About three years ago, Disney announced its intentions to make a new adaptation of The little Mermaid. Initially, actresses like Lindsay Lohan publicly said they were willing to step into the role. What many of the Hollywood professionals did not know is that Disney wanted to give a little twist to the character. That’s how we knew that in this new live-action movie, Ariel would be played by a black actress. Since then, there are people on the Internet who have taken this movement as a personal attack, as we will see in today’s case.
People have lost their sanity with The Little Mermaid
A few days ago, Walt Disney Studios made public the first teaser from the little mermaid on your YouTube account. The video begins by showing part of the CGI of the corals that are under the sea. Next, we see the protagonist of the film, but the choice of lighting and camera angle prevents us from seeing her face. Finally, at teaser It closes with a small clip in which we see Halle Bailey’s face while she sings a song. Obviously, each shot has been treated precisely so that the viewer has time to adapt to the character. Once it’s obvious you’re seeing Ariel, you’re shown what she’s really like.
This, which should not alarm anyone, has become a debate both in the comments and on social networks. In just a few hours, the trailer racked up half a million thumbs down, and we can assume it’s about one of the most disliked videos ever. It already accumulates more than 2 million ‘I do not like’, while the likes do not reach a million.
A ‘faceswap’ to ‘unwoke’ Disney
And this is where our protagonist of the day comes in. A few hours after the trailer was made public, a Twitter user named @vandalibm proudly showed on the social network a modified video in which he had ‘fixed’ the trailer. It was the same clip that appears in the official teaser, only @vandalibm had replaced Bailey’s features with a white girl with red hair.
The video flew through Twitter like wildfire, and this user wanted to add fuel to the fire. He said that he had done it thanks to artificial intelligence, and that when the movie comes out, he could unwoke it in less than 24 hours with a set of 4 Nvidia A6000 graphics cards.
On Twitter the reports began, and @vandalibm was pretty cornered. So much so that after his racist allegation, he began to justify himself by saying that he was doing it solely for educational purposes. Later, he recognized that the video was not his work, but it did not matter exactly. Twitter ended up closing his account for inciting racism. However, the video continues to circulate on the social network by some supporters of the “artist”:
Seraphim Rising
@OccupyWpg
@vandalibm 🎶”Wish I could be part of that AI”🎶 https://t.co/C1V8xogBgq
September 16, 2022 • 16:15
Let’s face it: Disney doesn’t care about all this
In recent years, Disney has shown a certain commitment to making minorities visible and giving a twist to some of its most mythical characters. Every time they announce a project like this, the Internet is filled with outraged people calling for a boycott of this company.
However, Disney is quietly going his way and does not seem to have any intention of giving up. His productions are aimed at children, not adults. Seeing the reactions of the children that appear in the video that we leave below, it is clear that so bad they are not doing it:
