The makeup artist who helped create the look for Disney’s live action version of Ursula, the main villain from “The Little Mermaid,” has released a response to the massive backlash she’s getting from folks who say he’s not “queer” and as such, should not have been the one to work on the design.
According to The Daily Wire, British hair and makeup designer, Peter Smith King, has been doing makeup for movies, theater, and opera for over 42 years now. And his resume includes quite a few well known projects, such as “The Lord of the Rings” and even “Mary Poppins,” before coming on board the latest Disney live action remake.
King stated that he had an enjoyable experience working on set, referring to both the cast and crew as “lovely,” and telling Insider that when he was putting together the look for Ursula everything was discussed with McCarthy who would be portraying the infamous sea witch.
For a little context, the original animated movie, which was released in 1989, Ursula’s look was based on drag queen Divine., according to animator Rob Minkoff in an interview with Vogue.
“Divine seemed like such a great, larger than life character, and it just seemed like a funny and quirky idea to take [Ursula] and treat her more like a drag queen,” he said during the conversation with Vogue in May.
However, a lot of members within the drag community were not pleased with the version of the villain King came up with.
“Now when we said Ursula was inspired by a drag queen we didn’t mean one who had only been doing it for 3 months bc-,” media personality Sierra La Puerta posted in a tweet on May 17 including a picture of the McCarthy in full makeup.
Now when we said Ursula was inspired by a drag queen we didn’t mean one who had only been doing it for 3 months bc- https://t.co/gOODRvVT4l pic.twitter.com/BvNSf4wdp4
— Sierra La Puerta (@_SierraLaPuerta) May 17, 2023
La Puerta wasn’t the only one upset. Two former participants of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” offered up their opinions on Ursula’s design.
“When you lie on your resume and end up with the job,” Art Simone wisecracked.
Kerri Colby had some thoughts about the look as well saying that it proved “absolutely why we should hire up and coming queer artists with a pulse on the present and a vision for the future more often. Yes I agree, this is that.”
King himself responded to the heat he was taking from folks over his work, saying he was “offended” by it, saying, “Why can’t I do as good a job as a queer makeup artist? That’s ridiculous. That’s trying to claim it and that’s fine, if that’s what they wanna do, but don’t put people down because they’re not what they want it to be.”
King then said the ideas he used to develop Ursula’s look were totally original, denying that he drew inspiration from anything, explaining that he worked with McCarthy using various shapes, colors, and other things to create a unique design.
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