There is a new version of The Little Mermaid coming out next year. I am especially curious, since I was the costumer for that musical last spring, and got up close and personal with fish tails and crabs. Not the grouchy ones, mind you, but the ones with claws. 

 

The hubbub around its release includes a response to Ariel being black. Some people think that is not possible, because.... well, I am not sure why. 

 

There is a beautiful painting in the room where our marriage group meets that depicts a black woman as the mother in Revelation 12. Her belly is round with promise, and the stars dancing over her head look like they could pierce any dark sky. I love to look at it when I am waiting for other couples to arrive. I don't clutter our interaction with words. I just absorb her presence into my heart. The fable is one of danger, lurking in the shadows to attack what is most precious... a newborn. Then real people arrive and I come back to the present moment. 

 

There is a poignant message within seeing someone who looks like yourself as a hero. It lessens the distance between where we are and where we could be. When we as a culture make sure to offer a spectrum of faces it opens the doors much wider. 

 

One of the questions I ask teenagers when I go visit their classroom is to name a movie or book that shows a healthy marriage. Usually there is a not so pregnant pause. They stammer to name even a few. I long to change this. I believe that we need a sprawling cast of strong relationships in our imaginations. Feisty ones, like in The Incredibles and West Wing. Resilient ones, like in Little Women. Black ones, like in Not Easily Broken. Couples that healed from estrangement, like in Fireproof, Shall We Dance?, and The Story of Us. Tenacious couples that withstand enormous odds, like in Lorenzo's Oil and Penguin Bloom. Exhausted ones, like in The Fiddler on the Roof, and Anne Frank. 

 

Then when we ourselves are feisty, or resilient, estranged, exhausted, or crabby. we can draw on the rich reserve of husbands and wives who became the heroes in their own story.