On Wednesday , Disney announced that Halle Bailey of Chloe x Halle will be toy the star function of Ariel in the approaching live - legal action remake of animated movie , The Little Mermaid .

It seems like good molding . With a lot of tattle required , who well than a Grammy - nominated singer in the right age reach to play the lead ?

Of of course , some are n’t felicitous about this casting . In fact , people have spent the past two days on social media throwing a conniption because the newest portrayal of an notional tool in sketch form is n’t quite white enough for their tastes .

They ’re so mad that some of them have now started to try and use " science " to test that if a half - woman half - fish puppet did live they would be white .

" Mermaids know in ocean . Underwater = modified sunlight . special sunlight = less melanin . Less melanin = lighter pelt color,“one tweeted . " Because they live underwater , which has no entree to lightness beyond a certain depth , Ariel and every other mermaid in existence would be albino . "

" decline me if I ’m wrong , " another pen . " But is n’t it physically impossible for Ariel to be black ? She lives subaqueous , how would the sun get to her for her to farm melanin ? ! Nobody call back this through .. ? "

allow ’s leave away that they are attempting to apply " scientific discipline " to a story about a mythical Pisces small fry of King Triton doing battle with a sea witch with devilfish peg , with some supporter from a singing Cancer with a dubious Jamaican speech pattern . Let ’s also allow aside that there are already non - white mermaids in Disney’sLittle Mermaidcanon .

Not all ocean beast are white . Rainbow fish are not whitened . Orcas are not ( all ) white . Evenwhite fishare mostly black , chocolate-brown , and green .

Manatees , the animals it ’s generally acceptedmermaid myth were basedon , are also not blank , they ’re a sort of brownish - gray , and ostensibly not very attractive . In 1493 , Christopher Columbus , navigate near the Dominican Republic , saw three andwrote that mermaidsare “ not one-half as beautiful as they are painted . "

As for the musical theme a mermaid could n’t make melanin , many specie of whale obviate Sun damage from UV radiation thanks tohigh levels of melanin pigments in their skin , just like humans .

" implement science to mermaids is a rather dizzy thing to do , they are symbols not biological wight . Also , the science I have seen being used is really bad science : Cherry - picking elements of the natural world to argue why Ariel should be pale and redheaded earn no sense,“Sacha Coward , mermaid folklorist and freelance museum professional told IFLScience .

" In these case ' skill ' is being used as a proxy to back up racialism . White people find a sentience of ownership of a symbol from their childhood are adjudicate to employ wacky argumentation to ' keep Ariel white ' . "

" But , just for the hellhole of it : Ariel lives in a warm coral Rand , the biology around her implies she is not of European lineage , " Sir Noel Pierce Coward continues . " White hide and bright red fuzz would also be a dead giveaway to predatory animal . With that in nous , looking at other aquatic mammal , Ariel is comparatively malnourished . A existent mermaid would probably be a great tan - shin creature with plenty of blubber , hairless and silken with boat paddle - same fin ! "

" You see , uncollectible scientific discipline can be used to reason any point you care to make , " he impart . " I ’ve just made the case for Ariel to be throw off as a manatee . "

As well as tricksy scientific discipline , some mass argued that the casting of a black actor go against traditional folklore . However , as Sacha orient out in this excellentTwitter thread , mermaid folklore has long existed around the human race , and like all folklore , is a mirror held up to each social club , hence the portrait of these mythical tool with a variety of skin colors , Pisces parts , and mogul long before she was a singing white carrottop in 1989 .