Please, God, Stop Arguing About Petty Shit

(The Black Ariel Edition)

I don't care about Black Ariel.

I'm not saying this to virtue signal. I actually do. not. care. who plays a fictional Disney princess in a live-action remake.

I don't care about this the same way I didn't care when Scarlett Johansson was cast for Ghost in the Shell.

The guy who played Matt Murdock in the Daredevil series on Netflix didn't have red hair. It didn't matter. He was awesome. That show was awesome.

In the Marvel 616, Tony Stark is tall and has blue eyes. Robert Downey Jr.? He's an adorable munchkin with brown eyes. Doesn't matter. For the next fifty years, people will actually riot if they try to reboot Iron Man. This is incontrovertible. RDJ is definitive.

I was a big-time theater kid. The production of Fiddler on the Roof we did when I was fourteen had a white guy playing Tevye and an African American girl playing Chava. Why? Because those were the kids who impressed the directors at our auditions. In most situations, this is how casting should go.

Who had an excellent audition? Who screen-tests well? Who meshes well with other potential cast members? Who has chemistry? Unless we're casting for a work depicting real people, these should be the only questions at the forefront of a casting director's mind. Have casting directors always lived up to that standard? Hell no. But that doesn't vitiate the principle.

I'm 100% confident your average American agrees with me. But, of course, so-called "journalists" had to track down the few crank Twitter accounts complaining about Black Ariel to gin up a phony controversy because, apparently, they have nothing better to do. Either that or they have no confidence in Halle Bailey and therefore feel they have to prepare the battle space ahead of time. If I were Halle Bailey, I'd be insulted.

In any case, here we are now arguing about something that doesn't. actually. matter. The social justice left is being obnoxious, so people on my side feel the need to respond. Honestly? At this point, maybe we need to stop taking the bait and try ignoring these assholes into oblivion instead.

Let's focus on the social justice left's attempts to destroy the philosophical foundations of liberal democracy -- and let Twitter bullshit stay on Twitter.