Josh Gad Calls Out Trolls Hating on the ‘Little Mermaid’ Trailer

The actor slammed the 'pathetic' trolls and their response to the movie's preview.

Josh Gad, who played Gaston in the live-action Beauty and the Beast and voices Olaf in the Frozen franchise, slammed the people hating on the upcoming The Little Mermaid live-action movie and its first trailer.

After the first trailer premiered during the 2023 Oscars, the Twitter account @CalltoActivism tweeted, "BREAKING: The YouTube trailer of The Little Mermaid is currently being mass 'disliked' on Youtube by MAGA racists. The teaser trailer has generated over 3 million dislikes, and the new trailer has over 600,000."

The tweet continues, "The important thing about the controversy surrounding Halle Bailey's casting is that we remember a beautiful and talented actress won the role. We can’t allow racism to ever be normalized."

Gad responded to the tweet, calling out the racist response to the film, the first trailer, and its star, Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel.

He wrote, "Imagine being so broken and pathetic in life that your chief concern is the skin color of… a make-believe singing mermaid."

Many people agreed with his statement in the replies, as one person wrote, "What bothers me is: Halle Bailey is adorable! She is a perfect Ariel, and she’s got the voice of an angel. How can anyone be angry with that?"

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After Gad tweeted about the criticism, many pointed out that the dislike counter was removed from YouTube in late 2021, meaning the original tweet's numbers are likely inaccurate.

However, the dislikes are still counted by the social media platform, and it's possible to view them with a search engine extension. The @CalltoActivism account did not comment on how they collected the information.

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In a recent interview with The Face, Bailey said of the racist backlash, "As a Black person, you just expect it and it’s not really a shock anymore."

She went on to say that when she and her sister, Chloe Bailey, signed to Beyoncé's record label, the "BREAK MY SOUL" singer told them, "I never read my comments. Don’t ever read the comments."

Bailey kept that in mind when the Little Mermaid teaser trailer came out: "Honestly, when the teaser came out, I was at the D23 Expo [the biggest Disney fan event] and I was so happy. I didn’t see any of the negativity.”

The new Little Mermaid live-action film, which also stars Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, and Jonah Hauer-King, is set to hit theaters on May 26, 2023.

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