In the original Peter Pan, the heroine was described as a blonde with blue eyes.
We recently wrote that in the new British adaptation of The Three Musketeers (at the Russian box office from March 23), d’Artagnan went black. This is generally a trend in modern Western cinema: the heroes of classic works are arbitrarily changed by ethnicity. So did Macbeth, played by Denzel Washington, and David Copperfield (recently played by the Indian Dev Patel), who is about to succeed The Little Mermaid (the black Halle Bailey has been chosen for the lead role in the American film in May ).
Now, the same Disney studio that is releasing the playable version of The Little Mermaid (based on the 1989 cartoon) has unveiled the trailer for Peter Pan and Wendy, which will be released in April on Disney+. It is also based on an old animated movie, filmed under the supervision of Walt Disney himself. The studio has been reshooting its classic cartoons with live actors for many years, these projects are countless: there is Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Dumbo and Beauty and the Beast … Both Peter and Wendy in the The new picture remained white, but the miniature fairy Tinkerbell (in the Russian translation of James Barry’s fairy tale she was called Tinker Bell) was played by the black actress Yara Shahidi.
Some on social media have praised the studio for its enthusiasm for promoting ethnic diversity, but not everyone was enthusiastic about it. Many social media users are outraged. One, according to TMZ, writes: “Disney doesn’t bother to make new movies with people of different skin colors. They just take blacks and give them roles that were originally made for whites, and this shows: 1) how lazy Disney is, 2) how racist everything is – they believe that people with a different skin color don’t deserve separate stories (if not talking about cartoons)?
Well, others remember that in the original “Peter Pan” the heroine was described as a blue-eyed blonde, and it is simply wrong to arbitrarily change these features.
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D’Artagnan will be black in the new British film adaptation of The Three Musketeers
The film will be released in Russian theaters on March 16 (more info)
