AI Artist Facing Internet's Fury For 'Fixing' The Little Mermaid Trailer

An AI artist has edited Disney's new The Little Mermaid teaser trailer by replacing actor Halle Bailey with a white woman, and internet has lost its mind.  Twitter user @TenGazillioinIQ used AI technology to turn Halle Bailey into a white-skinned woman with fire-red hair, much like her previous animated Disney counterpart.

Twitter

Promoting the AI artist's work, another user shared a side-by-side of the original The Little Mermaid trailer with Halle Bailey, and the altered version that "turned the woke actor into a ginger white girl."

The tweet from a now-suspended Twitter account had read: "Credits to our memer Artificial Intelligence scientist @TenGazillioinIQ.

"He fixed The Little Mermaid, and turned the woke actor into a ginger white girl. He says he can fix the whole move comes out with 4x A6000 in 24 hours. It's over for wokecels"

In a follow-up tweet, they had added: "Note for Twitter: This is for purely educational purposes, please do not misinterpret this in a racist way.

"I am just amazed by high-IQ friend who works with Artificial Intelligence and the stuff he can make, and wanted to show people his field of study."

When fans caught wind of the AI remake, there was a storm of criticism and disgust.

Some users noticed that, while the AI artist had painted over Halle Bailey's face to give Princess Ariel a white complexion, they had kept Halle's singing voice.

But, among the outrage, there were a few people who sided with the AI artist @TenGazillionIQ.

A lot of the criticism from angry Disney 'fans' argues that the fictional mermaid should have have been played by a white actor, since the 1989 animation (which was adapted and Disney-fied from Hans Christian Anderson's dark fairytale) featured a white Ariel.

The highly anticipated live action film trailer was released last weekend at Disney's D23 Expo fan convention and has, for the most part, been met with awe and excitement.

The actor has recently spoken about the significance of a black actor taking on the classic role, telling PEOPLE: "The fact that now it's getting to be played by me, a person who looks like me, woman of colour, I'm just like, wow, I'm so grateful for what it will do for all the other little Black and brown boys and girls who will see themselves in me. Because I know if I had seen myself when I was younger, I think my whole perspective would've changed."

But still there's been absurd, and indisputably racist, backlash to the casting choice, with the YouTube trailer getting more than a million dislikes.