An Aquatic Tale of The Little Mermaid (2023)
The live-action remake brings adventure and shows viewers why representation is important in a Disney Princess movie.

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.
The live-action remake brings adventure and shows viewers why representation is important in a Disney Princess movie.
This is not a slavery story, it is a freedom story. The viewers only see Harriet as a slave for the first few minutes of the film. To me, it felt like watching the origin story of a superhero…which is both good and bad.
Cord Jefferson's hilarious and thought-provoking film continues a long-standing cinematic tradition, expanding the conversation around the impact of systemic racism in today's media.
A refreshing twist is that all the kids’ powers are…kind of useless. There’s a kid who can only move in slow motion, a kid who has every power in the world but can only use them randomly, and our main character Missy who has no powers at all. The thesis of the film seems to be that it doesn’t matter what kind of powers you have, its the way you use them, which is good for the warm and fuzzies.
Celebrate Pride with these movies and TV shows available on popular streaming services. (Good news: a lot of them are available for free.)
While the film didn’t hit me as emotionally as I wanted it to, I still enjoyed it. I simply wish there was a little more, particularly with the world building.