I defend Halle Barry’s casting in “The Little Mermaid” But this is too far. Mulan is a Chinese tale, she is Chinese, so it wouldn’t make sense to cast her as African-American. I’m not trying to be racist, I’m trying to have the story make sense.
I believe this is the argument for "The Little Mermaid" as well. It's a Danish tale, she should be at least passable as Danish.
I understand the problem with white washing. But the reason we have "white washed" fairy tales is because the fairy tales we choose to make into movies are of European origin.
Personally, I would like to see more stories based in African folklore, and orginal stories which have multiethnic characters.
Yes, if they were trying to write a danish story. But the original Disney little mermaid has very little to do with danish culture. At it's heart, it's a folktale, and folktales are retold in the culture of those telling it. There's a vietnamese Cinderella and Mexican sleeping beauty. Where Mulan is a cultural tale and should remain rooted in it's culture, the little mermaid can be adapted to any culture, and in this case it's adapted to America. And America has black people.
Also the fact that Mermaids don’t exist. If we were to imagine a mermaid as it is described to us, being a human with a fish tail, who’s to say the human half doesn’t have any melanin at all. Where as with stories like: Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin and heck even Brave, the culture is a point in then story, so for integrity of the story it makes sense for the person playing these characters to have some background with the Origin Of the story.
I concede to this points- however I want to make a couple of points here. 1. The reasons we thing of fairy tales as being apart from culture and other tales being cultural in their own right often has more to do with the westernization of the world than how rooting in culture the stories were. Art is a reflection of culture, it always has been. We only tend to notice it when our culture is different from the culture being shown. And 2. Mulan and Pocahontas are both incredibly different from their orginal stories. In the orginal Mulan story she joined the Chinese army openly and did not bring dishonor to her family for doing so. That happens in the Disney version because....
... a. Women weren't allowed in western armies until much later, and b. It makes for more tension and has advantages from a story telling/movie making perspective. Pocahontas is extremely different from the orginal story, and serves to capture the narrative Americans romanticize about their history. White men came to fight Indians, indians fought white men, love stopped the fighting. When in reality Pocahontas was far more useful as a delegate for practical reasons and not just because she was pretty and lovestruck, and she and john Smith never had a romantic relationship.
In short, these stories are being warped to better fit the culture they are being told in anyway. I don't know much about the inspiration for Aladin or Brave, so I have no real ability to speak on them accurately.
I think we should see more multicultural and multi ethic characters and stories. However in spite of the problems with years of white washing, I like changing the races of established characters.
I understand the problem with white washing. But the reason we have "white washed" fairy tales is because the fairy tales we choose to make into movies are of European origin.
Personally, I would like to see more stories based in African folklore, and orginal stories which have multiethnic characters.
In short, these stories are being warped to better fit the culture they are being told in anyway. I don't know much about the inspiration for Aladin or Brave, so I have no real ability to speak on them accurately.
I think we should see more multicultural and multi ethic characters and stories. However in spite of the problems with years of white washing, I like changing the races of established characters.