The Little Mermaid’s whirlwind week

Last weekend at Disney’s D23 Expo, the company teased a first look at Halle Bailey as Ariel in a live-action version of The Little Mermaid.

The teaser rapidly garnered 104m views — far more eyeballs than other Disney live-action flicks — despite not including views from the UK, Ireland, and Australia due to Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

Much of the conversation surrounding the clip has been centered around Bailey being Black.

• TikToks of parents filming their kids’ joyous reactions to the video have popped off. Elsewhere, a computer vision engineer used AI to turn Bailey’s Ariel into a redheaded white woman, to many’s disdain.
• The internet, being the internet, went so far as to have a marine biologist from the National Museum of Natural History explain why mermaids would probably have dark skin.

How about we all just sit back and enjoy the trailer’s awesome graphics and Bailey’s beautiful voice?