What do you think of Disney casting a black actress for Little Mermaid?

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Yes, Anderson’s stories are more pessimistic.

By the way, have you read the story of the one legged soldier and the ballerina?

I think they were dolls.

Was it a story by Anderson too?
 
I think it is an Andersen story, yes. Is that “The Steadfast Soldier”? I don’t remember exactly what happens in that one. (I suppose I could Google it, ha.)
 
Yes that’s it.

I think the Snow Queen of which Frozen is based is also by Anderson.
 
Yeah, Frozen may have started off as an adaptation of The Snow Queen, but it doesn’t even vaguely represent the plot.
 
They do seem to have a common theme of salvation through self-sacrifice and suffering.
 
It is more weird social pandering. Do people with African ancestry even appreciate these things or does it feel patronizing? There is tons of wonderful African folklore Disney could tap into for new films and cast authentic representations of those characters, and they absolutely should do that. Instead they are just maintaining a Euro-centric focus and trying to make it less obvious.
 
Yes I know.

Elsa was initially casted as the villain just like the Queen with the ice powers in the Snow Queen but then it got changed.
 
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Yes. And the original story had a boy and a girl who were best friends. The Snow Queen saw them and hated their friendship so she cast a spell on the boy and made him mean. The girl still loved him, even though she didn’t understand why he was suddenly a little jerk. So the Snow Queen kidnaps him and the little girl goes on a quest to save him and bring him back. Then her act of love and self-sacrifice breaks the spell. That’s pretty much the only common thread between the two stories.
 
She refused to commit evil even if it got her what she wanted.

In her refusal to commit evil even if she knew she was going to obliterated from existence, she was rewarded and was reborn as a spirit of air.

There’s a lesson in it somewhere.
 
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I think they could do both. African folklore is lovely, but most black Americans aren’t familiar with it as they are with the European fairytales they’ve grown up with.
 
Hmm, maybe it’s time Disney makes those stories more well known?

There’s opportunity here.
 
Agreed. And it’s a much better lesson than “Parents are just mean and don’t dig the unwavering wisdom of their hormone-I-mean-heart-following teenage kids.”
 
The older princesses were not rebellious by any means.

I’m talking about Cinderella, Snow White and my favorite, Aurora.
 
I remember the story now.

That would be Kai and Gerda as the two friends right?
 
Rhubarb said:
And I would highly suspect that anyone who doesn’t understand why lack of representation in media is a problem is a white person - who has never had to endure being underrepresented and don’t understand what that experience is like.
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Not me, and I couldn’t care less.
 
@Allegra

T he Grimm brothers went all over Germany collecting folk tales and put them together, somewhat following the example of Charles Perrault who had re-written some French folk tales in the 1600s (iirc).

Andersen made his stories up.

Also, a lot of Catholic stories went along similar lines to Andersen’s–poor children freezing to death returning an extra nickel someone gave them, etc.

Life was much harder back then. No safety net for the poor and no antibiotics.

All these stories seem to have been created to teach certain lessons.
 
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I’m not sure he did call his stories fairy tales. I have the Canterbury Classics Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Tales. So maybe he isn’t or didn’t intend to be fairy tales.
 
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TK421 said:
There aren’t any black Disney princesses except for Princess and the Frog and that movie wasn’t very good.
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The Princess and the Frog is probably my favorite Disney Animated Movie of the past twenty years. I didn’t think it was bad at all.
 
I say bring in true realism! If we are talking about a species of half-human, half-fish creatures who live at the bottom of the ocean, who have been forbidden to visit the surface for who knows how long, why would they have any melanin at all? Make her albino!

In all seriousness, I couldn’t care less. 🙂
 
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