Disney released the first official trailer for The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey, and it’s EVERYTHING! Folks are all up in their feelings about it, both good and bad. See the trailer and the reactions inside…
Last week, Disney released the first official trailer for the upcoming live-action adaptation of the 1989 animated film, The Little Mermaid, featuring singer Halle Bailey, who stars as Ariel. And listen, we were holding back tears watching it! If you’re a Little Mermaid fan and a black woman/girl – you GET it.
Peep the trailer below:
The trailer launched a new trend on social media where parents showed their little black girls and children the trailer for the first time and recorded their reactions. And they’re PRICELESS.
“She’s Black?,” Ke’Iona Shanks, who turns 8 next week, asked. “Yay!”
“Mommy! … She’s brown like me!,” another little girl said in a clip.
Many of the children were shocked to see someone that looked like them on the screen.
Watch a compilation of reactions below:
Cuteness OVERLOAD!
People have been tagging and sending reaction videos to Halle, which she acknowledged on her Twitter timeline:
people have been sending these reactions to me all weekend and i’m in truly in awe this means the world to me https://t.co/cuKjKN8nxH
— Halle (@HalleBailey) September 12, 2022
”people have been sending these reactions to me all weekend and i’m in truly in awe,” Halle tweeted. “this means the world to me”
She shared another video of a little girl’s reaction to the trailer:
k i just sobbed watching this thanks she’s so sweet https://t.co/jKKdHkOvDe
— Halle (@HalleBailey) September 11, 2022
So adorable.
Halle’s rapper boyfriend/YouTuber DDG posted his reaction to his platform, sharing how “incredible” and “amazing” it is. He even admitted to tearing up after seeing it:
We LOVE to see it!
The 22-year-old singer is only the second Black woman to play a Disney princess, following Anika Noni Rose voicing Tiana in The Princess and the Frog. In recent interview with Variety for her cover story, Halle talked about the reaction she received from her grandparents, which touched her soul.
”It was an inspiring and beautiful thing to hear their words of encouragement, telling me, ‘You don’t understand what this is doing for us, for our community, for all the little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in you.’”
“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 says. “There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be. That reassurance was something that I needed.”
She continued, “What that would have done for me, how that would have changed my confidence, my belief in myself, everything,” Bailey says. “Things that seem so small to everyone else, it’s so big to us.”
And while the trailer is literally perfect, “THEY” are mad that a Black woman with locs is portraying the iconic character.
On YouTube, there are over 2 million “dislikes” for the trailer and it has been viewed 18 million times.
Meanwhile, the comment section is being flooded with weird movie lines that have nothing to do with the actual film/trailer.
Of course, Black Twitter came to Halle’s defense against racism:
”So after all the Africans yall threw in the ocean yall surprised a mermaid is black,” @Darealbigfine1 tweeted.
And get this! Apparently, Twitter DELETED her comment because it received too many dislikes. Chile…
The Twitter user is doubling down on her comment though:
Some white TikTokers uploaded videos with RECEIPTS, showing how white people have been cast in roles where they portrayed people who weren’t white:
Bloop!
Peep more reactions below:
Ever notice how in MAGA land a Black mermaid, Black elf, & Black Santa are examples of real life “anti-white” discrimination—but redlining, immigration bans,& the war on drugs are mythical things BIPOC made up to play victim?
This is what white supremacy gaslighting looks like
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) September 11, 2022
Mermaids can be Black. Hobbits can be Black. Elves can be Black. Dwarves can be Black. Jedi can be Black. None of these things are real, so, any of them can be Black, and you can stop being racist.
— Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) September 11, 2022
y’all are truly insufferable. the movie was made for CHILDREN. if little dark skinned black girls see themselves in Halle being the little mermaid, then so be it. https://t.co/4uDAn8CzRP
— BRÉ (@_brinac) September 15, 2022
Finally, with Little Mermaid being Black, Ursula stealing Ariel’s voice will make music history sense.
— rafael shimunov (@rafaelshimunov) September 13, 2022
During Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah ripped into the racist Little Mermaid critics:
“Really, people… we’re doing this again?,” he asked. “Nothing like? They both have the tail, they both have the red [hair]. Once again, a bunch of Internet racists are upset that a fictional character is being played by a Black person. This is so ridiculous.” Watch the clip below:
Anyone who has a problem with Halle Bailey playing Ariel in The Little Mermaid can stay mad and will just have to deal.
The Little Mermaid will premiere May 2023. We are READY!
Photo: YouTube Screenshot
