When children tune in to Disney Jr.’s “Ariel,” they enter a vibrant underwater kingdom filled with music, friendship, and adventure. What they may not realize is that behind the animation is the careful guidance of a University of Miami professor ensuring that the Caribbean-inspired world of Atlantica feels authentic.
Patricia Saunders, a professor of English and Hemispheric Caribbean studies at the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, served as a cultural consultant on the animated preschool series, which premiered in 2024 and recently released its second season. The show portrays Ariel as a mermaid princess growing up in the fictional kingdom of Atlantica, blending classic characters such as King Triton, Ursula, Sebastian, and Flounder with new friends.
Reimagining the familiar Little Mermaid story, the new Disney Jr. series makes subtle but meaningful shifts. King Triton is portrayed as a hands-on father who cooks for his daughter and her friends. Ursula appears not as a villain but as a cool aunt figure who runs an apothecary and teaches the children magic. The most significant change is the relocation of Ariel’s story to a Caribbean-inspired setting in which the region’s music, food, languages, folklore, and traditions are central elements.
For Saunders, whose academic work typically engages university students and scholars, contributing to a series for young children offered a new challenge.
Joanne Hyppolite, a graduate of the University’s Ph.D. program in English who now serves as an African Diaspora curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C., recommended Saunders when Disney Branded Television reached out to the Smithsonian seeking expertise in Caribbean cultures. After signing a series of nondisclosure agreements, Saunders learned that she would help build Atlantica from the ground up.
“It was a really cool project, because it allowed me to take much of what I know about the Caribbean and transform it into a more user friendly, relatable mode of representation for very young kids,” Saunders said. “Cartoons are the way most children learn about the wider world, even before they’re reading or anything like that. It’s sound, it’s television, it’s color.”
Working in the earliest stages of development, Saunders advised producers, designers, and writers on everything from architecture and fashion to food and language. Because the series is set underwater, even familiar Caribbean elements required imaginative translation. Caribbean delicacies such as doubles, a popular Trinidadian street food, became ocean-inspired equivalents. Smoothie stands feature tropical fruits like mango and star fruit but with “aquatic flavor,” as Saunders described it. Cricket matches and musical performances reflect the region’s cultural traditions but have been reimagined as hobbies for Ariel and her friends who live beneath the sea.
Saunders carefully reviewed character designs and scripts to ensure cultural symbols were used thoughtfully and respectfully. For example, she suggested replacing beaded accessories that resembled religious prayer beads with more neutral adornments, being mindful of the Caribbean’s diverse religious groups, which include Hindu, Muslim, and Catholic communities.
She also advised on language and representation. Ariel’s friend Fernie, a “mer-boy” character with Haitian heritage, uses Kreyol terms when speaking to his family members, for example. Lucia, another friend, shifts between English and Spanish. These subtle cultural inclusions introduce young viewers to multilingualism in ways that feel organic. They help children understand that different places have different languages and cultural traditions.
“For that age group, everything is new,” Saunders explained. “They’re being introduced to parallel languages and parallel cultural traditions that would be recognizable to them regardless of what their cultural upbringing is. So, some of it was just helping kids see, even though this is a make-believe world and it’s set in the Caribbean, that it’s relatable.”
And for children in the Caribbean and the diaspora, seeing recognizable elements of their culture on a Disney platform can resonate deeply. Reflecting on the presence of cricket in the series, Saunders noted that “kids in the Caribbean recognize it immediately,” and that, at the same time, cricket connects the region to South Asia, Australia, Africa, and beyond—illustrating the ways that playtime can be educational, while reaching across the globe.
“That’s the beauty of working in Caribbean culture,” she said. “You’re always working in five other parts of the globe at the same time.”
