The Hollywood press has been up in arms this week about Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid performing poorly in East Asian countries, such as China and South Korea.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film “grossed a mere $3.6 million in its first 10 days of release in China” and another “$4.4 million through June 4” in Korea, which insiders cited by the site claim is due to the casting of black actress Halle Bailey in the lead role.
In essence, the implied reason why the movie is doing poorly in these markets is because consumers there are racist. And, indeed, other sites did cite some pretty nasty remarks. But the specific quotations mentioned by The Hollywood Reporter make a (very American) mistake of lumping East Asians together as though they are the same – because they only quote hateful comments from South Korea, not China. To be sure, it would not be surprising if some of these comments existed on Chinese social media, but they were not cited…