In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish. As Ariel is half fish, she cannot be categorized by our ethnicities and races.
All of king Triton's daughters represent their own seas all over the world and as such they are all different ethnicities in the movie. It is not specified where the movie takes place, i.e. where Ariel lives but it's obvious it's not in Denmark.
Ariel's story really begins in Ancient Greece. According to lore, she is a nereid, one of the dozens of daughters of the sea-god Triton. This isn't the first time that the internet has been set alight over the suggestion that famous figures of antiquity could be anything but white.
Summary. The original story of The Little Mermaid is much darker than the Disney version, featuring gruesome elements that wouldn't fit well in a family-friendly film.
Film Theory: The Disney Princess Problem (Wreck It Ralph 2)
Why did Disney make Ariel black?
On the significance of casting a Black actress as Ariel
Sherri Hope Culver: To have a Disney character who is not just a princess but a live-action, real flesh and blood person that children can be inspired by is important. This is because people of color are less likely to see themselves reflected in the media.
Rather, Ursula's appearance is radically different from her family, and she sports tentacles that look like a permanent black dress. It's possible Ursula is not a mermaid in appearance because she and Triton did not have the same mother or father. If they're half siblings, Ursula's tentacles make more sense.
In Anderson's telling and the original Disney film, the mermaid possessed white skin. In Disney's upcoming live action version of the story, Ariel will be portrayed by black actress and singer Halle Bailey.
The casting is beautifully “colour blind” with the prince being White and his mother being Black (he is adopted). At the same time the Little Mermaid's father is White while her Mermaid sisters are of various different races and ethnicities.
Of course, the animated mermaids are the daughters of King Triton and Queen Athena, but that may change in the live-action version with the implication that Ariel's sisters have different mothers.
And while creators of The Little Mermaid originally wanted Ariel to have blonde hair to stay in keeping with the fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, Splash's massive popularity was still too hot to ignore. So, in a bid to stand out from the crowd, an iconic change was given to the underwater princess.
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.
While it is known that her mother perished, there is no story attached to the event. However, much later, in 2008, an animated The Little Mermaid prequel revealed that Ariel's mother was crushed by a pirate ship during an altercation between humans and merpeople.
And who else is on that family tree? None other than Hercules's father Zeus, who is the brother of Poseidon. This makes Hercules and Ariel's father first cousins, and Ariel and Hercules first cousins once removed.
There are several instances when Eric's mother Queen Salina (Noma Dumezweni), who is Black and adopted him as a child when he washed up from the ocean, chastises him for his obvious love for beings that are considered other.
The reason studios make beloved characters black in the live action adaptations is so they don't have to go to the trouble of actually giving special, brand new unique characters made from scratch to black people.
Diversity. Ariel had 3 male animal friends, so they needed to make one a girl. Same reason they made Jock a girl (Jacqueline aka Jacque) in the Lady & The Tramp live-action remake.
In Andersen's fairy tale, the Little Mermaid is described as follows: "her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea." And if you're wondering if Andersen's Little Mermaid had that signature bright red hair that has become synonymous with mermaids, the answer is unclear.
It was released theatrically on May 26, 2023, in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. A sing-along edition of the film was released in theaters on August 25, 2023.
While lighting itself isn't all that expensive, darkness can be used to hide a lot of things. Halle Bailey is not actually a mermaid, and so having the scenes be darker makes it easier to disguise the CGI work.
