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‘Peter Pan and Wendy’: Yara Shahidi cast as Tinkerbell in Disney’s live-action, fans anticipate racist backlash

Black fans on Twitter were gearing up for racist backlash to the casting as soon as it was announced, even as several tweets celebrated the casting after it was announced

When news broke about 'Grown-ish' star Yara Shahidi being cast as Tinker Bell in the upcoming live-action Disney film, 'Peter Pan And Wendy', #Tinkerbell started trending on Twitter. Shahidi will be the first Black woman to play the part of Pan’s fairy friend who can be all good or all bad in any given situation, depending on her mood. 'Peter Pan And Wendy' is being directed by David Lowery. Shahidi will be joined by Alexander Molony as Peter, Ever Anderson as Wendy, and Jude Law as the film's villain, Captain Hook.

Several tweets celebrated Yara Shahidi's casting as the iconic fairy character in the beloved children's classic, especially since she will be joining singer and co-star on 'Grownish', Halle Bailey, in the ranks of iconic "Disney princesses". Bailey had been cast as Ariel for the live-action remake 'Little Mermaid' in 2019. One tweet exclaimed: "Halle Bailey as Ariel & Yara Shahidi as Tinkerbell are the live-actions I didn't know I needed", and accompanied the tweet with Shahidi and Bailey in 'reimagined' illustrations of scenes from the original iconic cartoons.

Another tweet, celebrating the casting said: "So first it was Halle as Ariel. Now Yara Shahidi as Tinkerbell. Black queens taking over Disney." However, the celebratory tweets were countered by some tweets that called Disney's move to cast Shahidi as pandering to Black folk. These included fans who wanted "original" Black Disney princesses and others who had always seen Tinker Bell as White and thought the casting was a misstep. 

But a majority of Black Twitter was gearing up for racist backlash to the casting as soon as it was announced. Some tweets anticipated the sort of racist conversations that would comment on the casting, like: "Here come the 'I’m not racist but why?' 'Tinkerbell is clearly white' 'now everything has to be black'”. Another echoed this sentiment, saying: "Within minutes the thread is gonna b full of sh*t like 'Disney is ruining my childhood tinkerbell is supposed to be WHITE and BLONDE she’s not black.'"     

Another tweet reminded everyone that in the original play, a "spot of light" was used to depict the fairy and that Disney's Tinkerbell was imagined as blonde and white by Walt Disney and there was no reason not to imagine her differently. Other tweets asked why no one said a word when Tiger Lily, a Native American character was played by a White actress, Rooney Mara, posting pictures of the actress in 'war paint' for the movie's poster. Mara, herself, has regretted being on the wrong side of the debate with respect to whitewashing because of her Tiger Lily role.

However, others just dared anyone coming up with hateful tweets, rejoicing that Disney's Ariel and Tinkerbell were going to be played by Black actresses. In one exchange, replying to a tweet that said, "we got the little mermaid and tinkerbell, what y'all gonna do now??", another user said: "i know the white disney lovers losing their minds right now 'that is NOT my tinkerbell'. well that it's mine, so what now."

As of now, there is still no news about when the movie will start shooting. These casting announcements have comes after the critical failure of 'Mulan', the latest Disney live-action film that was released as a premium VOD and after Disney faced censure from John Boyega about the treatment of POC characters in 'Star Wars'.