Aoki Lee Simmons 'Inner Child Is Grateful' For Halle Bailey And The 'The Little Mermaid'

Tons of moms have been posting blind reaction videos on TikTok of their children experiencing the trailer to the new "The Little Mermaid" movie starring Halle Bailey. And with lots of talk surrounding the new Disney movie, Model Aoki Lee Simmons posted her thoughts on the movie on her Instagram Story along with a clip of the trailer.

"No cause I'm going to see this 5 times at least. Ariel was my favorite princess growing up. I used to insist people call me Ariel before I'd answer a question. Congratulations @hallebailey my inner child is grateful!! We all wanna be part of your worlddddd," she wrote at the bottom of her Story.

In the following slide, Simmons addresses the negativity that some people are throwing around about a Black actress starring as Ariel. "Grown adults arguing about the skin tone of a mythical magical creature is insane though. Yall need mental help. But keep hating UR driving them ticket sales for my girl."

The film's trailer made a big splash last week at the D23 Expo and the buzz about it hasn't slowed down yet despite the fact that the movie isn't going to be released until May 2023. The clip that takes viewers "under the sea" and then shows Ariel singing a few lines from the iconic song "Part of Your World" received more than 104 million global views, according to Variety.

The trailer has earned praise from many celebrities on Twitter. In addition to Simmons, Zendaya, Halle Berry, and Keke Palmer are just a few of the many who have posted on social media about the anticipated live action film. The TikTok trend of parents filming their children's reaction to seeing the movie clip for the first time is still going strong.

Bailey, who plays the role of mermaid Ariel, posted a video on her Instagram page of the TikTok trend and captioned it, "people have been sending these reactions to me all weekend and i’m in truly in awe ♥️seeing these little babies reactions makes me so emotional ?this means the world to me ??thank you all for your unwavering support." Her post received more than 830,000 likes and 31,000 comments.

"you make us so proud to be in the skin that we’re in!!!! ❤️"

"This is so important ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️"

"The impact! ❤️?"

"You have created ripples that will soon become waves ?"

"Our real life Princess ??"

"I’m a white woman, I am not well aware yet of what I can or can’t root for with respect and humility, I hope I don’t overstep by saying that it’s so important to do this. The reactions here show how important it is and how bad these girls have been missing black representations… it’s essential. It’s beautiful and it made me ball like a baby. Literal chills."

"Representation matters ????"

Newsweek reported that the trailer for the movie hit 1.5 million dislikes on YouTube in the first two days after its release. People defending the film are citing racism as the cause for the negativity. YouTube disabled the thumbs down dislike counter because of the response, but the haters are still voicing their opinions in the comment section, but so are supporters.