Six months ago, Karey Burke, the president of Disney’s General Entertainment Content, declared that the most popular entertainment conglomerate was on the verge of diversifying nearly 50% of its television shows and films. According to Burke, the purpose of the new initiative was to highlight various cultures and individuals from marginalized communities. One of the most pivotal cornerstones in the new rollout is supposed to be the upcoming release of a live-action rendition of The Little Mermaid starring an African American actress/singer named Halle Bailey as the famous protagonist known as "Ariel." The Little Mermaid was initially released by The Walt Disney Company as a 2D cartoon back in 1989, and the character of Ariel was a Caucasian female with long flowing red hair and blue eyes. And therein lies the problem, in the eyes of some.

Ever since Disney published the official trailer for the film, several fans of the original have blasted the company for the drastic change in the physical appearance of one of the most beloved characters they've ever created. On the flip side, there are those who support Disney's effort to provide representation to people of all backgrounds. Nevertheless, just two days after being uploaded to YouTube, the official trailer was "disliked" over 1.5 million times, causing Youtube to deactivate the option. This is alarming, considering the video has garnered 661K likes in the past five days.

Twelve years ago, the executive producers over at Paramount Pictures faced similar backlash when they cast most of the principal roles for the live-action version of The Last Airbender with White actors/actresses even though the original cartoon series was fictionally built upon Asian culture and characters.

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Source: Dailey Mail