Halle Bailey, star of the live-action remake of Disney's The Little Mermaid, has made her casting even more perfect by sharing why she wanted the role of Ariel. The adaptation is expected to empower Ariel through slight changes to the story taken from Disney's 1989 animated classic of the same name, which was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of "The Little Mermaid." Lin-Manuel Miranda, one of the producers of the remake, has confirmed the movie will also feature three or four new songs in addition to the original soundtrack numbers.
The most intriguing change with the new Little Mermaid has been the decision to cast five-time Grammy-nominated musician and actress Halle Bailey, a woman of color, as Ariel. The movie’s director, Rob Marshall, shared she was the perfect choice because she possesses “that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance – plus a glorious singing voice” needed to play the iconic role (via D23).
The casting of Bailey has been praised for the decision to be more inclusive. Disney's classic animated movies and musicals have seen a resurgence in recent years through their live-action adaptations. This provides the perfect opportunity to introduce younger generations to greater representation in their notoriously homogenous stories (excluding rare animated classics like Mulan, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog). In addition to Bailey’s musical background and childhood love of The Little Mermaid, her reflection on the much-needed representation that she will bring to young women makes her the perfect casting choice for Ariel.
Halle Bailey Can Reinvent What It Means To Be A Disney Princess
Originally, Disney hoped that their movies would help little girls dream of being princesses, but their lack of diverse characters made this challenging. However, Bailey now has the chance to restore this hope by portraying Little Mermaid's already unique Disney Princess Ariel as a minority. “I want the little girl in me and the little girls just like me who are watching to know that they’re special and that they should be a princess in every single way,” Bailey recently explained. She continued, sharing that if the animated Ariel had been a person of color, it “would have changed [her] confidence, [her] belief in [her]self, everything. Things that seem so small to everyone else, [are] so big to us.”
This is an experience people from minority groups can relate to all too well. Communities who are often underserved in mainstream media understand the impact a princess of color can have on empowering both old and young groups. Bailey’s casting is especially powerful because she is only the second Black actress to play a Disney princess, the first being Anika Noni, who voiced Tiana in the animated movie The Princess and the Frog. Bailey even recalled her grandparents sharing the significance of what her casting “is doing for [them], for [their] community, for all the little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in [her]."
Halle Bailey’s casting as Ariel in The Little Mermaid live-action adaptation seems perfect, especially given her understanding of what it means to portray a classic Disney princess as a woman of color. While this is a step in the right direction toward better representation for marginalized groups, casting people of color in traditionally white roles is only a band-aid solution. There also needs to be a push for original content with more contemporary and authentic stories of people of color – especially women – in mind.