Of black mermaids and white Indians: The double standard of cultural appropriation
While people celebrate a black actress taking on the role of Little Mermaid, 19th-century German novelist Karl May has been accused of “cultural appropriation” and his Winnetou has thus been canceled.
A commentary on ““Schau, sie ist auch schwarz!” Kinder reagieren begeistert auf Arielle-Trailer” (published in Berliner Zeitung on September 14, 2022)
When I was a girl, we had a shelf full of video cassettes of Disney movies at our house. We had all the classics from The Jungle Book and The Lion King, to Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, to Pocahontas and Little Mermaid and as a child, I probably watched some of those movies more than a dozen times. Because of their emotionality, universality and love for detail, Disney movies continue to charm audiences to this day – despite all the criticism that can certainly be made against Disney. But no other company has shaped the genre of children’s movies in a way that Disney has, which is reflected both in the fame and popularity of Disney’s works, and in the company’s financial success.
The newest trend at Disney are so-called “live action” remakes of old classics where well-known stories like The Jungle Book, Aladdin or Mulan are remade with real human actors and a lot of CGI. Next on the list is a remake of Little Mermaid for which Disney recently dropped the first teaser trailer. It features Halle Bailey, the new African-American actress who will take on the role of Ariel. The casting made some waves in the media and among fans.
On the one hand, Bailey’s casting was applauded: Regarding diversity and the representation of minorities, Disney’s decision was excellent, many said. Heartwarming videos of little girls who were thrilled about the new black Ariel went viral in online media, from BuzzFeed in the US to the Berliner Zeitung in Germany to La Sexta in Spain. On the other hand, the trailer fueled a debate in social media on whether a fairy tale character, who is traditionally known as a red-haired, white mermaid and who is loosely based on the story by the Dane Hans Christian Andersen, should be portrayed by a black actress.
As often happens, the whole debate misses the point of the matter. First of all, it’s not about Halle Bailey herself. She appears to be a talented singer and actress and will certainly enchant audiences as a stunningly pretty Ariel. It’s also a beautiful thing that young black girls can be happy about a black Ariel that they can identify with. The argument about departing from tradition with a black Ariel isn’t fully convincing either because since we’re talking about a fairy tale character, any skin or hair color goes – especially in today’s postmodern remake culture – as long as it makes sense within the logical framework of the story. It should be irrelevant whether a mermaid is white or black or yellow or green. I mean, we’re talking about a fish woman.
The true debate lies elsewhere. It lies in the fact that there is a flagrant double standard to this and that there are different rules for different people. A black Ariel in Disney’s Little Mermaid: wonderful. Dark-skinned elves in Amazon’s new version of Middle Earth in The Rings of Power: progressive. A black Lucienne instead of a white Lucien in the new adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: laudable. Now try to imagine the opposite: a white Mowgli, a white Lilo and her Stitch, or a white Storm with the X-Men. There is only one adjective to be used here: unthinkable. Because according to the logic of leftist intellectuals and the woke guardians of the cultural law, this would be xenophobic “cultural appropriation”. The logic seems to be the following: If traditionally white characters are being portrayed by People of Color, that’s good. If traditionally non-white characters are being portrayed by white people, that’s bad.
The same goes for fictional characters that operate within a real historic framework: When Hollywood star Denzel Washington was cast as the eponymous Scottish general in a new movie version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in 2021, this decision was applauded. In 2022, however, Karl May’s Winnetou, one of the most famous German children’s books which was written in the 19th century, was canceled for being racist – and so were the movies made in the 1960s, featuring the French Pierre Brice as Indian Chief. The downright defamation of Winnetou, which was condemned for being hurtful and for propagating stereotypes, clearly exposed this double standard. People like to forget that the big hero of May’s epos is a Native American (which was revolutionary for the 19th century) and that a Sioux delegation even did a ceremonial homage at May’s tomb in 1928 to honor the German writer. People also like to forget that he advocated tolerance, mutual understanding among nations and peace in his works.
The accusation of cultural appropriation seems to be working only in one direction and therefore reveals its hypocrisy. Firstly, it is completely ignorant about the continuous cultural blending that has existed since the dawn of human history and from which we are profiting until today. Secondly, it generalizes all “white” and “black” people and completely dismisses that fact that neither an Australian and an Italian, nor an African-American and a Tanzanian belong to the same cultural sphere, just because they have the same skin color. Thirdly, it creates a toxic stereotypical mindset that pits two collective groups – white people as “oppressors” and everybody else as “victims” – against each other and “fuels racist thinking by the back door”, as David Signer writes in the NZZ. In this debate, people are declared guilty just because of the color of their skin, so that they need to overcompensate for the historical collective guilt that is placed upon them. Therefore, they must apologize for the fact that European fictional characters – including Anderson’s Ariel – are white, and they must replace them. This is virtue signalling at its best.
But Disney doesn’t really need to do any virtue signalling, at least not when we talk about cultural diversity. Despite all stereotypes – and we shouldn’t forget that we are talking about folk tales and fairy tales here, which tend to feature stereotypical character archetypes – Disney’s contribution to the popularization of non-European myths, tales and characters is enormous: Aladdin, inspired by One Thousand and One Nights from the Arab world was a huge global success in 1992. Think of Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas, the Chinese soldier Mulan or the African-American Tiana from Princess and the Frog. They show that if it’s about representing different cultures and skin colors – and yes, that is important –, then it’s easy to be inspired by the richness of non-European folk tales and create movies with characters and actors that fit.1
In the end, the debate around Ariel’s skin color is a sad debate because it shows that society is far away from being colorblind in the way that Martin Luther King hoped it could be. And apparently, it is even further away today than 20 or 30 years ago. That’s not least because of radical concepts such as anti-racism, which sounds great but is incredibly dangerous, and wokeness in all its forms, which claims that you can only identify with characters who are and look like you. I remember that as a young girl I couldn’t care less if my fairy tale hero was fair-skinned Belle, brown-skinned Pocahontas, a dark-skinned boy from the jungle or a talking lion from the savannah. That has never been what it was about and it shouldn’t be. It’s about humanity, not skin color; it’s about community, not division; it’s about tolerance, not making others feel bad. A dark-skinned Ariel should be as much of a hero for children as a white Winnetou.
About the author: Born 1987, with roots in Germany and the Philippines, living in Spain. Constantly curious and eager to learn new things. Freedom > safety. Your own opinion > groupthink. Coffee > tea. Currently reading: “Greenwood” by Michael Christie.
Die deutsche Version des Artikels findet sich hier:
Of course, what Disney has been doing all along is nothing but the cultural appropriation of non-American folk and fairy tales.