The public’s score for The Little Mermaid on various review websites have caused quite a stir. Currently playing in theaters, this live-action remake of the 1989 Disney classic, starring Halle Bailey, is experiencing remarkable success at the box office. However, when it comes to critical reception, the film’s approval ratings tell a different story, and leave us with, “Is The Little Mermaid Audience Score Being Manipulated?”
Surprisingly, the film has received an astonishing 95% approval from the general audience. On platforms like Rotten Tomatoes, one of the world’s leading review aggregators, The Little Mermaid has garnered a respectable 68% positive reviews from critics.
While this isn’t entirely uncommon for highly commercial films, it stands in contrast to movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which has received a 46% score from critics and 83% from the audience.
The Reason for The Little Mermaid Backlash
The Little Mermaid was heavily criticized for casting an actress of color as the lead, leading to almost 2 million dislikes of the trailer. This also has been the topic of hot discussion in recent times as Disney continues to make every one of their classic animations into live-action, which the fans have constantly criticized.
According to fans, Disney is trying to be “Woke” by giving primary roles to actresses of color, for being more focused on diversity and casting opposite of the original characters instead of creating something new with a more diverse cast. And also since Ariel was white in the original animation.
Peter Pan & Wendy live-action was also criticized for all the same reasons as The Little Mermaid, Since Disney Casted Yara Shahidi, an actress of color as Tinker Bell, And Tinker Bell has always been shown as a white girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, and casting Shahidi was an attempt to be “Woke” claimed the fans of the original classics.
Films or Tv Shows which have been Review Bombed
And films or Tv shows which been dubbed as Woke have generally garnered low audience score even if their critic’s score was high, Like Captain Marvel, which has 79% approvals from critics but was heavily criticized by the audience with only a 45% score, Same for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law with 80% critics score, and only 32% audience score.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi with 91% critics score and 42% audience score, Ghostbuster Remake with 73% critic score and only 49% audience score. Peter Pan & Wendy live-action had 62% approval ratings from the critics but only 11% audience score.
So, Is The Little Mermaid Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Being Manipulated?
If you visit the site and click on that enticing “95%” rating, you’ll be led to a new section that offers further insight into the audience’s response. You can view either “verified audience” ratings or “all audience” ratings.
And here’s where things take an Interesting turn
The “verified” audience ratings for The Little Mermaid represent a modest subset of the ratings the movie has accumulated on Rotten Tomatoes. The score you see in the box above, 95%, reflects the positive sentiment of all the verified Rotten Tomatoes audience ratings.
However, a different story unfolds when you switch to the “all audience” ratings. It paints a drastically different picture. Contrary to the 95% verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the “all audience” score plummets to a mere 57%. Moreover, while the former is based on slightly over 2,500 ratings, the all-audience score is derived from a significantly larger pool of over 25,000 user ratings.
