The Little Mermaid sparks outrage for encouraging ‘girls to give up their voice for a man’

Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid has faced backlash from Paloma Faith for allegedly promoting a negative message to young girls.

Disney has been widely praised for the recently released live action remake; for casting its first Black Ariel (Halle Bailey) and adapting one of the song's lyrics to stress the importance of consent.

However, after seeing the film with her two children, 'Better Than This' singer Paloma Faith took to Instagram to share one aspect of the movie she didn't agree with.

Unfortunately for Faith, hell hath no fury like a true Disney fan, and it doesn't help one of her past tweets came back to haunt her either.

Disney

The mother-of-two took to Instagram after going to see the movie with her kids.

She wrote: "Just seen the new little mermaid with my kids and while I think Halle gives a good performance and it's great casting, as a mother of girls I don't want my kids to think it's ok to give up your entire voice and your powers to love a man.

"Wtf is this s**t?! Not what I want to be teaching next gen women at all."

However, others who've seen the film have since flooded to social media to defend The Little Mermaid.

Instagram/ @palomafaith

Evie Magazine took to Twitter to respond: "Before you scream in feminist...

"Ariel in The Little Mermaid doesn't give up her voice for a man. She gives up her voice to be human.

"Falling in love is one of her human experiences, but it wasn't the reason. 'Part of Your World' literally is all about this."

"Not only is this the exact same plot from the original movie, but I’m tired of this narrative because if y’all actually paid ATTENTION to the movie you’d know Ariel wanted to be human WAY before she even saw and fell in love with Eric so she didn’t give up her voice for a MAN," another wrote.

Twitter/ @Palomafaith

A third brought up an unfortunate old tweet of Faith's from 2009 which reads: "When i grow up i want to be the little mermaid." - That's got to sting.

"It’s even funnier because the animated version is the one where it’s all about a boy, while the live action is much more than a boy," a fourth added.

And a final wrote: "Ariel’s arc in The Little Mermaid encouraged me to pursue my dreams and ambitions. She was, and remains, a great role model for little girls everywhere."

Topics: Entertainment, Parenting, Social media, TV And Film, Celebrity

Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck is a Senior Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. Poppy is most comfortable when chatting about all things mental health, is proving a drama degree is far from useless by watching and reviewing as many TV shows and films as possible and is such a crisp fanatic the office has been forced to release them in batches.