‘The Little Mermaid’ Criticized By Prominent Diversity Advocate For Its “Dangerous” Erasure Of Slavery
deadline.comThe Little Mermaid has been criticized by a prominent media diversity advocate for failing to acknowledge the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean.
Marcus Ryder, an influential British campaigner who also chairs the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, celebrated the casting of Halle Bailey but took issue with the film’s glossy depiction of racial harmony.
After watching the Disney remake with his six-year-old son, Ryder felt compelled to write a blog about the movie, which he said missed an opportunity to gently educate children.
Ryder said The Little Mermaid appears to be set in the 18th century at a time of African chattel slavery, but the fictional Caribbean islanders close to Atlantica live in a world free from human rights atrocities. “I do not think we do our children any favours by pretending that slavery didn’t exist,” he wrote in the blog, titled ‘Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Caribbean Slavery, and Telling the Truth to Children.’ “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.” Ryder acknowledged that The Little Mermaid is fantasy and the story does not need to be assiduously faithful to history, but he argued that children are not well served by overlooking the past.
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