As far as the casting controversary, I'm curious to see how the sentiments on it will be viewed years down the line. When you look at the Cinderella with Brandi, there was lots of diversity casting in it, but noone seemed to care and people love that version. Many people were excited when it was announced that she was coming back to play Cinerella in the new Descendants movie. However, it feels like if that same exact movie was released today it would get so much hate from people like this is.
I Ihink there are some things different with Brandi as Cinderella.
1. This day and age, colourblind casting is a much hotter topic today. Especially after everything that happened around this topic in the last few years.
2. They were definitely helped by not explaining anything and that they did it much more obvious. Black queen, white king, Asian prince.
Coming up with a story about Eric being adopted was unneccesary. Especially because they didn't use it to its full potential.
3. It was also helped by having big names in the cast who were also people of colour. Whoopi and Whitney being extremely popular at the time.
Halle had to do it on her own. The supporting cast of colour was not used in the promotion. Still a bit angry at Disney about it, they could have made it easier on her.
4. Cinderella has been told so many times in many different ways. There is less attachment to Disney's story because there are other versions, like Rodgers & Hammerstein, Ever After etc.
5. I think Disney underestimated how attached people were to Ariel. And I think that goes beyond skin colour. To me, I was 5 when the original movie came out, it was much more about how she moved and her hair. Under water scenes work much better in animation. It was like she was flying.
I think people who say Halle is not believable as Ariel have an issue with how she moves. She cannot move as freely in a live action movie. By making it real, you burst the bubble of suspension of disbelief. And I can imagine people might not realize that is what is off for them and get stuck in "it just doesn't look like her".