The Original Voice of Princess Ariel Spoke Out Against the Halle Bailey #NotMyAriel Casting Backlash

From ELLE

Jodi Benson, the actress who voiced Ariel in Disney's two The Little Mermaid films and in the animated series, spoke out this weekend against the Halle Bailey #notmyariel backlash. While many celebrated Bailey being cast in the role for Disney's live-action adaptation of the cartoon, some took issue with a person of color being cast instead of someone white, since Ariel was depicted in the animated film as a white girl with red hair.

Benson stressed during her appearance at the Florida Supercon convention on Saturday that the story is what matters; people need to look beyond outside appearance.

“The most important thing is to tell the story," she started, via Comicbook.com. "And we have, as a family, we have raised our children, and for ourselves, that we don’t see anything that’s different on the outside. I think that the spirit of a character is what really matters. What you bring to the table in a character as far as their heart, and their spirit, is what really counts. And the outside package—'cause let’s face it, I’m really, really old—and so when I’m singing ‘Part of Your World,’ if you were to judge me on the way that I look on the outside, it might change the way that you interpret the song. But if you close your eyes, you can still hear the spirit of Ariel.”

“We need to be storytellers," she continued. "And no matter what we look like on the outside, no matter our race, our nation, the color of our skin, our dialect, whether I’m tall or thin, whether I’m overweight or underweight, or my hair is whatever color, we really need to tell the story. And that’s what we want to do, we want to make a connection to the audience. So I know for Disney that they have the heart of storytelling, that’s really what they’re trying to do. They want to communicate with all of us in the audience so that we can fall in love with the film again.”

Benson is not the only person connected to Disney who has spoken out about the racist backlash to Bailey being cast. Disney's Freeform channel also made a statement on its Instagram directed to those who think a black actress cannot play a Danish princess. (Bailey acts on Freeform show Grown-ish.)

"Yes. The original author of ‘The Little Mermaid’ was Danish," Freeform started its comment. "Ariel…is a mermaid. She lives in an underwater kingdom in international waters and can legit swim wherever she wants (even though that often upsets King Triton, absolute zaddy). But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Ariel, too, is Danish. Danish mermaids can be black because Danish *people* can be black. Ariel can sneak up to the surface at any time with her pals Scuttle and the *ahem* Jamaican crab Sebastian (sorry, Flounder!) and keep that bronze base tight. Black Danish people, and thus mer-folk, can also *genetically* (!!!) have red hair. But spoiler alert—to bring it back to the top—the character of Ariel is a work of fiction. So after all this is said and done, and you still cannot get past the idea that choosing the incredible, sensational, highly-talented, gorgeous Halle Bailey is anything other than the INSPIRED casting that it is because she ‘doesn’t look like the cartoon one,' oh boy do I have some news for you…about you."

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