Obviously, modifications are required anytime you adapt animation to live-action, but Bailey and the beauty department had to reimagine Ariel as a woman of color too. Bailey and the team opted to keep her hair red—that was essential—but opted for copper locs to make it her own.
Hairstylist Camille Friend, the head of the film's hair department, revealed the process of making sure Halle's hair as Ariel looked just right, saying that it was a mix of different shades of red rather than the bright red of Ariel in the animated version. This is how much it cost to make it – an estimated US$150,000!
Did you know that Ariel was originally supposed to be blonde? TikToker @arthurhia covers all things dolls and recently let us in on some interesting info about the original Ariel. According to a video by this creator, the original concept art for Ariel shows her as a blonde. After a simple Google search, she is right.
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.
Achieving the red color in Bailey's natural hair was a long process. At one point, Friend said Bailey sat for 12 to 14 hours during the wrapping process. The hair that was added was Keratin-infused, three different shades of red, and 30 inches long — which meant the price tag was high.
The custom extensions were then hand-wrapped around Halle's natural locs and then additional tendril pieces were added to give Ariel's hair that ocean wave effect.
Even if we get nothing else out of these remakes, being racially nimble with how they are cast helps both old and young audiences reimagine what our cultural icons look like. Representation is important, but we also need to separate canon from whiteness and decolonize society's sense of who children should look up to.
The movie is loosely based on the fairy tale, so Disney has the freedom to give Ariel any skin color they want. In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish.
Why did Disney make Ariel black if she is white in the original film? In the original danish fairytale the little mermaid was explicitly specified as white several times.
Athena took too long to try and escape (going back for a music box she'd gotten for her husband as a gift), and she ends up crushed between the pirate ship and the rocks of the cove. Ariel's mother is far from the only material figure in Disney Animation to die.
“I remember the first thumbnail sketches,” Benson tells EW of the first iterations of Ariel. “She had blonde hair. She looked like one of the exaggerated faces from [the] Peter Pan era. She looked a little bit glamorous and a little bit mature to me.”
For Bailey, playing Ariel meant staying authentic to herself — and her hair. "There was a time when we'd barely see locs—and now we have a Disney princess with them, which has never happened before," she told Ebony. "It was super important for me to have my natural hair in this film.
She ended up wrapping red hair around her over 24-inch natural locs. The hair wrapping took over 12 hours and was completed multiple times during filming.
According to Showbiz Galore, she was reportedly paid $1.5 million to don the tail and seashells, though some news outlets reported slightly more modest earnings of $500,000. Despite the online backlash about casting a Black Ariel, this project made Halle Bailey a household name, especially among young Disney fans.
So, why the change? One theory is that each of Ariel's sisters represents different oceans that are home to various cultures and ethnicities. It's pretty problematic to have mermaids who all look the same representing such an expansive underwater world.
People of color have been sharing videos of their children's excited reactions to the new Ariel, and reactions posted online showed the importance of diverse representation. In the Little Mermaid TV series, Gabriella was a Black mermaid who looked up to Ariel as a big sister.
In the new, 2024 Disney adaptation of the classic fairy tale, Snow White will be played by Latina actress Rachel Zegler despite her name and the former popular depictions of the princess.
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.
Voice actor Wright's singing style and the compositions by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken for the Sebastian character lean heavily to calypso and reggae influences. Sebastian's back story is that he was born off the coast of Jamaica to Claude and Claudia Sebastian and went to school in Trinidad.
How much did Halle Bailey's hair cost in Little Mermaid?
Halle Bailey's hair transformation for The Little Mermaid cost production at least $150,000, according to her hairstylist Camille Friend: “It was a process.” Disney spared no expense making The Little Mermaid part of our world.
While Halle keeps Ariel's signature red hair for the film, she decided to keep her natural locs for the role but dyed them a copper colour instead. And she looks so good. “It was super important for me to have my natural hair in this film,” Halley told Ebony magazine.
