I had heard some random rumors online before that in some Asian countries like China, S Korea and Japan, the audiences are up in arms about the new Disney version of the Little Mermaid because she's black. They call her things like "burnt fish" and a lot of derogatory stuff. I read Korean web novels on booktoki because I get impatient with the fan translations, and today I saw a new post about the "horror versions of Disney princesses"... the post compares how beautiful the animated traditional Disney princesses are even in their horror versions, to the recent live action version of the Little Mermaid, which stars a black actress named Halle Bailey. The comments are basically unified in saying how "scary" Halle is as the Little Mermaid. Personally, I think Disney's choice of a black actress was a little bold, but I don't think it's right to call her horrifying, scary, or ugly just because she's black... I also don't think she's ugly at all. What's scary and ugly to me is this kind of revelation about how normal people can be so racist. The URL of the post is here:
https://booktoki322.com/humor/3539497
I guess a lot of people don't like Halle Bailey as the Little Mermaid, but it seems pretty bad in Asia especially.
P.S. I don't think every Asian person is racist, but I was a little lazy about looking for a place to post this lmao... I have plenty of Asian friends who aren't racist (that is, normal people), so I was pretty astonished at how bad the backlash is in Asia about a black Little Mermaid version.
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This why i dont f/w koreans
Actually, I wanted to post previously about some comments, that may be seen as very offensive to Jews or anyone who cares about the Holocaust, on the same website where I was reading this fucking awesome rebirth shounen novel called Black Corporation: Joseon. The story is about an MC who was into cosplay in an insane way and was obsessed with making historical reenactment stuff like ancient style weapons, guns, etc. Then his secret stash of gunpowder (and I think it was also nitro glycerine lmao) exploded by accident and he was sent back in time to the body of the crown prince of the Joseon Dynasty, Hyang. As Hyang, he had the opportunity to reverse all the tragedies that the future Korea would face, and made a shitload of cannons and artillery... the part where I was concerned wasn't the novel, because the writing is great and the author's historical research is spot on. It was the stupid racist comments on the chapter where Hyang was changing the military uniform to be more Westernized so that it would be more comfortable and practical for military members to use in combat.
The comments I saw on that chapter were really scary, because one person made this inane comment that the Nazi military outfits were the sexiest kind of historical military uniform. Another comment said something which was vaguely praising the Nazis for their guns or something... And the most disgusting comment that was most recently posted actually said, "heil Hitler" in a light hearted joking way. Which, imho, is not funny. The jokes these commenters were making made me feel like the kids who were reading this (the audience is basically teens) had absolutely zero sense of how horrifying the reality of the holocaust was... that making jokes about Nazis and treating the tragedy suffered by the Jews at that time in a light hearted manner can be seen as extremely offensive to a lot of different people, including the families of veterans who fought in the war, Jews, and many more... the attitude of the commenters was similar to how some Germans these days want to make light of that historical time period. Usually when I read a novel on that site, I have fun laughing at the stupid or random comments people make, but I felt really uncomfortable after reading that...
racism is always a given to an extent, but black panther was a big success in asia...so maybe if they made an actual good movie and told an original black princess story, rather than some remake, it would have done better
oh please the movie was fine don’t get shot.
god forbid i think a movie is mid lol
The discussion is about the racist attitude of people not the movie review
im just suggesting that maybe the movie itself has some correlation, like it was an unintentional set up for racism
you have a well known white princess movie/story and you race swap for a remake (that wasnt even good imo)...it just seems like its going to invite racism, people look for any excuse to jump on something
I guess what makes me upset about the negative reaction isn't because it's racism against black people per se. I'm upset because there is a huge issue of colorism in Asia, which is basically a standard of beauty where people with light skin are praised as gorgeous and people with dark skin in the same country are treated as worthless. You can see this kind of issue in Chinese web novels, where they are always describing especially beautiful women or men (like the shou/uke in BL) as having skin so white that it's almost transparent, so you can see "blue blood vessels" on their hands or something... yuck. They are basically saying that corpse white skin is gorgeous. It's also bad in places like India, the Phillipines, etc. And probably a big reason that there's a backlash in Asia about the black actress who's starring in a historically white role is because they have standard of beauty based on lighter skin color... Well, the same thing is true in places like Mexico, where they prefer white skin because those with darker skin have indigenous heritage.
The thing about Black Panther may be because the MC is a man, and not a woman, and that character was originally a black person in the Marvel Universe. If Iron Man were played by Chadwick Boseman, I think some audience members would say, "fuck, how ugly, this is wrong, Iron Man is white! I'm so tired of Hollywood trying to force politically correct shit on audiences!"
It's probably true that the Disney LA movie with Halle Bailey is shitty, because most LA movies are shitty (it seems like a rule in animation and anime), but I think the racist comments from Asian netizens reveal more about Asian netizens' mentality than the shittiness of the LA adaptation... otherwise, wouldn't they simply leave reviews that the plot, acting, etc was shitty but not shove that actress into the limelight by saying how scarily ugly she is??? Just sayin...
if you click on the link you put, the 2nd princess on the "pretty list" before the "jump scare" is literally tiana. if there was a black actress as the lead in a (good) remake of the princess and the frog, i dont think it would get the same reaction as the little mermaid remake.
because of Asias colorism problem/mentality thats how they chose to make fun of the movie.
but i think its the race swap + bad movie that invited a lot of that racism, it gave an opening to make fun of the movie.
but thats just my opinion
on the aspect that in black panther mc is a man...there really arent many lead black female movies in general so its had to truly deduct of how big of a factor gender playes here. (but as you said, black iron man wouldn't be well received despite mc being a man)
Yeah I think you're onto something there... shitty adaptation plus the orig animation was a white girl, gives netizens fertile grounds for racist comments... but if you're not careful with that line of thinking, some POC might say something like "you're giving the racists excuses to be racist", although as a POC myself I don't agree with that viewpoint, I'm just saying that some POC have a kind of almost persecution complex when it comes to racism. That's because they have to question all kinds of discrimination in their lives, such as "I was qualified for the job but didn't get hired, was it because I'm black" or "that chick won't date me, is it because I'm brown"... once you start this kind of mentality where you question yourself for life's letdowns, you'll feel like almost anything can be pinned on racism, sexism or what have you...it's unfortunate.
Tbh I never watch Disney shit because since I was a kid I've disdained Disney everything, I have no clue if the LA movie adaptation was shitty or not, so I can't really make a judgement about it. In general, I love almost everything about Asian culture, food, etc but some aspects of Asian traditional thinking like colorism, homophobia, patriarchy, the idea that you need to observe an absurd level of filial piety even when your family is abusive, I can't agree with. Just like there are a shitload of foreigners out there who think Americans are fucktards because we vote for Trump, they don't understand a lot of conservative American opinions. Similarly, I don't understand a lot of traditional conservative viewpoints in Asian communities, although my family's ethnic tradition does place an emphasis on filial piety and respect for elders so I can empathize with that aspect.