The Little Mermaid: Halle Bailey’s doll has become one of the best-selling toys in the United States

A blockbuster release in Hollywood is always accompanied by a series of spin-offs. Marketing revenue for these toys and accessories can be several billion dollars. And in this market, Disney is king. Inevitably, The Little Mermaid’s arrival in theaters is a great opportunity for studio profits.

The Halle Bailey doll, which embodies Ariel, created by the company Mattel, has become one of the best-selling toys in the United States. It ranks first in sales on Amazon. Some US stores like Target just don’t have it in stock.

Although there are no figures to estimate its sales more precisely, this success says something about the enthusiasm generated by the choice of the actor to play the title role. However, the game was far from over.

On July 3, 2019, singer Holly Bailey was announced in the project. The news led to a flood of hate messages, mostly racist, on social media. The object of this anger? The skin color of the young woman is black. In 1989 animated versionAriel is white and for some it’s a hard pill to swallow.

Faced with such negative feedback, the firm issues a press release a few days later to remind them that the heroine is first and foremost a fictional character, a mermaid who suggests that her skin color doesn’t matter. Obviously, especially since the adaptation of the Disney studio no longer has much to do with Andersen’s Danish fairy tale.

I don’t pay attention to the negative.

Online, detractors, mostly adults, even used the hashtag #NotMyAriel – Not My Ariel in French – with plenty of montages blaming the then 19-year-old actress. The latter breaks his silence a month later, in August 2019, at the microphone variety :”I feel like I’m dreaming, I feel lucky and I don’t pay attention to the negative.”

Director Rob Marshall also has to explain himself Entertainment Weekly :”We saw all and sundry nationalities. We were just looking for the best actress for Ariel. period.” No explanation could calm the most furious game.

In September 2022, when the first trailer for the film was released, several videos of little black girls reacting to the images hit the Internet. Many expressed their joy – and their surprise – at seeing a heroine who shares their skin color. in the interview guardThe actor explains:Seeing Ariel Black as a child would change my life..”

The success of the produced product proves that the participation of Halle Bailey meets real expectations. Younger audiences who see this new Ariel as a type of heroine are usually more wary of screens.

Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid, in theaters now.