The Little Mermaid’s Review Bombing

by Hannah Renee Crawford, Guest Editorial

The Little Mermaid premiered on Friday, May 26, 2023,  and the tides rolled in with varying opinions of this remake. Reviews ranged from there shouldn’t have been a remake, to the movie's energy, and even that the storyline wasn’t good for girls.

The original animated version came out in 1989 and centers around a mermaid, Ariel, who is captivated by the human world above her. She meets a handsome young Prince Eric and is fascinated by who he is and the world he lives in. She quickly agrees to make a deal with a  deceitful sea witch, Ursula, to trade her voice to receive legs so she can go on land.

The most despicable reviews were over the skin color of the woman playing the main character.  All this led to what movie review sites call “review bombing” in a sea of negative reviews meant to tip the scale.

 Racist Backlash

Back in 2019, when the cast of actors was announced, people showed disdain over Halle  Bailey, an African American woman playing the role of Ariel. In the original version, Ariel is a  white, red-haired girl. Somehow that was enough to make people angry enough to start a  petition titled  #NotMyAriel to see if Disney would recast the character with a white actress.

Astonished, director Rob Marshall stated, "I didn't think that it was a big deal, casting a woman of color. I thought, 'that's an archaic way to see the world."

Comments from an article  Zapzee  reported were said  “to have a strong resentment towards the  portrayal of a black mermaid and included harsh criticisms of Halle Bailey’s appearance, using  extreme terms like ‘burnt fish,’ ‘black mermaid,’ and ‘sea monster.’”

“Wow, that really feels like it's coming from another century. Are we really still there?"  Marshall replied to these hashtags, online reviews, and flat our racist comments.

These opinions in 2019 continued until 2023, setting the movie up to be overrun with negative reviews.

 ‘Review Bombing’

 After the movie premiere, more people than usual felt the need to flood social media and movie review sites with their views of how terrible the movie turned out to be.

Perhaps one of the reviews to gain the most traction came from  Paloma Faith, an English singer, and actress, “As a mother of girls, I don’t want my kids to think it’s ok to give up your entire voice  and your powers to love a man.”

As if that was the point of the movie or the storyline. Or that the original version didn’t have the mermaid give her voice up. One Twitter follower tweeted, “Has she… never heard of "The Little  Mermaid?"

After seeing comments like this tweet, Faith quickly took down her post mere hours later, seeing that her review wasn’t received well.

IMBD saw a huge tip in the scale of negative reviews, specifically from trolls that, no matter the quality of the movie, put in negative reviews to get the movie a poor rating. Due to this,  IMBD  has an excerpt on their page that states, “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting  calculation has been applied.”

As to what system they have put in place to preserve that reliability, they have not shared it with the public. With these types of reviews seemingly coming from left and right, it would be only natural to assume Bailey would respond with righteous anger.

Bailey’s Response to Negative Reviews

However, Bailey did not succumb to the negativity surrounding her role as Ariel or the movie's overall quality. Instead, she responded with grace and decorum over the ignorance that people dispelled.

“As a Black person, you just expect it, and it’s not really a shock anymore,”  Bailey replied to questions from the press regarding the comments people had over her playing Ariel.

Despite the negativity, there was a lot of positive support that swam in. The weekend of the movie premiere, Bailey was flooded with a sea of reactions from young black girls reacting to her as Ariel. She said it meant everything for her to be able to see that.

"It's exceptional to be able to see a figure that you look up to that also looks like your auntie or your sister," continued  Bailey,  who credits Whitney  Houston in  The Bodyguard, Brandy in  Cinderella, and Anika Noni Rose in  The Princess, and the Frog as her inspirations.

Standing up to Racism

In light of  The Little Mermaid coming out, Stephanie  Mills, a Broadway legend for her work as  Dorothy in  The Wiz on Broadway, came out publicly on  Facebook with some encouragement for young Halle Bailey.

She went on to shower Bailey with praises for the work she has done and the road that she is  paving for the young black girls that will come behind her. Mills understood the struggles Bailey had faced the last few years and would continue to deal with.

“As a young black girl playing the roll as “Dorothy” in  7 time Tony Award winning Broadway play  “The Wiz,”. I know what this baby #HalleBailey has been dealing with. I got so much hate mail, I  was told Judy  Garland “is turning over in her grave”. All because a little black girl was playing a  roll, that was once played by a white girl.”

It’s hard to believe that here in 2023, we are still dealing with racism seemingly at every turn.

And that a childhood Disney movie cannot be remade without that hate poking its head out.

With this in mind, we can follow in Mill's and Bailey’s footsteps, taking a stand in the face of those who feel so emboldened online to share their hate.