Back in the Spring, Disney executives Karey Burke and Vivian Ware expressed their desire to reimagine a historic brand that was originally geared towards consumers in mainstream and middle America. Their commentary occurred during a video call for Disney's company-wide initiative, "Reimagining Tomorrow." A campaign intended to bring cultural and societal balance to the company's most influential platforms in television and film, such as Disney+, Hulu, Marvel, and ABC, through various ways of implementing new storylines and diverse characters. The decision was met with pushback from Florida politicians like Ron DeSantis, who slammed the company for being too "woke" amid their criticism of his Parental Rights in Education law. Nevertheless, the move proved quite lucrative as the Black Panther sequel has already become the sixth highest-grossing film of the year, and the top streaming shows on Disney+, such as The Mandolorian, The Falcon and The Winter Solider, Hawkeye, and Loki, all feature diverse casts.
Disney is a classic brand; hence a large portion of its fanbase has nostalgic memories of traditional 2-D cartoons, despite the lack of diversity. So, when the company released its first trailer for the upcoming live-action version of The Little Mermaid, they were met with an onslaught of backlash at the mere sight of seeing Halle Bailey swim around as their beloved Ariel character.
Tomorrow, Disney will air “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration” on ABC. The two-hour Holiday special will be presented on stage in the style of a Broadway production. In the past, most of the major studios that have published a version of "Beauty and The Beast" have done so without actors/actresses of color in lead roles, but in this version, Belle (aka Beauty) will be played by H.E.R., a Grammy-award-winning singer who is African American and Filipino. While Jon Jon Briones, a Filipino American actor, will play her father, Maurice. The role of the fan-favorite Gaston will be portrayed by a Black Canadian actor named Joshua Henry, and the narration will be handled by Rita Moreno, an iconic actress/singer/dancer of Puerto Rican descent. Josh Groban, a Tony-Award winning Jewish American actor/singer, will star as the show's leading man, filling the role of "Beast." On Wednesday, ABC made a promotional post about the upcoming show on social media. The post was met with celebratory comments from fans belonging to numerous communities. Still, there was also a fair amount of backlash from people who didn't appreciate that Disney had "reimagined" the ethnicity of iconic characters they grew up watching.
"Next: Aladdin will be Mexican," wrote a commentator. "Don't me wrong, I'm all for inclusion but let's try not to erase the past, let's make a new present for a better future..."
"But why [destroy] a story instead of creating [new ones] what happened with creativity???" Aked another fan.
"Why mess with a good thing? Just leave it alone," wrote another IG user.
Beauty and the Beast: "A 30th Celebration" was filmed about three weeks ago. A similar production starring Toni Braxton as Belle debuted on Broadway nearly 30 years ago, making the R&B legend the first Black woman to take on the iconic role.
Scroll up to view one of ABC's latest posts about the upcoming show.
Source: Instagram
