totally ignorant of the fact
that mermaid stories have been told throughoutthe African continent for millennia. Mermaids are
(07:29):
not just part of the imagination either, but part of the living culture.
So and She goes on to describetwo figures. One is Mamma Law or
Mamma It's like a French d Law, like Mamma of the water. I
suppose it's one figure that she grewup with. And she says in the
(07:51):
oral traditions, that figure is hugeand hideous, fierce and unstoppable. She's
ruling the waters, both the riverembassy, She upturns fishing boats by whipping
her powerful on a conder tail.She watched his victims drowned in the blue,
and she was the Baptiste was,she says, influenced by her lot,
(08:13):
she was delighted by the idea ofsuch a powerful and free woman.
And then she also writes about thelikely origin of that tale. She says,
which is also interesting, that itprobably started during chattel slavery, when
people were kidnapped from the west coastof Africa and brought to the Caribbean and
the Americas, and there was thisidea that the Mother of the Sea came
(08:33):
with them because she already existed inWest Africa as Mummy Water. This is
the character that you talked about.He was also a figure of fertility deity,
actually promising futility and prosperity to herdevotees. And also what is what
I found just so fascinating is thatthink about the Starbucks label that's a co
(08:58):
opter euro euro Americanized, actually aco opted Americanized version of Mummy Wapta.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutelyyeah. And she also of course says
that in Mali, Jogen people havehad stories they actually have an origin story
involving fish creatures called numbers. InSouth Africa, there are people, there
(09:24):
are stories of mermaids. Yeah,so it's been a part of African cultures
since forever. When I was teachinga course on fairy tales, I had
my students go to the library andgo to the special collections section, and
there they had some collected stories fromvarious places. They had some Russian fairy
(09:46):
tales, some of them were fromSouth America, and they had a collection
of like African folk tales that workthat had been collected in like the six
season seventies by American researchers who wentto Africa to collect these stories of black
(10:07):
fairy tales and folk tales. Yes, and one of the stories that was
in there was like a Cinderella storywhere a girl would oh, really yeah,
and I'm not going to remember thestory precisely, but she would I
think she was a mermaid, andshe would come out and she wanted to
be human, but or maybe shewas human and she wanted to be a
(10:30):
mermaid. But she would shed ifshe did it three times, just like
you do in fairy tales. Shedthe mermaid scales. And I don't,
like, I really don't remember whatthe story is. I mean, if
you think about the Little Mermaid,the Little Mermaid is a little bit like
a Cinderella story that like she comesback and forth and then like this is
what she wants, but she hasto give something up and then she gets
the Prince of the end. Butbut yeah, I mean that they're kind
(10:52):
of Cinderella story involved being a mermaidand you know, getting the scales and
shedding the scales and bringing them back. So which was really interesting and from
my students perspective, you know,the students who chose to do, you
know, to do a comparison ofthat story with a fairy with a Cinderella
story, it was interesting to seethis like different mode of storytelling and different
(11:18):
imagery in the stories. I thinkthat we let in the West, in
Western culture, particularly in the UnitedStates, because I think a lot of
the fervor against you know, changingthe race or the gender of a character
in a story, yeah, comesa lot particularly is vociferously like debated by
(11:41):
very fragile men on the internet.Um, and I'm not really sure why
so many men have like such aproblem with fairy tale characters changing gender.
And race, but yeah, whatever, Yeah, I don't know, but
you know, it's a lack ofimagination. It really comes down to the
lack of imagination and a desire tothink that you are the primary culture and
(12:07):
this idea that like, oh,it's it's unrealistic because I can't imagine it.
Yeah, but here's the thing.This lack of imagination is also a
systemic problem because where that's the lackof imagination come from. It comes from
the fact that in our culture wemostly see white main characters represented, right,
(12:28):
yes, yes, absolutely, andyou know absolutely, which is why
a film like Black Panther was soimportant because it was a primarily like all
black cast except for like two orthree characters, who in this case were
the villains, whereas most of thetime what you get is a black person
being the villain. Instead, thetables were completely switched in this case,
(12:52):
and they were they were minor charactersand they were villains instead of being the
main characters and having tokenized black peopleas the villain like sidekick. Yeah.
So I think what's behind this wholething is a lot of white fragility and
also the fear of losing privilege becauseit's a privilege to be represented wherever you
look and not be invisible, andseeing others who look different represented in popular
(13:15):
media also communicates to you, asthe privileged person, that you are not
the norm human, that there areother people on this planet who deserve just
as much space in respect and rightsand power and representation as you do.
And apparently that scares white people whohave considered themselves as the humankind for centuries.
Yeah, well yeah, absolutely,I mean it's it's the whole like
(13:39):
reason behind this like new what dothey call it? Not white supremacy.
They call it something quaint like whatever. I can't even give them, give
them the new needs does a newword for it? I think the word
you're looking for is racism? Ohyeah, yeah, yeah, no,
the whites premising absolutely no. Butthey have like a phrase for it,
(14:03):
which is bullshit. Um, Iit's the whole I didn't know the phrase.
Oh yeah, it's not worth it. It's still like some some media
bullshit crap that okay, white supremaccame up with to make them seem self
seem respectable. Yeah, but youknow, I mean that's the whole thing.
When when all of these organizations andall of these groups, and these
(14:24):
people say like, oh, youknow, I'm here to preserve European,
white European culture. What they're reallysaying is my culture is better than yours.
Your culture doesn't deserve to be preserved, and you don't deserve to be
represented in my culture. Well I'vegot news for you. Like the United
(14:45):
States to be a primarily white Europeanculture for many, many generations. Yeah
well yeah, not only that,but like we're not europe bitches. We
escaped from Europe because we wanted likefreedom from that, so get over it.
Also, I mean, no matterif it's like Europe or America,
(15:07):
but the stories you tell, thestories Disney tells are not Disney's stories.
They've been in all kinds of culturessince forever, as we already said,
So it's not your it's not yourculture to begin with. You know a
lot of a lot of you know, a huge part of you know,
white American culture, but also ofEuropean culture is things that were coopted from
(15:30):
other cultures. Yeah, and andnot just coopted like a misappropriated, like
appropriate, it's like cultural appropriation.Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's
this thought by like now that we'vegot for how many you know, generations
and how many centuries, uh,you know, white culture has has appropriated
(15:50):
from other cultures. Now, now, when when we start to go back
and like explore the origins of thingsand explore like alternate ways of telling stories
and alternate characters and different perspectives inthese stories, then suddenly it's like,
oh, you're you're appropriating white culture. Like no, no, no,
no, no, no, nono no, And it's a co option.
(16:14):
It's appropriation, and it's also thatthings were violently taken from other cultures,
right, so it's not just Butlet's go back to the whole hashtag
not my Ariel thing for a second, because I found the whole debate so
fascinating because it's so stupid. Becausethe racist assholes that were against Hailey Bailey
(16:36):
playing or speaking singing The Little Mermaidalso argued that Ariel cannot only be not
black because she's a mermaid, whichwe already told you is complete bullshit because
mermaids don't exist, but also becauseshe's from Denmark, which, first of
all, yes, the original authorof The Little Mermaid, hence Cristin Anderson,
(16:57):
is from Denmark, but that doesn'tmean that all the characters he ever
writes about are Danish, and evenif they are, there are black people
in Denmark, not nineteenth century,actually there were. And I also don't
(17:17):
think that mermaids. I mean,there's nothing in the in the tale,
it says that she's from Denmark.It's just a tale about mermaids. I
don't think mermaids give many facts aboutlike human maide, borders and states,
like if anything, she's in internationalwater, right, yes, she lives
in international water. She could beanything. I mean, she could be
Yeah, she could be a Hispanic, Oh my god, don't even get
(17:42):
me started. You know what,she could be Asian. I bet there
are Asian stories of mermaids christ I'msure. I mean I would bet that
there are. So. Yeah.Basically, when I read through the Twitter
posts the people wrote, my brainwas bleeding because none of it makes sense
what soever. I don't know whyyou do that to yourself, because you
(18:03):
did that with in cell stuff too. You read through all I know,
I keep just falling into these holes. There was one more thing, actually,
because after being called out as racist, those people started saying like no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, of course
we're not racist because our issue isnot about the skin color. It's because
(18:26):
Ariel needs to have red hair.Stop. But you know what, black
people can have red hair. Soalso, the whole story is completely unrealistic.
So even if it would be completelygenetically impossible for black people to have
red hair, they could just colorthe fucking hair red. I mean,
why does Ariel? Why would thatbe the only thing that needs to be
(18:47):
realistic in the film. Also,no white person on this planet has hair
that is naturally as red as Ariel'shairs in the film, because she's a
fucking mermaid. So there are talkingcrabs and fish and witches in this film,
So I don't know what it's talkingabout, Like it doesn't make sense.
I mean her, it's they talkabout her hair, but they don't
necessarily talk about her hair being redin the film. I mean, like
(19:08):
that's the thing, Like like eventhe fairy tale itself, it talks about
how beautiful her hair is, butit doesn't talk about actually the color of
it. No, it doesn't.But I mean I get that the hair
has become kind of an economic orAriel the animated figure, but you can
you can have a black character withred hair and know what the issue is
(19:30):
like, it doesn't make sense nobecause color the hair. I mean no,
it doesn't. It doesn't actually matter. So it's clearly not the point.
This is what I was going tosay. It's clearly not the point.
The point is clearly that they chosea black person to play the character
and not the fucking hair. Imean, ah, I can't, I
can't. What I also found fascinatingthat is that there are people who think
(19:52):
that Disney only chose her because she'sblack so that they can kind of virtue
signal that they're not racist and thatthey kind of, yeah, so that
they wanted to make a statement bychoosing a black character, which I also
think is fucking bullshit because have youlistened to her singing? She's amazing.
So I mean they chose her becauseshe's incredibly talented and not because she's black.
(20:15):
Yeah, and you know what,even if they did choose her because
she's black, whatever, like,it doesn't it doesn't matter. I mean,
of course, yeah, it doesn'tmatter. But also, I you
know, I think they kind oftry to minimize her talent by saying,
well, she only got a chanceto play the role because she's black.
Yeah, No, no, she'sshe's such a good pick, I think,
(20:37):
but also is a little This isthe argument that people in the United
States have used against a firmative actionfor a long time, like, well,
if they could have gotten the jobon their own merits, then like
we wouldn't you know, yeah,they we wouldn't have to give them a
special advantage because they're black. Wellmaybe she didn't get a special advantage because
she's black. Maybe she's actually thebest singer, and maybe she's actually the
best singer an actress for the position. Yeah exactly. And also, I
(21:03):
mean it's not important, but Iwas actually amazed, but how similar her
face looks to Ariel So her facialproportions are very similar. So even if
you only take that into account,she's a perfect pick, I think.
So here's a question. I mean, I'm all for her, and I
don't you know, I think it'sgreat, especially for little girls of color
(21:29):
who to be able to see someoneand see themselves represented in the films that
they seem and the dolls that aregoing to be created for it. We
already have tons of like white,red haired aerial dolls. I don't see
a problem having darker skin, darkerhaired, like Ariel Dolls like, none
of that matters to me, ButI mean it matters to me. I
think it's great. It doesn't botherme at all. Yeah, I'm waiting
(21:52):
for people's heads to explode when theyI mean, I don't know if they've
chosen who's going to be Ursula,but I'm waiting for someone's had to explode
when they choose a drag a dragqueen to do Ursula. That would be
so amazing because Aslait is actually modeledafter drag queen. Yes, yeah,
(22:15):
so I just like that's the nextstep. The next step is to choose
someone like Divine, because Earthla wasbased on John Waters, like the character
slash like drag dragonformer um who hadworked with John Waters over the years,
Um Divine. Yeah, And I'mwaiting for them to choose a drag queen
(22:36):
like Divine to play Ursula. Ohmy god, I'm so like, Yes,
that will be and then the Internetwill lose its fucking shit. Yeah,
or even a black drag queen.I mean they would, yes,
yes, Twitter would explode and Ihope it will yeah, yes, yes,
(22:59):
No, they need show. Isaw another like like cartoon kind of
thing of you know of mermaids,and it was like two lesbian mermaids,
and it looked like there was likea black man in or a black mermaid
and a like white female mermaid wholike the woman was also holding hands with
(23:21):
the man who was in this gaypair of mermaids. And it was like
so they were like maybe a threesome, like a polyamorous like group. And
then there was like a polyamorous likea multi racial group, and then there
was like a lesbian group with likea baby that the baby was clearly like
from one of the other, likeone of the other couples. And it
was like this fabulous thing of likeyou know, intersectional identities all coming together
(23:45):
in like one picture of mermaids andlike watch people's heads explorers and they do
this, and I mean, listento them mermaids. We don't know how
they you know, how they lived. I don't know how they repeat exactly,
because literally, if they only havefins, where are the genitalia?
That's that's one question I have.And also since they half fish, probably
(24:06):
they don't give Probably they're not verymuch into monogamy. We don't know what
they do. Yeah, I meanthe question I would have and this is
like taking the mermaid thing way toofar, Like I came in, like,
is the fish part dominant, inwhich case they do they like lay
eggs and then they get like likefertilized, and like the babies just grow
out of Like, oh god,you're turning it into a horror movie.
(24:33):
So that's question number one. Questionnumber two, are they more like mammals
and then and therefore like dolphins?And then do they do like live births
like dolphins, in which case dolphinpenises are creepy. That's true, that's
true, but a lot about dolphinsis please don't google it. It's terrible.
But so I would I would assumethat their mammals because they also have
(24:57):
breasts. Oh yes, okay,okay, that's fair. So but I'm
not a biologist. I don't know. I'm not I'm not a mermaid expert.
There are a lot of things thatwe don't know about mermaids, and
you know why, because they're fictional. Oh yeah, but thank god the
(25:19):
fictional, because that's just fucking monstrous, like this, Gary, Uh yeah,
actually, you know what. Therehas been a proliferation of mermaid television
shows and um and series available onlike the I think it's the CW,
but maybe some other channel as well, and the mermaids in them are always
(25:42):
super terrifying. And you know whatelse, there are playmaids in those shows
too. Oh my god, Iknow, but you know what they I
mean, there are There is alsoa lot of European folklore. Mermaids have
been depicted as like really monstrous creaturesthat kind of kill people on boats and
(26:02):
all of that. So sailors likethe the mermaid at Yeah, that's what
I was. Yeah, that's theword I was looking for, Thank you
very much, Liz. People onboats, wasn't It's It's also accurate.
It's also true. It's also saysthat people on boats. Yes, um
no, like the Laureli story inin Germany, she's technically a mermaid,
(26:26):
she's more like a siren. Butbut yeah, I mean she's there like
calling her hair, luring men totheir doom. Um. And then the
stories of like Calypso in Um andthe sirens in the Odyssey that's also an
example. Again not necessarily mermaids,but like nixies and and water sprites that
(26:47):
um and and sirens that are thatare luring men typically, but luring sailors
to their deaths. Yeah. Andthere are also depictions from the Middle Ages,
like actual visual depictions UM with mermaidsand they looked terrifying. So yeah,
I had a there was a professorthat I had in grad school who
(27:10):
was a French professor who was researchingUM depictions of women as like half snakes,
which is also very similar to thehalf like the mermaids things. Oh
yeah, creatures that are kind ofweird and uh yeah, I mean they
are terrifying yea, and very powerful. I mean yes, goes to like
(27:30):
men's frigil not just white man whitefragility, white male fragility. Like they
want to think about Ariel as likea weak white woman who like who gives
up everything for the love of herlife, so that men are like,
yeah, super powerful. But theactual depictions in for the most of European
(27:52):
storytelling about mermaids and water creatures isthat they are really fucking scary and super
powerful exactly. Yeah. So yeahyeah, And and even in the Hans
Christian Anderson tale, the one thatthe Disney version is based on, um,
it's not the love that makes herwant to be a human, it's
that she wants an immortal soul becausein the Prison Anderson tale, mermies don't
(28:17):
have an immortal soul, and shewants to become a human soul to be
immortal. Yea, and not becauseshe wants a prince. That that part
that pot is um, the Disneypart of it that she wanted to marry
rints. Yeah, I mean inin the in the Hans Christian Anderson one,
she um, she wants her soulto like go to heaven essentially,
but she knows that when when mermaids, mermaids live very long lives, but
(28:42):
mermaids they don't have souls and theyjust become like sea foam when they wait
die. Um, And she doesn'tactually get her wish. He like falls
in love with another and and shedoesn't get him to say, I mean
she's not It's not the same asthe Little Mermaid from Disney where she's tricked
by the evil Queen. He justyou know, love is fickle, and
(29:07):
he falls in love with someone else. And and she realizes when she becomes
part of the c foam that sheactually becomes part of some this larger ecosystem
because she's she gets to see whatthat's like, and she ultimately does get
I mean, even though she doesn'tget a soul, she does get what
she wants to become kind of eternalas part of this like circle of life.
(29:29):
One might say, oh, yeah, I took her back to the
lion king. Yeah. YEA.One thing that's kind of the last thing
I wanted to get into is thatsome people also argue that, you know,
it doesn't fucking matter what cola Arielis. The earth is dying,
you idiots. We have bigger problems, um, But the problem is that
(29:52):
racism is always something that we haveto stand up against, and especially is
why people I think so that inan ideal world without racism, I too
wouldn't give a fuck about what colorAriel is. But in a world in
which racism is a very real andalso cruel reality, I celebrate the fact
that they chose to cast a blackactress. Yeah agreed. I mean I
(30:17):
can be both terrified about what's goingon with the earth and yeah, care
about racism, Like the two thingsare not mutually exclusive. Yeah, I
don't have to just focus on oneand not the other. Also, just
one question, I mean, probablynone of them, not my aerial people
are listening to this, But whatdid you do when Hollywood, like because
(30:40):
they do it all the time,when they cause white characters as people of
color, Oh, like Jesus,that's terrible, and it happens a lot
of times with Asian characters, likedon't yes, why why would you cast
Scarlett Johansson as an Asian character?Yes? And ghost to a chi who's
the woman who was in the hLala Lands movie? I don't remember anyway,
(31:03):
they cast her as an Asian characteror a half Asian character, and
it was like, I mean,no, no, no, no.
Do you know how many Asian likeChinese, American Chinese just generally not even
Chinese in American, Yeah, Filipino, Jamanese actors there are out there who
aren't getting jobs because you only castthese jobs for white people. Yeah.
(31:26):
What did you do when Elizabeth Taylorwas in Katra? What did you do
when Noma Scott was cast in Elginas a Middle Eastern or as you said,
Scolett Jensen as Asian and ghost inMichelle or Emma or Jake Gillenhall's Persian
Like yes, okay, because Iwas thinking you were thinking I was I
thought you were you were talking aboutLala Land, and I was like,
(31:48):
Emmastone was in Lala Land. Yeah, yeah, she was in the land.
But I thought you were talking aboutthe film. No, no,
I was talking about her. Icouldn't. You were talking about the film
depicting Yeah. Yeah, yeah,now I understood what you were talking about.
So yeah, she was cast inHawaiian. Yeah. So yeah.
Yeah. There was no out karion Twitter about this. No, no,
(32:08):
because everybody just assumes like, oh, you could just change it to
a white character. But you can'tchange a white character to a black character,
or you can't change a white characterto an Asian character, or you
can't change a white character to youknow, an Indian character like or or
a First People's character or whatever.Yeah, I mean, and in this
case it's and in this case,it's not even a real person. It's
(32:30):
like an animated movie and it's amermaid. So yeah, it's not even
I think you can't even compare itto um people of color being betrayed by
white people because we're not talking aboutactual people. It's even more like ridiculous
to complain about it. I totallyagree, and I think it's it's on
(32:52):
Hollywood and it's on directors and castingpeople to say, you know what,
you know this, this may bewritten for a white character, but that's
again lack of imagination, Like whycan't it be a black actress or a
black actor who plays this role,because yeah, honestly, most of the
(33:15):
time it probably doesn't matter, andyou don't have enough backstory and like information
about that character at all to tojustify it just being a white character except
for the fact that it was purelywritten you know, maybe by a white
person for white people. And again, yeah, it's lack of imagination and
(33:36):
because you consider white people to bedefault human beings. Yeah, yeah,
So I would like to end withanother Twitter, not a tweet, but
this time one that I really liked. Okay by Bond Bond Tindle b O
N t I N d l EBond Tindle. I think she writes The
(34:00):
primary reason I support casting a blackactress to play Ariel is that there is
no group of women who know moreabout having the voice taken away than women
of color. Let us watch onetake her voice back and love her damselves.
Representation matters everything I am, everythingI've done, is because I saw
someone I could relate to. Fightback, and I thought to myself that
(34:22):
I could do that too. Mayall little girls find their hero? Oh
I like that. That's nice.Yeah see, there's also nice things happening
on Twitter, yes sometimes. Yeah. All right, then, if you
want to follow us on Twitter,we're also there at She Persisted Pod.
You can also find us on Facebookand on Instagram at She Who Persisted.
(34:45):
You can write as an email atShe Who Persisted Podcast at gmail dot com.
We have a homepage She who Persisteddot com. We're on patreons.
If you want to support us,please please do that. We also um,
yes, no, that's it.That is it. That's it.
We've like there's no more social mediathat we're on. Yeah. Um.
(35:07):
But if you like our podcast andplease tell a friend, please subscribe so
you don't miss another episode. Pleaserate and review on Apple Podcasts. And
until next time, stay nasty.Bye. Thank you for listening to She
(35:30):
Who Persisted the Nasty Podcast. Ifyou want to reach out to us on
social media, you can reach uson our Facebook page She Who Persisted the
Nasty Podcast the Facebook discussion group perSisters does She who Persisted group on Instagram
at She Who Persisted On Twitter,she Persisted pod or via email at she
(35:54):
Who Persisted podcast at gmail dot com. You can always find us on our
website she who Persisted dot com.Thanks for listening. We hope you'll continue
to join us in thinking about waysthat you can fight the patriarchy, resist
and persist, Stay nasty. Bye,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.