What's wrong with the scandals around the dark-skinned Little Mermaid

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Understanding why the myth of the dominance of racial and sexual minorities in the cinema is complete nonsense. And can films ever get too tolerant.

Increasingly, after the next announcement of a new picture or a remake of a classic, heated debates arise on the Web. You've probably seen angry comments like these: "Now all the main roles are given to black people", "It was not so in the original", "Who needs a homosexual line?" and "Why reshoot the female version of a cool movie ?!"

It seems that cinema has become "too" tolerant and the darkness is a cause for concern. The Wachowski sisters may be filming Michael B. Jordan to Star in New Matrix Movie Directed by Lana Wachowski? the new "Matrix" starring Michael B. Jordan, the dark-skinned Holly Bailey will play in the film adaptation of The Little Mermaid; gay.

But the scale of the hysteria is greatly exaggerated. Let's explain why.

More films

The easiest way to consider such provocations is the example of black actors. To begin with, they also appeared quite often in classical paintings and no one made a sensation out of it. We are not, of course, talking about the times of segregation. But who in the eighties did not like films with Eddie Murphy, and in the nineties with Will Smith?

And Blade, with Wesley Snipes, reminded the studios that film adaptations of comics can be popular, and opened the way for X-Men and Spider-Man.

Indeed, now there are more projects where blacks play the main roles. But there is one simple explanation for this: films in general have begun to be produced much more often.

In the USA alone, up to 700 paintings are published a year. And it makes sense that they should appeal to different audiences: people of different nationalities, cultural backgrounds, gender and sexual orientation. Although, in fact, most of the paintings are still devoted to white heterosexual men.

To break the stupid stereotype about "black dominance", you just need to open any site where all cinema releases for 2018 are collected, for example, "Kinopoisk" or "Film Distributor Bulletin", and select the biggest blockbusters of the year.

There are a little more than 40 of them. Moreover, in 20 films the main characters are white men, in 10 - white women. And there are only 10 major releases left.

Yes, this is more than 20 years ago. But each social group accounts for about 10% of mass films. That is, “more” does not mean “a lot” in percentage terms, and even more so it is impossible to talk about some kind of “dominance”.

Another prime example is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the main provider of blockbusters in recent years. Today it has 23 full-length films. Of these, 16 are about white men, five crossovers, in which the emphasis is on exactly the same characters, one is a solo story of a black character ("Black Panther") and one is a woman-superheroine ("Captain Marvel").

In a strange way, after the release of the last two films, many began to talk about excessive tolerance and feminism. As if there are no other 20 tapes, and the only black superhero to get his own film covers trilogies about Iron Man, Thor or Captain America.

And rumors that the first gay superhero would appear in the huge cinematic universe, numbering dozens of film and television projects, caused outrage. At the same time, there are already more than 50 important characters in the on-screen world of Marvel. The appearance of one homosexual hero practically does not affect the quantitative ratio. And the more is not something reprehensible.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, all talk about "excessive tolerance" has nothing to do with reality. And it is no coincidence that such indignations are much stronger, for example, in Russia than in the United States, where these films are produced.

The noise about the appearance of dark-skinned people in almost all projects is very simple to explain. When discussing major releases, they talk not only about the main characters, but also about minor characters, and there can be 20 or more of them in a blockbuster. And here it is absolutely stupid to find fault. More than 30 million blacks live in America, and not showing them in the movies would simply mean ignoring a large percentage of the country's population - sheer racism.

It's like a throwback to the days when women weren't allowed to play in the theater.

The entire civilized world is moving away from discrimination on racial grounds and sexual orientation, cinema is aimed at an ever wider audience. And therefore, any social group can and should appear in films - because they are full and numerous members of society.

Such indignations seem to suggest simply deleting more than 10% of the black population of the United States, about 5% of LGBT people and a huge number of other groups. This cannot be called anything other than dreams of another segregation.

Therefore, if it is embarrassing that one of a dozen characters is of a different skin color or orientation, just read the statistics and be glad that you are shown a real model of the world, and not patriarchal or racist fictions. Well, if someone does not want to see anyone on the screens, except for white heterosexual heroes, he should open an encyclopedia with words such as "racism" and "homophobia".

TV shows have become more diverse

With them, the situation is very similar to a big movie. And again, the point is not a desire to please someone, but simply attracting new viewers. This is primarily influenced by streaming services.

Previously, serials were filmed exclusively for television broadcasts - when the channel ordered a project, the producers had to think at what time and to whom to show it in order to attract the maximum audience. Therefore, children's cartoons came out in the mornings, melodramas - on weekdays for housewives, and detectives for joint viewing by adults - in the evening.

For the same reason, projects were only developed for the most massive audience. Few dared to produce serials targeting racial or sexual minorities. The channels were afraid of losing a huge number of viewers who were accustomed to seeing a patriarchal picture of the world on the screen.

With the advent of a much larger number of TV channels, and even more so streaming services, the ability to produce series for different groups of people has grown. Netflix does not matter when the viewer sits in front of the screen, the main thing is the number of views. Therefore, producers can release projects that are primarily of interest to the LGBT community or blacks.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu alone air dozens of TV series every month. And this is even if you do not take the on-air projects of such giants as HBO, CBS or Showtime.

Even with a strong desire, a person will not be able to see everything. Therefore, it is simply ridiculous to be outraged that one or even 10 projects a month tell about something alien specifically to you. There would be time to keep track of what you like. And this is just an indicator: the situation is returning to normal - now there is something interesting for everyone.

New times create new canons

Most of all, people are offended by film adaptations of books or remakes of classics. Any change in skin color, gender or orientation of the character is perceived with hostility, appealing to the original source and claiming that all this was done to please certain groups of people.

In the case of all the same "The Little Mermaid" or "The Witcher", everyone immediately recalls books or a classic Disney cartoon. But in fact, there is no point in arguing about canonicity. After all, new details only expand the scope for the character. If the Little Mermaid was once already white and many red-haired girls associated themselves with the heroine, then why not give this opportunity to blacks now?

Almost any film adaptation and remakes deviate from the canons. And this is often approved by the author of the original - remember at least the "Turkish Gambit", where Boris Akunin himself changed the ending. There is no point in telling the same story a second time that the audience already knows.

The most important thing to understand is that literature and cinema are different types of art. And cartoons are also different from movies. And even classical paintings are not like modern ones.

Do we really want to return to the days of the theater, where only men played? Or segregation, when blacks weren't hired for big roles? This, by the way, happened even when it was necessary to play a person of African descent - they usually invited a white actor and made him blackface, that is, smeared his face with shoe polish.

The views of the world that were canon and tradition 50 and even 30 years ago are becoming obsolete, and cinema reflects changes in society. For example, this is why in 2019 Aladdin Princess Jasmine is no longer just an unhappy bride, but a full-fledged active character.

When choosing actors for roles in film adaptations or new versions of films, the director and casting director are guided by far not only outward similarities: it is more important that the artist fits into the plot, is liked by the audience and plays well. The author of the adaptation decides for himself how to deal with the characters.

Moreover, retrogrades that require compliance with the canons, consciously or not, create the illusion that character changes are always bad. And they mention only bad examples, while keeping silent about the good ones.

So, in 2017, the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel "The Dark Tower" failed. And many immediately began to say that the reason was in the performer of the leading role. Roland Descanne, who was originally written off of Clint Eastwood, was played by Idris Elba. And someone even fantasized that if Scott Eastwood, who was very similar to his father, had been invited to the picture, then everything would have turned out well.

In fact, the film failed because of a very bad script - they tried to fit the plot of five books in an hour and a half. And Elba's acting is almost the only positive moment in the whole story. If the much less experienced Eastwood had starred there, it could have turned out even worse.

But at the same time little is said about "The Shawshank Redemption", where one of the main characters, according to the canon, was a red-haired Irishman. In the film, he was played by a dark-skinned Morgan Freeman. But this did not stop the project from top of the list of 250 best films according to IMDb version of the best IMDb films. So it's not about skin color, gender, or orientation, but the quality of the script and filming.

It is forgotten that in the original Django the main character was white, and Quentin Tarantino added the theme of slavery and racism to the story. But his "Django Unchained" turned out to be so good that it is simply impossible to criticize the hero for being uncanonic.

Franco Nero in the movie "Django"

Jamie Foxx in the movie Django Unchained

Or Nick Fury in the MCU, played by Samuel L. Jackson. In classic comics, this character is white. And there is even a film adaptation, where the main role was played by David Hasselhoff. Only this film is absolutely terrible, and hardly any fan of history would agree to replace Jackson with this actor.

The case with "The Matrix" may not even be considered at all - the Wachowskis and in the first version wanted to invite Will Smith and only after his refusal they contacted Keanu Reeves, so the canon can be changed at the discretion of the authors.

The problem with restarts is not at all about changing the canon

"Women's" restarts are often unsuccessful indeed. But here the point is in the general trend of recent years - remakes of almost all popular projects are made on large and small screens. And the gender of the main characters is rarely changed.

So the fear is rather a crisis of ideas and a lack of good scripts. This is exactly what happened with the new Ghostbusters. The quintessentially comedic actresses Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig could play great characters, as Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd once did. The stupid plot interfered, and not at all the fact that these are women.

At the same time, in the adaptation of the games "Resident Evil", a new heroine Alice was invented specifically for the plot, and the main characters were pushed into the background. However, the first films were successful, and no one condemned either the discrepancy with the plot, or the woman in the lead role.

Moreover, in a strange way, most often a character is scolded for non-canonicity, if his skin color, gender or orientation has changed.

Here you can cite a very striking example for all Russian-speaking viewers - the Soviet version of "Sherlock Holmes" with Vasily Livanov. Many call it very reliable and close to the original. Although, if you look at the books of Arthur Conan Doyle, the main character is described in a completely different way. He is a tall (over 6 feet - 180 centimeters) thin young Englishman, a little over 25 years old, and even with a rather impatient character.

At the time of filming, Livanov was already over 45, he is of average height, his hair is gray, he speaks Russian, and his version of the character has a much calmer character. In fact, the only thing in common with the book hero is skin color and an aquiline profile. That is, judging by the specific parameters, some young tall dark-skinned Briton may have more in common with Sherlock. It sounds provocative, but it is.

However, this did not prevent Soviet films from becoming popular, and not only in Russia. Just because it's a good movie with great actors, which means that the difference in appearance is not so important. The main thing is that the story itself is successful.

And so there is no point in condemning Anya Chalotra, who will play Yennefer in the new series based on The Witcher, for insufficiently fair skin. We must at least wait for the first trailers to appear.

There is also a lot of controversy with the "non-canon" character orientation. Indeed, often in the classics, they simply did not talk about it, or it did not affect the plot in any way. Then why are the creators of the new adaptation not entitled to show their version?

Let us recall the case with the film "Beauty and the Beast", where in one character they saw hints of homosexuality. Because of this, the film in Russia even received an age rating of 16+. But this turn did not damage the story in any way, especially since in the children's fairy tale, of course, there were no provocative scenes.

Interestingly, in this case, such changes even made the action more harmonious, since they explain Lefu's affection for his master. He puts up with all the stupidity of Gaston, because he is just in love.

But homophobic viewers deny the authors even the right to add logic to the plot. And most importantly, the significance of such scenes is greatly exaggerated.

Generalization is another favorite technique of these critics. For example, after the announcement of the leading role in the future film version of "The Little Mermaid", many wrote: "All fairy tales are re-shot with blacks."

There are two reinterpretations of Snow White in 2012 - with Lily Collins and Kristen Stewart, Maleficent in 2014 with Elle Fanning and Angelina Jolie, Cinderella in 2015 with Lily James, Beauty and the Beast in 2017 with Emma Watson. Among the large number of retaken classic fairy tales and cartoons, one appeared, where a fictional hero, and even a fantastic creature, was changed race - it is hardly worth talking about everyone.

It's foolish to talk about realism in fiction

Resentment about "The Little Mermaid" or the image of Yennefer in the future series "The Witcher" sometimes becomes the apotheosis of stupidity. After all, some users come up with supposedly logical reasons why this cannot be so.

For example, the Little Mermaid lives deep under water and therefore her skin cannot be dark - ultraviolet light does not penetrate there. It is even difficult to argue with these arguments. After all, their authors for some reason are ready to believe in creatures in which the upper part of the body is human, and the lower part is fish. They consider it logical that the Little Mermaid breathes under water and talks to fish, and they answer her. But the dark skin pigment seems implausible.

The same applies to The Witcher, and even to the film adaptation of The Hobbit, where some were outraged by the presence of black actors in the crowd. Fantasy worlds are home to elves, dwarves, orcs and dragons. But here people of a different race are prohibited.

And in the same way, the main character of Doctor Who should not regenerate into a woman, as happened in the eleventh season of the series. This alien has two hearts, is over 2,000 years old, and has the ability to travel through time. When the Doctor dies, he can regenerate into a completely new personality. But someone believes that only a man. Why? Known only to them.

Do not forget that the world in cinema is fictional, it exists according to different laws. Just because it happens on the screen. And any nagging about the realism of the characters is pointless. Indeed, in Guardians of the Galaxy, no one disputes the existence of blue or green skinned races. But for some reason the Little Mermaid should only be white.

There is only one conclusion here, and it is obvious. Movies with black characters, LGBT characters, or feminist reboots can be both good and bad. After all, the quality of the picture does not depend only on the color of the skin or the orientation of the character. So it's just stupid to scold the project even at the stage of casting.

The percentage of paintings with such characters has increased recently, but this only reflects the movement of humanity towards equality. Their number remains small in relation to the rapidly growing market for movies and TV series. So, most likely, it will be in the future due to statistics and viewership ratings.

Of course, it does not do without individual cases of excesses. For example, the demand to replace Finn Jones, who plays the main role in Iron Fist. For some reason, the authors of the petition decided that since this is a project about martial arts, the central character cannot be white. Although in the comics, Iron Fist has always been a simple American.

They love to inflate each such case on social networks, as was the case with a theatrical scriptwriter from Great Britain, who was outraged that there was not a single black person in Chernobyl. All Russian media told about a single tweet of an unknown girl, after which she simply closed the account.

But on the whole, talk about "excessive tolerance" or "pressure that spoils the movie" is inadequately exaggerated. There are just more films and TV shows, that's all.