A New Generation of Dreamers
When I was in elementary school, my favorite fairytale was “Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp.” It follows the story of a clever young Black girl who lives with her mother in an area full of nefarious creatures: haunts, witches, “gobligooks,” etc. Each day, Liza Lou’s mother tasks her with an errand and she must find a way to get through the treacherous swamp and complete it without succumbing to various dangers. No big deal for Liza Lou. She skirts peril with pure ingenuity each time, triumphing over her foes with a quick-witted, cunning scheme before skipping off to her destination. With her meticulously groomed afro and her hands on her hips, she showed me that Black girls could conquer anything.
I thought of Liza Lou when Halle Bailey, a Black singer and actress, was announced for the role of princess Ariel for Disney’s upcoming live-action version of “The Little Mermaid.” When the trailer came out, my TikTok feed was overrun with videos of young Black kids watching the television with wide, twinkly cartoon eyes as Halle gazed up at the surface with the same longing expression Ariel has had since 1989. “Mommy, she’s Black!” one girl exclaimed, her gaping smile reflecting both shock and awe.
That’s what a fairytale can do when it’s made with you in mind.
These stories are meant to stretch our imagination, guide us toward a new conception of reality where magic really does exist and nothing is impossible. A forgotten stepdaughter who cleans cinders can become the princess of an entire kingdom with the help of a fairy godmother and some lovable mice. A princess comes back to life with a true love's kiss. A beast is made human again even after the last petal falls from an enchanted rose. As a child I devoured these fairytales as a mesmerized yet distant spectator, trying desperately to picture myself in Cinderella’s blue dress, surrounded by swirls of twinkling fairy dust. But I knew that these enchanted worlds weren't mine to live in, and the big fairytale project never worked as it was intended to. Maybe the impossible can be possible — just not for me.
Prior to Halle Bailey’s casting, Disney had only had one other prominent Black princess who spent the majority of the movie as a frog. While I had the VHS tape for the 1997 made-for-TV version of “Cinderella” that starred Brandy and Whitney Houston, I never got to see it on a screen bigger than an Etch A Sketch. Both the heartfelt positive responses and the fierce online backlash against the new Ariel film remind us that fairytales can be incredibly powerful. When these stories feature Black leads in previously white roles, Black kids start imagining themselves doing the impossible. It’s a subtle revolution, but it's revolutionary nonetheless.
In an interview with entertainment magazine Variety last August, Bailey said, “I want the little girl in me and the little girls just like me who are watching to know that they’re special, and that they should be a princess in every single way…That reassurance was something that I needed.” I picture Liza Lou drifting peacefully along the waters of the Yeller Belly Swamp, the first character who showed me I could be the center of my own imaginative possibilities.
Ariel is not just a fictional character — she and her fantastical comrades make up the cultural fabric this new generation will be raised on. She is inextricably linked to their collective psyche, just like Liza Lou and the other fairy tales we grew up on were linked to ours. This means a new generation of Black kids will be empowered to dream. That’s pretty magical.