This year in Tundra Class, we have been studying the new Little Mermaid movie as part of our Black History Month studies.
The latest live action film was a great moment in Black History, as Disney cast Halle Bailey as the first ever Black Ariel.
To celebrate this great moment in history, we will be writing independent Film Reviews based on the latest movie.
To assist with our studies, we looked at the original fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen and compared how the film version had been adapted, exploring reasons why. We then looked at the latest adaptation of the classic fairy tale, summarising the key events, differences and creating story boards to help us in the process.
We explored some of the unfortunate negative backlash the film received, due to the news of Disney casting their first ever Black Ariel. We discussed how it must feel for people from Black and minority backgrounds to experience such racism and considered why it is important that Black and other ethnic minorities are represented within mainstream media.
As the final part of preparation before writing our film reviews, we were fortunate enough to interview a cast member from the Live action film. We prepared a list of questions and asked them all to Sienna King, who played Tamika (one of Ariel’s sisters) from the film.
She spoke to us about her experience filming, shared some behind the scenes footage and answered all of our burning questions.
This was a great session and we are amazed to find out how much work was put into creating this fantastic adaptation of the original tale.
We can wait to start planning and writing our film reviews.
Thank you, Sienna King for coming to visit us and St Mark’s C of E School!
