In what comes as a surprise to no one, racists are still being racist.
The new trailer for Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ staring Halle Bailey has been flooded with 1.2 million “dislikes” on YouTube as of Saturday.
Disney alum Josh Gad is speaking out, calling the racists ‘pathetic’ in their attempts to tank the movie.
via People:
“Imagine being so broken and pathetic in life that your chief concern is the skin color of…a make-believe singing mermaid,” Gad wrote Thursday on Twitter.
The first teaser for the highly anticipated update of the 1989 animated film has additionally garnered 3.5 million dislikes since it debuted in September.
The Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall previously responded to the racist backlash, which has plagued the film since Bailey’s casting was announced in 2019, explaining that there was “no agenda” in choosing a Black actress.
“We just were looking for the best actor for the role, period. The end,” he told Entertainment Weekly in December. “We saw everybody and every ethnicity.”
He explained their criteria was someone “incredibly strong, passionate, beautiful, smart, clever,” who exudes “a great deal of fire and joy” in playing the iconic Disney princess.
Bailey told PEOPLE that landing the role has “changed my perspective on everything,” explaining in September how it has “impacted my life in so many ways.”
“The fact that now it’s getting to be played by me, a person who looks like me, woman of color, I’m just like, wow, I’m so grateful what it will do for all the other little Black and brown boys and girls who will see themselves in me,” said Bailey. “Because I know if I had seen myself when I was younger, I think my whole perspective would’ve changed.”
The Little Mermaid premieres in theaters May 26.
