Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash
Tonight I sang “Part of Your World” to my infant daughter and for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was singing a song I wasn’t supposed to. And I told her that if they remake the movie in 25 years, maybe she will get to be Ariel. And the best part of all that was it felt truly deep in my heart 100% POSSIBLE.
College was weird. I had a couple acting professors who I really connected with, one in community college and one after I transferred to university. Nobody else, really. I felt cornered in college because of my race. I was never given a song to sing with a boy, always 3 girls and one of them was the other non-white student in the class. And we sang a song about being whores. Material I didn’t want to sing was forced on me because I was Asian.
I was always asked to perform Asian monologues. WHY THO? I’m an American. I was born and raised here. Why couldn’t I perform any of the countless monologues about anything else but what I looked like or where my parents came from?
Halle Bailey cast as Ariel hit me in the heart. I loved The Little Mermaid growing up. Ariel was my favorite Disney princess until Pocahontas came along (because I kind of looked like her). And of course in the back of my mind, I always thought I could never be the pretty lead. Maybe I could be the friend.
Right now, it doesn’t feel like “Maybe you can go to the Philippines and become an actor.” No. She…WE can stay right here.
My mom is filipino and I remember being told as a kid that “I could really be successful as a model in the Philippines” as if I weren’t good enough to be successful here. I remember feeling really conflicted and weird about those comments as a child. I am sorry this was your experience! Thank you for sharing this post.
Oh I feel this so hard. I was told the same thing. Like, am I not good enough here as an American actor of Filipino descent? A lot of internalized hatred that I’ve had to work hard to overcome.
I hate how race matters so much to people. You are amazing just the way you are! ❤️
I love this! Isn’t it beautiful to see our world evolving and broadening horizons passed skin color? I was so glad to see Halle Bailey gain the role of Ariel!
It has changed so much since I was in college. My college experience was incredibly frustrating, but young performers of color have it a little easier, thank goodness.
I was really glad to see her get the role as Ariel, she is really cute and talented!
I’ve never heard of her before this but she has such a gorgeous voice!
This is definitely going to be interesting to see. I personally never thought about the races of cartoon characters before but I can see how if you don’t see yourself in the character, it’s hard to relate. We should definitely have more diversity especially to fictional characters.
And mermaids aren’t even real! So in my opinion there is absolutely room for flexible casting 🙂