Why Disney nailed its casting choice for its newest princess, Moana.
Diversity FTW.
On Oct. 7, 2015, Disney revealed more details on its newest princess, Moana.
And, as expected, the Interwebs shook with joy.
The film — aptly titled "Moana," of course — follows its leading gal on her search for a fabled island in the South Pacific, as E! News reported. It's set to be released in theaters Nov. 2016. *marks calendar*
Disney also introduced the world to the real girl who's bringing Moana to life on screen, 14-year-old Auli'i Cravalho.
In about a year, Cravalho's voice will be filling up theaters around the globe.
GIFs via Disney.
The film has already landed Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (who better suited to portray a demigod named Maui in the film than he?), who shared how thrilled he was about Cravalho's casting on Instagram.
As Johnson explained above, Cravalho has virtually no big-time acting experience and was discovered by a casting agent in Oahu when she was singing at a charity competition. She went from an everyday teen to the buzz of the Internet overnight.
Maybe the coolest thing about Cravalho, though? She's actually Hawaiian.
To find Moana, Disney auditioned hundreds of girls throughout the Pacific Islands before deciding Cravalho — who is native Hawaiian — was the "perfect match."
“I didn't think I would have a chance," Cravalho said. “When I was little, I used to dance around the house singing at the top of my lungs. In my mind, that was performing, and I loved the feeling of it. But I never imagined being in a Disney movie, being Moana — representing my culture in that way."
It's worth celebrating when films cast people of color as characters of color. Because, oddly enough, that doesn't happen nearly as often as it should.
If you haven't heard of it, there's this thing Hollywood does called whitewashing, where characters that should be played by actors of color end up being played by white actors instead.
And film studios have been doing this for quite some time now. Remember when Elizabeth Taylor played Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra? Or when Jake Gyllenhaal portrayed the Prince of Persia? Yup.
Photo by Niklas Halle'N/AFP/Getty Images.
Recently, many filmgoers were outraged over Emma Stone being cast as Allison Ng — a character with Asian and Hawaiian roots — in "Aloha." And director Roland Emmerich felt his fair share of criticism for casting a white, cisgender man as the lead in his film, "Stonewall," ignoring the fact many of the real-life human rights pioneers from the 1969 Stonewall Riots for LGBTQ inclusion were actually people of color and transgender.
And just this past weekend, actor Rooney Mara told told People magazine she empathized with the frustration directed toward her casting in the film "Pan," in which she stars as Tiger Lily, a character who is undeniably Native American.
Seeing as a recent study from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found that just 17 of the top 100-grossing films last year featured someone from an underrepresented racial group as a lead character, it's vital that people of color get more opportunity to tell their stories on screen.
In a time where whitewashing remains all too common in Hollywood, Cravalho's casting shouldn't be dismissed as no big deal. It's exciting!
Yes, "Moana" is just one movie, and Cravalho is just one actor. But it's a film that's already stirring excitement an entire year before its release. It's going to have an effect.
The world will watch a "badass" teen from the Pacific Islands fight monsters and capture millions of hearts on screen. The fact the real girl bringing Moana to life is someone who shares cultural similarities with her animated character is a pretty sweet addition to an already cool story.
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
At least it wasn't Bubbles. 
You just know there's a person named Whiskey out there getting a kick out of this. 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.