its really weird how thorough it is and there are a ton of examples. new spiderman movies, mary jane is black. little mermaid black. starfire black (though still a redhead, which is interesting). triss in the witcher is black (though brunette in the books not the game). orphan annie is black now. wally west is now black (flash movie). they turned cyclone (a redhead with storm powers) into a black lady, which is kinda a trope at this point... hawk girl is black now, cw rendition of arrow. bat woman is black now. april o'neil from TMNT. heimdall in the marvel comics was a redhead but black now. beau from she-ra was redheaded but black now. the thing's wife is now black. alice monahan from hellboy is now black. artemis in wonder woman used to be a redhead. judge renslayer in loki (from the most recent thing). bat girl is black now. the character design of domino in deadpool is very cool though.
i think itd be lit if we got some historical african religious stories with a fantastical twist, i really would like to see some authentic stuff rather than just copy pasting black people over redheads. wakanda is an example but the fusion there does africa dirty, i think. theres so many cultures and so many dead myths and religions to explore that simply havent even been considered. they could make some fantastic watching material that no one has considered or seen before.
or just come up with new characters and weave them into plot importance
Reminds me of a point my friend made about which comic characters can just be POC and which would need actual changes. Like Captain America if it is Rogers then that changes everything, and even different characters like Sam Wilson need to have the racism of the symbol of America be addressed earnestly. Batman on the other hand more easily can be black, same with Peter Parker Spider-Man.
A lot of media really does try to act colorblind, with no understanding or care for the fact that all those unique experiences POCs face that we talk about mattering, actually carry over and you can't just write a white story and call it a day.
With Little Mermaid, you have the whole of mythology to work with, but instead take a European novel based on some French folklore. If it has to be name recognition then do a story more specific to mermaids in African culture like Mami Wata, Njuzu, Aycayla, or Jengu. I am glad these films are getting more diversity, and if it is between a white-lead remake and a black-lead remake then the latter is the best route, but we need to not just relegate black leads to existing roles in European stories
Yeah the title "the little mermaid" could be used to describe fucking anyone, and you can just have a different mermaid - it can take place in the same world and timeline, just far away.
You could even share characters, if you set it just a few years apart. Younger Ursula could come by doing something bad or whatever, and maybe getting owned by the African mermaids really fucks her up