If you somewhat frequently browse the comment sections of Instagram or Facebook posts about film casting, you may notice some discourse around the race swapping of characters in various films. While this debate isn’t new, one of the most significant moments came from Disney’s live action of The Little Mermaid, when Halle Bailey, a black actress, was cast as Ariel who was originally a white character. Unfortunately, the debate around race swapping in films doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon, so let’s unpack some of it.   

The easiest rebuttal of these complaints is this: Mermaids are not real. It does not matter what colour her skin is. I could give people the benefit of the doubt and say they’re just adjusting to aspects of change, but the character isn’t going anywhere. The original movies still exist. Secondly, changing the colour of a character’s features does not fundamentally change who the character is, only how they look.                                                             

Another issue with the discourse is the way it erases the identities of mixed-race actors. This is exactly what happened to Nico Parker when she was cast as Astrid in the new How to Train Your Dragon live action film. People complained that Astrid had essentially been race swapped, and while Nico will always be both African American and white, the chronically online were only focused on one aspect of her racial identity, and that meant she wasn’t white enough to them. No one else has the right to tell someone that they are “not enough” of their identity.                                                                                                        

One argument against race swapping that does manage to stand however, is the way it encourages laziness in companies simply looking for a cash grab. Instead of making original, culturally diverse movies to celebrate another ethnicity they chose to swap the race of an already existing character.       

Ultimately, race is not a be-all, end all. If we put as much energy into creating an industry that holds greedy corporations accountable for their actions as we do complaining about a black mermaid, the world would be a much better place.