To be fair, he was just showing her around and had every intention of marrying a different girl entirely. Didn't get married to Ariel until he met her dad and murdered her dad's competitor for the throne. Did a pretty good job overall.
So, it definitely is a real thing that’s happened. There are a bunch of examples that you could point to that show it. I think it’s partly because of how over represented red hair is in media compared to real life. Like, just looking at Disney princesses, you’ve got Ariel, Merida, and Anna, Giselle, and Megara. Of the 13 Disney Princesses™️ plus some of the common unofficial princesses (I’m counting the two in Frozen, Eilonwy, Esmerelda, Kida, Jane, and Vanellope in addition to those named above), that’s over one in five. Far higher than the presence of red heads in American (since we’re talking about media produced in America for a primarily American audience) society.
That said, the live action remake of The Little Mermaid isn’t even an example of it. They changed the character from white to black, but she’s still red-haired. She doesn’t have the bright cartoonish red hair of the cartoon. Because…yeah, it’s not a cartoon But she has a shade of red hair that can easily be found on actual black people.
Tbh my problem with the new lil mermaid wasn’t that she’s black, it’s that since they remade (and completely fucked up) Total Recall I’ve been BEGGING for a goddamn original concept from a movie instead of another stupid remake you can make terrible but it’ll still sell thanks to brand recognition. C’mon movie/cartoon people, Tim Burton can do it, ask him how!!
Oh yeah, 100%. None of the live action remakes have been worthwhile. They’re almost universally creatively-bankrupt lazy cash grabs. If it weren’t for the occasional right-wing outrage over them being “woked up”, they’d come and go without making any impact on public discourse.
In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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