Disney’s new live-action remake of The Little Mermaid misses the mark according to lefty New York Times columnist Wesley Morris, who penned a review this week decrying a lack of “kink” in the children’s movie.
“Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing,” he wrote.
The Little Mermaid was initially based on the Danish folktale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and was made into one of Disney’s first animated princess movies. The tale featured a rebellious redheaded mermaid seeking to escape her well-meaning father, King Triton, and his underwater kingdom and marry a handsome sailor prince. To do so, the mermaid, Ariel, makes a deal with Ursula, the sea witch, to turn into a human in exchange for putting up her voice and soul as collateral if she cannot get the prince to kiss her in three days. Ariel strikes the bargain against her father’s wishes, and so begins the adventure.
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By the end, Prince Eric kills Ursula to save Ariel, showing Ariel’s father that humans are not as vicious, dangerous, and otherwise useless as he feared. He blesses Ariel and Eric to be married, transforming his daughter into a human himself.
In the remake, several details are different. Aside from using somewhat lackluster CGI to replace the vivid animation of the twentieth century, several characters have been race-swapped. What’s more, in the movie’s climax, Ariel kills Ursula herself while Eric is incapacitated, raising some questions about Triton’s change of heart in this version.
However, this “culturally reparative work” of modifying a classic was insufficient for the New York Times. Columnist Wesley Morris knocks the children’s film for not involving enough “kink” and for attempting not to “offend.”
“The new, live-action “The Little Mermaid” is everything nobody should want in a movie: dutiful and defensive, yet desperate for approval. It reeks of obligation and noble intentions. Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing. The movie is saying, “We tried!” Tried not to offend, appall, challenge, imagine. A crab croons, a gull raps, a sea witch swells to Stay Puft proportions: This is not supposed to be a serious event.”
Several observers on Twitter took serious issue with the columnist’s word choice.
The New York Times complaining about the lack of “kink” in The Little Mermaid pretty much sums up where we’re at. Corrupt perverts in charge, abject degeneracy proud on full display, their contempt for traditional values transformed into a seething hatred for ordinary people. pic.twitter.com/GxDIqXOBjs
— Martyr Made 🦉🪓 (@martyrmade) May 28, 2023
The New York Times just put up a review of the Little Mermaid where the reviewer complains that KINK was missing from the film. The definition of kink: a person’s unusual sexual preferences. Same media denies the left sexualizes kids. The reviewer needs his hard drives reviewed. pic.twitter.com/mw8g09dv5h
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 28, 2023
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The article argues that Disney has historically been racist and chauvinistic in its traditional work and applauds its efforts to make “live-action corrections.”
“For years now, Disney’s been atoning for the racism and chauvinism and de facto whiteness of its expanded catalog (it owns Pixar and Marvel, too), in part by turning its nettlesome cartoons into live-action corrections.”
Remember that Disney has made several original animated films involving non-white characters, including The Princess and the Frog, Moana, and Encanto. But to Morris, these examples are all counterbalanced by live-action remakes like The Little Mermaid, which doesn’t go far enough in his mind and the mind of many progressives. Morris calls those preferring re-makes to be true to the original “purists and trolls,” but disappointedly writes that due to the movie’s limited changes, “Sadly, the haters don’t have much to worry about.
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