Pop Culture Brain

Pop Culture Brain

Share this post

Pop Culture Brain
Pop Culture Brain
'Little Mermaid' flops in China
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

'Little Mermaid' flops in China

Plus, did Apple just tease a 'Lasso' spin off?

Jun 06, 2023
∙ Paid

Share this post

Pop Culture Brain
Pop Culture Brain
'Little Mermaid' flops in China
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Share

What to know

  • Little Mermaid flops in China and South Korea, THR blames racist backlash… It seems the colorblind casting of Ariel might have hurt the movie in Asia. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the backlash against Halle Bailey spread fiercely across Chinese and Korean social media and had a real impact on the movie’s performance. It’s made under $5M in each market so far (for comparison, Fast X is at $125 million in China). It’s a real shame that this is happening because it’s obviously so regressive at a time when we need representation — and it could motivate Disney to avoid such progressive decisions in the future. Hopefully, it doesn’t, but the international markets are important to its bottom line. What a bummer. 🧜🏾‍♀️

Upgrade to a full Pop Culture Brain Daily subscription for $1/month or $6/year.

Get 80% off forever

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Pop Culture Brain to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Alex Rabinowitz
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More