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More proof that racism rots your brain
Adult males are triggered by a little mermaid. Disney recently released a trailer for a new live-action version of The Little Mermaid starring Black actor Halle Bailey, and it sparked a depressing and predictable racist backlash. The trailer received 1.5 million dislikes on YouTube and caused many fanatics to connive. If you get a sense of déjà vu about all of this is because the same people already had a meltdown in 2019 when the live-action remake was first announced.
It’s not just the Little Mermaid: people on the right, people who like to tell liberals to harden snowflake, regularly get their panties in a twist on lively entertainment aimed at the four-to-12-year-old crowd. There seems to be a backlash to on-screen diversity every five minutes. Earlier this month, for example, the right worried about a lesbian family of polar bears in Peppa Pig. I don’t know how they have the energy to care about cartoon polar bears; it must be really exhausting.
While there may not be anything new about fanatics raging on animated entertainment, this particular backlash is notable because of how lopsided the response has been. An anonymous computer scientist, for example, went to the trouble of using artificial intelligence to whitewash Halle Bailey’s appearance in the trailer. A Twitter account (now suspended) gleefully shared the edited trailer, announcing, “Thank you to our AI scientist meme. He fixed The Little Mermaid and turned the awake actor into a red-haired white girl. Shortly after, the Twitter account added, “This is purely for educational purposes, please don’t misinterpret this racistly.” Uh huh.
Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh has also spent far more time thinking about the physiology of fictional creatures than health. Walsh told viewers of his eponymous show that “from a scientific point of view, it doesn’t make much sense to have someone with darker skin living on the bottom of the ocean. If anything be it, not only should the Little Mermaid be pale, it should actually be translucent. If you look at the deep sea creatures, they are translucent. They don’t have any kind of pigmentation… [The Little Mermaid] should be totally pale and skeletal where you can see his skull through his face.
Walsh later said what all racists say when people call them: his statement about an unscientific black mermaid was a joke! Which would have been a much more compelling argument had Walsh not built his brand on far-right views.
Walsh clearly has an active imagination, so I’d like to suggest a little thought experiment: try imagining a world where you grew up rarely seeing someone like you being a hero on screen. Walsh is an able-bodied white male in his thirties. He grew endlessly from TV shows and movies featuring boys who looked just like him. If you take this representation for granted, it can be difficult to understand how important it is to see yourself included in popular culture. It can be hard to understand how dehumanizing it is to constantly receive the message that people like you can never be heroes. I’m speaking from personal experience here: the other day I found myself unexpectedly shedding a tear because Mo Amer was on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon talking about how his new netflix show, Mo, is “the very first show created by, starring a Palestinian, and showing a Palestinian family on television”. As a Palestinian, I wish there was something like Mo on TV when I was little.
The nine millionth remake of The Little Mermaid might not be something you’re personally interested in, but try to imagine how important it is for a little girl to see someone who looks like her play a heroine in the movie. ‘screen. There’s a very healthy TikTok trend of black girls watching The Little Mermaid trailer and ecstatic that she’s like me! She is like me ! If your reaction to little girls feeling included is to dismiss that as “woke,” then there’s something wrong with you. Not only are you a bad human, you are also a bad capitalist. The United States is becoming more and more diverse, whether people like Walsh like it or not. In 2019, non-whites and Hispanics made up the majority of people under the age of 16 for the first time. Forgive my cynicism, but I don’t think Disney isn’t trying to be “woke” with The Little Mermaid. It simply responds to good old market forces.
PMS is a ‘key global public health problem’, new study finds
Researchers surveyed 238,000 people in 140 countries about the effects of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). They found (unsurprisingly!) that PMS is incredibly common and “a majority of women said their PMS symptoms interfered with their daily life at least occasionally.”
How have history and science shaped the gender of our emotions?
This week I spoke to Pragya Agarwal about her new book, Hysterical, which examines how we gender emotions. You can watch the event, hosted by the RSA, for free here.
A growing number of men are experiencing leg pain lengthening surgery
It costs $75,000 for the procedure which adds between three to six inches to your height and involves breaking both of your femurs. A man interviewed by GQ said he was keeping the operation a secret and was going to tell everyone his extra centimeters were a side effect of the Covid vaccine. While it’s hilarious, the story itself is a sad reminder that gendered expectations affect both men and women equally.
Appeal raises $150,000 for girl ordered to pay family of accused rapist she killed
A tiny bit of good news in a story that will make your blood boil.
Floods in Pakistan put pregnant women at risk
A third of the country is flooded and nearly 650,000 women in the affected areas need maternity services.
Beige flags: the warning signs that say you’re too boring to go out with
Having strong opinions about where pineapple should fit on a pizza is apparently one of them.
The week in pawntriarchy
A few weeks ago, a Reddit user with a very active imagination came up with a crazy theory that a chess champion had used vibrating anal beads that indicated the best moves. This theory somehow came to life and became a huge scandal in the chess world. Now, a popular cam site is offering grandmaster Hans Niemann $1 million to broadcast naked playing a live game of chess in order to refute the charges. It’s up to you, Niemann.