It did not fail: the posting of the trailer for the live-action film Peter Pan by Disney+ caused some Internet users to react because Tinker Bell is played by a black actress. Nonsense.
“Can someone explain to me why Tinkerbell is black?”, “They deconstruct the heroes of our childhood”, “we’ll have to stop putting black actresses everywhere!”, “Why making a black bell is of no interest? “, “Disney in the most total wokism, and in an almost laughable ridiculous“…
Here is a small anthology of comments that can be read on Twitter since the release of the trailer for the live action film Peter Pan & Wendy by Disney+.
Because it is the African-American actress Yara Shahidi who was chosen by the studios to play Tinker Bell, the mischievous fairy who accompanies the hero in his adventures. And this is where the shoe pinches for Internet users: that the character is black. And not white with blond hair, like in the 1953 cartoon.
But who said it was an adaptation of this cartoon? Because Peter-Pan is above all a book written in 1901 by James Matthew Barrie and, as the tweet below points out, Tinkerbell’s skin color is never mentioned there.
We even learn that she is overweight – that is to say, she has curves – where Disney made her a very fine little fairy…
A controversy that therefore has no reason to exist since Peter-Pan & Wendy does not betray the basic material at all. No cases of blackwashing or “wokism“here, as some suggest, but a desire to represent all skin colors and make it a universal film.
Peter Pan & Wendy isn’t the only recent Disney to receive this kind of criticism. The Little Mermaid paid the price for this some time ago, when the role of Ariel was given to Halle Bailey, an African-American actress/singer.
In Hans Christian Andersen’s book, she is described there as a mermaid with a luminous complexion (not white). No mention of red hair either…
The controversy had prompted its director Rob Marshall to speak up to justify himself: “We saw everyone and all ethnicities“. Proof that there is still a lot of work to be done to deconstruct the stereotypes created by the old Disney films that have shaped our collective imagination.
Peter Pan & Wendy is expected on April 28 on Disney+.