We Need to Feel Seen
Vicky Quinn Fraser
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There is a new Disney movie coming out, and it’s a live-action version of The Little Mermaid!
Hurrah!
Except… this one is somehow, incomprehensibly, controversial.
Because Ariel is played by Halle Bailey, who is… Black.
Oh my gosh.
A Black mermaid.
The controversy is not the fact that a woman completely abandons her voice and identity and home and sparkly tail in order to become an acceptable bride for a mediocre dude who abandons her anyway (yep that’s the original), or the fact that Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Little Mermaid as a queer man who was looking for love in a time when that wasn’t possible for him…
Nope.
It’s that she’s Black.
One reason this is so frustrating and exhausting is this: if people are getting so butthurt about a Black mermaid, imagine what it’s like for a Black person actually arriving in a real-life role at a real company in the real world.
If a fictional character can’t even be portrayed as Black, whew.
So yeah. This matters.
Because look at this:
I cried and cried the first time I saw these reaction videos on the internets because look at these kids.
Look how delighted they are to see themselves in a Disney princess.
This is something I will never have to experience in this way—I’m so used to seeing myself everywhere. There are few situations I can’t imagine myself in, because there are few situations I’m not represented in.
And for straight white men, there are almost no spaces that don’t belong to them, no roles they can’t see themselves in.
This is why representation matters so damn much—yes, this is a Disney film, but it’s a step. Little Black and brown girls everywhere will see that movie and think, “I could do that. I could act in any role. I could be a flippin’ mermaid.”
It’s not enough for an engineering company, for example, to say, “We’ll hire anyone but we don’t get any (or enough) Black or female applicants.”
Because take a look at their website or their job ad or the staff page on their website, and you won’t see those people represented. And so of course Black people and women won’t apply—it’s not a welcoming environment. If we can’t see ourselves represented there, the subtle message is, “this job, this workplace, isn’t for you.”
Take a look all-white, all-male panels at business events—they don’t scream “come and play” if you’re not white and male.
And all those books on the English GCSE curriculum are still dominated by dusty old white dudes. (No shade to Shakespeare here.)
As if there are no other viewpoints or stories worth sharing.
As if literature, fictional and nonfiction, stopped in 1800s Europe.
If you’re from an underrepresented demographic, write your story. If you’re Black, or Asian, or brown, or any other colour of non-white, or queer, or neurodiverse, or disabled—tell your story because people will be grateful you did. Find someone who will support you to do so with your whole self, because we do exist.
That’s crucial.
But if you’re white and neurotypical and straight and able-bodied and especially male, use that privilege and power to demand more diversity from the publishing industry!
Seek out books by people who are unlike you.
Champion writers and authors and storytellers who come from a different background.
Ask your local libraries and bookshops for books by authors who’ll show you a different world and a different way to move through it.
Then share them with other people who might not find them on their own.
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Parenting & Family Communication Coach | DISC Personality Insights for Parents & Educators | Speaker & Author | Family Advocate
2 年I'm looking forward to its release as well. Seeing the reactions of girls all over the world who see someone who looks like them has been priceless. I know my future daughter-in-law who is biracial was thrilled.
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2 年Love this ?? Vicky Quinn Fraser. I am in total agreement with your statement about representations at events and in company marketing materials. I am exposed to that every week at work when various companies hire space to deliver training, have conferences, seminars, etc. At their break times when I pop my head out of my office for the long-awaited toilet break...lol, all I often see is a sea of white males all dressed and looking the same...not a black or brown face in sight. Now don't get me wrong, at times, I may spot the odd black or brown face, but then it is literally 1 or 2, and usually male, very few females. So for me, I have to keep asking myself WHY...why am I still seeing this in 2022? We are still NOT being SEEN!