When Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel in Disney's live-action remake of "The Little Mermaid," she was confronted with racist backlash.
The #NotMyAriel hashtag gained traction when her casting was first announced. Some people felt that the role should have gone to a white actress, since the heroine in Disney's 1989 animated film had fair skin, and the original fairy tale was written by Hans Christian Andersen, a Danish author.
The backlash reemerged when Disney released its teaser trailer in September.
But Bailey follows a long lineage of mermaids from different cultures with centuries-old histories.
"The idea of aquatic spirits and mermaids is not one that Hans Christian Andersen came up with. He popularized this particular story, but the concept predates his story," Khytie Brown, assistant professor of African diaspora religions at the University of Texas at Austin, said. "It's just one iteration of the story, which points to the overall historical problem of European representations becoming the dominant representation."
From alluring sirens to grotesque sea creatures, here are the mermaids prevalent in seven different cultures.