Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid is slated to become a box office flop, despite a strong Memorial Day weekend showing in the American market.
The film has so far earned $186 million dollars domestically in its first 10 days of release, though attendance sharply declined in its second weekend. Internationally, where Disney generally outearns home markets, the film has been a bomb, making only $3.6 million dollars in the vital Chinese market. This is the one of the worst performances a Disney film has suffered in Asian markets in recent history, with even the film Cruella, a 2021 spinoff about a much lesser known 101 Dalmatians villain which opened up in the middle of the COVID pandemic, earning $20 million in China.
The backlash in foreign markets has been attributed to the decision to cast a Halle Bailey, a black female, as Ariel. The choice of having a black woman portray a white character has sparked widespread condemnation in China, where Disney fanatics and movie critics alike consider it an insult to the spirit of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s original mermaid fairy tale.
An editorial panning the movie in China’s Global Times published in May articulated their people’s sentiment, “Many Chinese netizens said that like “Snow White,” the image of the mermaid princess in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales has long been deeply rooted in their hearts, and it takes a leap in imagination to accept the new cast.” Ordinary Chinese commentators on social media platforms like Weibo were far less diplomatic when protesting Disney’s politicization of their movies, choosing to use much more direct racial language.
Disney typically hides black actors when marketing its movies to Chinese audiences in hopes of luring them into theater seats and watch something they don’t want to see. Anti-white Twitter personalities have even shared images of The Little Mermaid’s Imax poster in China, expressing anger that Ariel’s race appears to be deliberately obscured.
Rather than respecting the culture and tastes of audiences in other lands, US Jewish media has taken to its own editorial pages to lambast the nation of China as bigoted.
The decision to replace white characters with black people in remakes of classic films has faced criticism in the United States as well, but this sentiment has been ruthlessly suppressed by the oligarchy. On Rotten Tomatoes, a review portal known for shamelessly rigging scores in favor of Disney’s most propagandistic films, The Little Mermaid has a suspicious 94% approval rating from audiences but a much lower 67% aggregated score from professional critics. Another movie critic aggregator, IMDB, completely changed its scoring system just to inflate The Little Mermaid’s rating after users began posting negative reviews.
Besides the racial dynamic, foreign reviewers have also attacked Disney’s failing $476 million dollar (when combining budget and marketing costs) endeavor by excoriating Bailey’s terrible acting, immersion breaking cinematographic color choices, and clunky special effects. Some Asian commentators have remarked that a secondary character in the feature, portrayed by white English actress Jessica Alexander, was far more “beautiful” than Ariel and should’ve been cast as the titular character instead.
Disney remains hopeful that audiences in Japan will break the Asian trend and embrace the export of Jewish Hollywood’s race ideology when the film debuts there later this week. Disney has recently ratcheted up marketing in Japan, touting The Little Mermaid’s dubiously high Rotten Tomatoes score as a draw-in.
Financial analysts are projecting that optimistically, the Disney the film will barely break even, but is more likely to end up a net loss for Disney.
