When exploring online today, you will find people who are willing to intensely defend anything against even the most reasoned, mild-mannered, and pseudo-serious criticisms. This writer got to see it when he lightly mocked a lesser-known comedian last year, and, now, people are coming for a man who dared to critique the latest Disney live-action rehash of The Little Mermaid.
For those who have a life and do not pay attention to this stuff, shortly after the investor-pleasing and cash-generating project released in May, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Chairman Marcus Ryder issued a tweet praising the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel but picking apart the work’s rosy racial harmony. He published more in a blog post where he argues, while fantasy stories do not need to be completely faithful to history, children are not properly educated when something overlooks the past and, because this is something online, he pulled out some analogies from the Second World War to try and hammer home his point to people.
“Setting the fantastical story in this time and place is the equivalent of setting a love story between Jew and Gentile in 1940 Germany and ignoring the Jewish holocaust. Or more accurately setting it in a slave plantation in America’s antebellum south and pretending the enslaved Africans were happy. The 18th century Caribbean is a problematic time to set any children’s story.”
When the post got picked up by outlets like Deadline Hollywood, Ryder’s critics pointed out he keeps a British honor next to his username on the site, and, as critics like John Oliver have pointed out, the family which once had great power over the nation and is responsible for titles like Ryder’s has not exactly reckoned with their own history of involvement in the slave trade. Another says he has too much time on his hands and — despite the fact he is already married — needs a wife and, for a different critic, resorting to the kind of name-calling Steve Carell’s Brick Tamland uses in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was truly appropriate.
Since his initial comments, Ryder has deleted the original tweet which made people so angry and issued the below thread which attempts to clarify his thoughts on the work not exactly made for artistic reasons. In his view, it would have been better to have placed it near Haiti. He does like the film, and when talking to Deadline Hollywood, he says this hits on how representation matters.
“The whole affair points to how important representation is. Though it was no fun to be the target of the Twitter onslaught, the positive I hope it demonstrates to film studios is that if you increase diversity, you can get a loyal audience that will defend your film vociferously from even the slightest criticism — that is the type of audience engagement money simply cannot buy. Even if in this case I think the criticism was misunderstood.”
The Little Mermaid currently has a 68 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and haters could not stop its success.
