The furor over Disney’s live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” has been fierce. White people’s struggle to name fictional Black superheroines or princesses that they personally looked up to is very, very real, writes Karen Attiah in Opinions.
” I was waiting for someone to argue that Nala from “The Lion King” should count as a Black princess.The most common and iconic Black female character to come up was the original “Star Trek”’s Lt. Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols in the 1960s and again in a later series of films. Nichols made history as the first Black woman to appear in a leading role on television; it is understandable why she made such an impact on a generation of Americans.
None of this is to say there have been absolutely zero Black superheroines or princesses in pop culture. Tiana is a recent Disney princess. Comic book nerds will remember Misty Knight in “Ms. Marvel”; Vixen from “Justice League” also came up. Now why does my little experiment matter? First of all, superheroines and princesses represent the possibilities of female empowerment, of “specialness.” Whether it is a woman who possesses superhuman abilities to fight for the good of humanity, or a princess who wields social power, privilege and desirability, these are the cultural archetypes of feminine power. The fact that there have been fewer than a handful of Black women characters held up as representative of female power is bad enough.
So back to a Black Ariel. There is an argument to be made that the lazy entertainment corporations need to create and support original Black female characters, not reheat old White characters with Black faces. I agree. Representation without investment in character development and longevity is not the same as progress. How many Black superheroines and princesses, and major hero characters, were birthed only to fade into obscurity? Or to be rewritten as White .
We can only hope that Halle Bailey’s Ariel leads artists and corporations to resurrect forgotten Black superheroines and princesses — and create new ones. Representation is not enough. Inspiration, dedication to and normalization of empowered Black women — that’s where the true magic lies.
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