“Little Mermaid” Gets Woke’d Up Music Re-Write

(Daily360.com) – The very popular Disney 1989 animated classic “The Little Mermaid” is getting a full woke-era makeover. For the new live-action version, the role of Ariel was given not to an actress resembling the original cartoon character but rather an actress of color named Halle Bailey to add more ‘diversity’ to the mermaid fable. This change led to a minor social media controversy where users used artificial intelligence to alter the film’s trailer morphing Bailey into an actress more resembling the original Ariel. The ensuing controversy led to spirited replies and dialog which ended with the user who made the parody being banned from Twitter.

The Ariel re-imagine is just one aspect of the overall re-working of the story, the music will also be ‘updated.’ Two well-known songs from the film will be sanitized. Composer Alan Menken seems less than thrilled with the rewrite mandate. For the song “Kiss the Girl” Menken referred to people offended by the lyrics as “poor unfortunate souls” trying to position the song as belittling women. As the story of the film goes on, the villain called Ursula convinces Ariel in order to win the prince she must give up her voice. The point of the song coincides with that plot point and is not indicating women shouldn’t speak out of turn as detractors suggest. The changes being made are to appease people who are demanding that Ariel must give verbal permission to be kissed by Prince Eric. Per the story, Ariel is so determined to meet and kiss Prince Eric she will pay any price, and the villain is manipulating her to give up her voice, this is the essence of the story now being cleansed.

The other song undergoing re-education is “Poor Unfortunate Souls” which is sung by the villain, Ursula. Those changes have not been made public yet. People who would like to see the story not be censored point out this is the villain, she’s supposed to say things that are not empowering to the main character Ariel. The new and ‘improved’ “Little Mermaid” is slated to be released on May 26th of this year.