Whether its Halle Bailey playing Ariel in the Disney live action movie, Avantika Vandanapu getting fan casted for a live action Repunzel movie, Leah Sava Jeffries playing Annabeth in the Percy Jackson series on Disney+, or Francesca Amewudah-Rivers playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet 2024, women of color in main character roles can’t seem to catch a break. This trend of hating on actresses of color isn’t a new thing, but it certainly is different now with social media. Having a platform to put your opinion on blast for thousands at a time to see can be such a great thing, but it can also cause some less great things. For example, hating on actresses of color for playing a role that “should” be played by a white actress. Even actresses that got fan cast like Avantika Vandanapu and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan for the role of Repunzel.
This kind of debate, while brutal and high-key kinda racist, really shines a light on representation in media and film today. People of color are severely underrepresented in TV shows and films. I think that’s something we all know about. As time goes on, we do get better at diversifying our shows, and that’s great! However, many on the internet having been trying to argue that its a bad thing.
(I will just be writing about the Little Mermaid live action movie and the Repunzel controversy just because I think they are the most well known controversies)
The first major case of backlash on a movie or show recently that I remember is of Halle Bailey, a black woman, playing the role of Ariel in the live action movie. It got so bad that white women on TikTok posted themselves crying on how their favorite childhood story was “ruined” JUST because it wasn’t played by a white woman. Angry users then started comparing the situation to if Tiana were to be played by a white woman in a live action version of the movie. They seem to believe that the outrage would be just the same. While I believe that the hate against Halle Bailey was completely unnecessary and wrong, the outrage against a white woman playing Tiana would be completely justified. Tiana is the ONLY black princess out of the original stories. Tianas race is crucial to the story as she was created to be the first black princess. The two characters are no where comparable. May I also remind you that Ariel is a fish?
Now to the Repunzel story. Avantika, a South Indian girl, was fan casted for the role of Repunzel. Let me repeat in case you missed it: she was fan casted. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, another Indian actress, was also fan casted. Now that people are aware that Disney is open to hiring actresses of a different race to the original storyline, the idea of an Indian woman playing Repunzel seemingly stuck with people on the internet. But again, the hate poured in pretty quick. To this I would say, race doesn’t play any role in the storyline so it doesn’t really matter if an Indian woman plays it or a white woman. The important part is Repunzels hair which is long, blonde, and has healing powers. Sure, neither of Avantika Vandanapu nor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan have long blonde hair. But, even if a white actress were to play Repunzel, I doubt that she would have 70 feet long blond hair. So, a wig would be used regardless. To me, there doesn’t seem to be any problem.
The origin of the stories is another argument many brought up. The truth is, these classic fairytales we all know and love have many different places of origin. They are based on many different stories from around the world and they change overtime. For example, most of the Disney princess stories are really dark in the original version. For example, in the original Cinderella story, our glass shoe wearing princess, actually brutally kills her step-mother, her step sisters cut off their toes to fit the shoe, and the fairy god-mother wasn’t even a part of the story. This is a classic example of how these fairytales change completely because nothing is really set in stone. If we were able to live with our stories changing from the princess murdering her step mother to having a fairy-godmother turn a pumpkin into a carriage, I think we can live with a black woman playing a mermaid.
In my personal opinion, I think we need more original stories about people of color by people of color. The point of diversifying our shows and movies is to see stories of marginalized communities. So the only way we can truly diversify our shows and movies are by creating original stories of colored people. With that being said, I don’t find a problem with a woman of color playing a role originally played by a white women if race isn’t an important factor to the storyline. Thats just my opinion.