Bridget leahy

Amy Schumer says she departed the planned 2016 ‘BARBIE’ movie from Sony due to “creative differences.” “But you know, there’s a new team behind [the new movie], and it looks like it’s very feminist and cool so I will be seeing the movie.” (variety.com/2023/film/news…)

Marcus Ryder, an influential British campaigner and chair of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, applauded the casting of #HalleBailey as #Ariel — but took issue with how the movie showcased racial harmony. “A world in which the very idea of race for the main characters seems to be subverted, consciously ignored and at the same time Black beauty is celebrated, needs to be applauded,” Ryder wrote in a blog post. He continued, “While the importance of casting the #LittleMermaid as a Black woman has been commented on in numerous articles the casting of the other roles is also worth a mention … At the same time the Little Mermaid’s father is White while her Mermaid sisters are of various different races and ethnicities. Race as a social construct, as we know it, clearly does not exist underwater.” However, in the blog, titled “Disney’s the Little Mermaid, Caribbean Slavery, and Telling the Truth to Children,” Ryder points out that the movie appears to take place in the Caribbean in the 18th century during a time of African chattel slavery — yet the islanders depicted in the film seem to live in a world free of this inhumanity. “In this setting, I do not think we do our children any favors by pretending that slavery didn’t exist,” he wrote. “For me Disney’s preference to try and wish the inconvenient truth away says more about the adult creatives than it does about children’s ability to work through it.” “the total erasure and rewriting of one of the most painful and important parts of African diasporic history, is borderline dangerous, especially when it is consumed unquestioningly by children,” he added. 👀 Thoughts on this??! 🤔