Disney’s new live-action update of "The Little Mermaid" has been slammed for not acknowledging slavery in its 18th-century Caribbean setting, with one critic likening it to ignoring the Holocaust in a 1940s story set in Germany.
The new film is based on Disney's 1989 animated feature, which itself was an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairytale, and has been criticized from a variety of perspectives. Complaints included the racial recasting of the main character Ariel, Asian American actress Awkwafina's new rap song "The Scuttlebutt" and the children’s film lacking in "kink."
A critique that recently raised eyebrows, however, was from a British authority in the performing arts community who complained the film failed to acknowledge slavery.
Marcus Ryder, the chair of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, did praise the film for casting a Black actress as the leading heroine, calling it an example of applied "anti-racism."
"For my young son to see the most beautiful character in a film as a Black woman (with non-straightened hair) is important to me as a parent and goes against literally centuries of White beauty standards and societal norms," he wrote. "It is anti-racism at work on a deep level."
He added, "A world in which the very idea of race for the main characters seems to be subverted, consciously ignored, and at the same time Black beauty is celebrated, needs to be applauded."
Ryder noted that "one jarring massive problem," however, is the film’s "treatment of historical transatlantic slavery."
"The film is set in the Caribbean in the 18th century. It does not specify exactly when, but judging from the ships, clothes and other references it is during a time of African chattel slavery. And yet there is not a single direct reference to slavery and the islanders live in racial harmony," he wrote. "In this setting, I do not think we do our children any favours by pretending that slavery didn’t exist."
Ryder added further, "For me Disney’s preference to try and wish the inconvenient truth away says more about the adult creatives than it does about children’s ability to work through it."
After noting that slavery in the Americas "has been described by some historians and commentators as a 'holocaust,'" he proceeded to argue, "Setting the fantastical story in this time and place is literally the equivalent of setting a love story between Jew and Gentile in 1940 Germany and ignoring the Jewish holocaust."
He reiterated the comparison between slavery and the Holocaust shortly after.
"The total erasure and rewriting of one of the most painful and important parts of African diasporic history, is borderline dangerous, especially when it is consumed unquestioningly by children," Ryder wrote. "I do not want my child to think that the Caribbean in the 18th century was a time of racial harmony, any more than I suspect a Jewish father wants his child to think 1940 Germany was a time of religious tolerance, however much we might both wish they were."
