Never mind

Oh dear.  Once again I feel older than I believe myself to be.  

Owing to a peripatetic youth and adulthood, living in many countries and among many cultures, I have never been especially attuned to popular culture.  Not completely ignorant by any means, but not Trivial Pursuit competitive either.  

I kind of know big movie names and big singer names, and often even which is which.  But it is what you think you know and don't which gets you every time.

I have been aware of the murmuring storm in a tea cup of the race-swapping Disney movie out this year, The Little Mermaid based on the earlier animated version from 1989.  And ultimately based on the Hans Christian Andersen story from 1837.  

Another boring remake of a relatively recent movie with CGI and race-swapping the only two pitches as far as I can tell.  It was all background noise to me as I don't spend much (or really, any) time at movie theaters.  Much ado about nothing.

The only thing that caught any attention on my part was that the role of the little mermaid was apparently played by Halle Berry.  She was big in the 1990s and 2000s as a movie actress.  I saw her in a James Bond movie, Die Another Day in 2002.

Seeing that they were casting a probably 50 or 60 year black actress as the Little Mermaid seemed sort of novel but . . . well, CGI.  Many activists have for years been complaining about Hollywood only ever caring about actresses when they were young, discarding them when they aged.  I was only glancingly curious about the fact that there was all the chatter about race swapping and no apparent commentary about that which seemed to me to be Disney's bold move of casting an older woman as a young girl.  But again, what do I know or care about movies or Disney?  And, well, . . . CGI.

It all came up again this morning in reading about the apparent failure of The Little Mermaid in the Chinese market.  From ‘The Little Mermaid’ Flops in China, Amid Uproar Against Black Ariel by Russell Payne.  

Disney’s live action “The Little Mermaid” has proved to be fairly popular in America, but overseas the film is struggling — especially in China, leading some to believe the market might be trending backwards in terms of acceptance of Black-led movies.

This year’s “The Little Mermaid,” starring a Black actress, Halle Bailey, in the role of Ariel — who is depicted as white in the beloved 1989 animated film — has made just more than $236 million domestically since its May 26 release, according to Box Office Mojo. 

In Communist China, the world’s second-largest film market, the movie has taken in a mere $3.7 million to date. In South Korea and Japan, for comparison, the film has made $4.9 million and $5.1 million, respectively.

OK.  Passingly interesting.  But when was the movie released in Asia.  Are these low revenue numbers apples-to-apples?  I suspect not.  But I really am not that interested in speculating.

Payne is working hard to make this a story about the racist Asians in general and racist Chinese in particular.  They just won't get with the program and watch black American actors because Asian audiences are, well, racist.  

Really, that's what he if focusing on and not the possibility of age?  At last, after all these months, I actually click over to check Halle Berry's age to try and understand what is going on.  

oh.  Never mind.

Double click to enlarge.

I get it.  Halle Berry and Halle Bailey are not the same person. 

Never mind.