The poor performance of Disney’s The Little Mermaid at the Chinese box office has reopened questions on Hollywood’s increasing difficulties in the world’s second-largest economy and the role racism has played in the film’s reception.
Of course, it must be racism. It can't possibly be that the film isn't very good, can it?
The Little Mermaid has just 2.5 stars on Douban, a popular Chinese review site. IMDb, an American review site, last week claimed the film had been the target of “unusual voting activity” from people trying to downgrade the film’s rating. But many of the negative Douban reviews are critical of the film’s plot and execution, rather than Bailey’s casting specifically.
Ah, they are cunning, those heathen Chinee! But Western intellectuals are onto their cunning plan to disguise their racism behind film critique...
Murjana, a Hong Kong-born Nigerian trainee lawyer, said she was used to experiencing racism in her home city.
Well, she could always go to Nigeria. I'm sure there's no recism there. What form does this racism take, anyway?
“It’s 2023 and if you’re black or dark skinned in Hong Kong, there’s a 95% chance there will be an empty seat next to you on the sardine-packed train … It’s not so much surprising as it is amusing that people still allow something as arbitrary as the degree to which one’s skin produces melanin to dictate whether they would enjoy a movie about a fictional half-fish half-human.”
Well, that doesn't sound so bad...
I don't have a problem with an actor or actress of any colour playing a part in something fictional. If they are depicting an actual historical person, then I think that they need to be appropriately made up, and that isn't racist at all. What is racist is the insistence that the historical person was something that they quite clearly was not.
ReplyDeleteAs an example of the really successful (in my view) use of black actors in traditionally white roles is the recent adaptation of 'Great Expectations'. The actor who plays Jaggers is outstanding, and you do understand why he turned out so rather better than in the original. Also, Estella being half-caste is a genius stroke. You understand why she was adopted, and why she is so abused, especially when (in episode 5) we discover who her parents were. I'm not usually a fan of reworking classics, but you have to take this series as a genius masterstroke, rather like the collage of 'prequels' that went into the series 'Dickensian' before it.
If "there’s a 95% chance there will be an empty seat next to you on the sardine-packed train", it's probably because the Chinks think the person smells funny, which is what they think about all Europeans.
ReplyDelete"What is racist is the insistence that the historical person was something that they quite clearly was not."
ReplyDeleteAnd for no good reason other than to generate internet free PR...
"...it's probably because the Chinks think the person smells funny, which is what they think about all Europeans."
Is it our dairy-heavy diet, I wonder?