6 ms·

‘The Little Mermaid’ Was Way More Subversive Than You Realized (2019)

53 points by thinkingemote 6y ago

kderbyma 6y ago
pretty sure that Ursula was the villain, not some secret feminism hero. Frankly everything she says is bad advice so what exactly is the message? I am getting lost with the new narrative these days. The advice was be yourself not sell some preconceived notion....yet Ursula was all that and more bad traits. she was the epitome of falsehood. she was not true in anyway and used deception to get her aims....what is the message exactly?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TeeMassive 6y ago
  Yeah the whole thing doesn't make sense unless if you already are looking for that kind of message in the first place, which I doubt little children has the ability nor the will to do so.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >she was the epitome of falsehood. she was not true in anyway and used deception to get her aims....what is the message exactly? the positive message of a trickster (or witch) character can be to be subversive, play by your own rules, not seeking the approval of others, being individualistic, breaking norms and so on. For women in particular this can mean using femininity to your advantage rather than treating femininity as weakness. Using sexuality as a way to exercise control, basically think of the police scene in Basic Instinct as one of the most (in)famous examples. This sort of subversive, rule-disregarding and gender-affirming version of femininity has been lost almost completely in modern fiction, with (actually both 'progressive' as well as conservative) storytellers opting for some sort of Christian, timid, asexual 'strong women'. So it's not surprising that many people today will not see how someone like Ursula can be a positive character, but there is a very plausible way to read her as one.
  - Dracophoenix 6y ago
    The femme fatale hasn't disappeared from fiction. Although the outwardly stoic woman has proliferated through out film and television almost since the beginning of the silver screen, characters like Catwoman and Harley Quinn are as popular as ever. Whatever merits Ursula's take on these traits may have are overshadowed by her role as a Svengali-Mephisto vis-a-vis an innocent and naive Ariel. Ursula makes a woman out of Ariel (quite literally) not out of a deep and abiding sisterly/motherly love but to advance her own agenda and does so at a terrible price for Ariel. That shouldn't go unnoticed.
- bitwize 6y ago
  I think it's very egalitarian to write a female villain who is every bit as powerful, cunning, and packed with personality as the male villains. Audiences actually love a good villain... look at the lasting appeal of, say, Darth Vader. Or Sephiroth. Growing up, my favorite bit about the Power Rangers was Rita Repulsa. The Rangers themselves were lame, but it was hard for me to think of a lead villain in an action-oriented kids' franchise who was a woman, and not subordinate to some other villain, until Rita came along. Yes, Lord Zedd would come along and upstage her, but for that first season Rita was it.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
What seems more likely, that the identity-focused themes in The Little Mermaid are somehow genuinely subversive and were slipped past the suits at Disney, or that Disney has learned how to incorporate certain themes to apply a patina of subversiveness to its otherwise straightforwardly propagandistic movies? > While teaching young Ariel how to “get your man,” Ursula applies makeup, exaggerates her hips and shoulders, and accessorizes (her eel companions, Flotsam and Jetsam, are gender neutral)—all standard tropes of drag. “And don’t underestimate the importance of body language!,” sings Ursula with delicious sarcasm. The overall lesson: Being a woman in a man’s world is all about putting on a show. You are in control; you control the show. Sells added, “Ariel learns gender, not as a natural category, but as a performed construct.” It’s a powerful message for young girls, one deeply threatening to the King Tritons (and Ronald Reagans) of the world. Ah yes, teaching young girls to wear makeup and accessorize, truly a crushing blow to the patriarchy.
apozem 6y ago
> In classic Disney animated features of old, plot was advanced through dialogue, and songs were incidental. For instance, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the song “Whistle While you Work” does nothing to move the plot forward. Ashman and Menken approached the film’s book as they would a Broadway musical, using songs to impart critical plot points and character development. A podcast I like [1] covered The Little Mermaid recently and pointed out the songs help maintain the “realism.” If Ursula told Ariel in dialogue she had to lose her voice to become human, that would raise a lot of questions. But when she does it singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” you’re like, well, yes, of course. As someone who doesn’t know much about musicals, I thought this was a neat magic trick. [1]: https://soundcloud.com/griffin-and-david-present/the-little-mermaid-with-esther-zuckerman https://soundcloud.com/griffin-and-david-present/the-little-...
- lupire 6y ago
  > If Ursula told Ariel in dialogue she had to lose her voice to become human, that would raise a lot of questions. But when she does it singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” you’re like, well, yes, of course. Why?
  - Trombone12 6y ago
    As Marge excuses herself after joining in with the taunting of Lisa's vegetarianism: "I got caught in the rhythm". If it still doesn't make sense to you: don't worry about it, it's all just made up anyway.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Curious, how much of the movie do you remember? I'm not sure I can answer your question, but when I read the GP, my mind is filled with the Ursala's menacing voice. "You poor, unfortunate souls! Who cares? So what?!" It's all a matter of delivery, really. The best artists can make almost anything believable; music isn't required. But music was the tool these artists chose.
    - BenFrantzDale 6y ago
rtrdea 6y ago
Dumb. OP is dumb for sharing this
grawprog 6y ago
This seems like kind of a stretch to be honest. The original story, about a mermaid longing to be human was written in 1837. And that trope in general, not fitting in with the current society, goes back a lot further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid I highly doubt current identity politics were on the mind of the original writer when conceiving the story originally. As for the Ursula stuff, if 'feminist' was the archetype they were going for, they certainly managed to portray feminists in a fairly negative and terrible way. Ursula was not a sympathetic character by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing wrong if people want to interpret the story that way, that's the thing about good fiction, it makes you think and can tell a different message based on perception, but I doubt it was intentionally subversive and written with those ideas in mind.
- jbrnh 6y ago
  I think it is a commonly held view that HC Andersen conceived of TLM after his unreciprocated love interest in his (male) friend. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hans-christian-andersen_n_5637320 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hans-christian-andersen_n_563...
  - pitt1980 6y ago
    The link doesn’t support the implication you’re making.
  - xvedejas 6y ago
    Your link doesn't seem to support what you're saying? It says that he wrote his letter about Riborg (a woman) and sent it to Christian (her brother) as a confessional. After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      > After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her. LOL, brutal.
    - 6y ago
kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
This article is like the english teacher who finds deep meaning in an author describing a bed of roses... what a bunch of BS.
WalterBright 6y ago
> Roger Ebert, to his credit, described Ariel as a “a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently.” What about Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine who broke every last social rule of her time? She married for revenge, married for money, married for fun, refused to wear mourning clothes, ran her own lumber business, cheated on her husband, wore makeup, took advantage of her sex appeal, etc., all for selfish reasons.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Maybe I watched the wrong movie and read the wrong book, but doesn't Scarlett end up ultimately paying dearly for those transgressions? A miscarriage, a dead daughter, and the man she actually loves ends up leaving her forever[1] over shit behavior. Sounds less like a heroine and more like a cautionary tale, but I guess that's the rub with every story true and fiction; whatever moral you want to extract, you usually can. [1]: I don't count Ripley's Scarlett, because Margaret Mitchell flat out refused to write a sequel to Gone With The Wind.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    It wouldn't be much of a story if it didn't include tragedy as well. Bonnie's death was not the result of Scarlett's behavior. As for Rhett leaving her forever, the story ends with Scarlett already bouncing back and working on a plan to get him back. She also achieved a great deal with her transgressions, much to the envy of her contemporaries. She did whatever she wanted, and to hell with social rules.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Hands down, the best thing that came out of TLM has to be Negativland's Gimme The Mermaid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTZoxVH7OCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTZoxVH7OCg ref: https://rockasoo-thegoodmusic.blogspot.com/2006/09/negativland-gimme-mermaid.html https://rockasoo-thegoodmusic.blogspot.com/2006/09/negativla...
AussieWog93 6y ago
I've watched a video from Jordan Peterson where he interprets it as a criticism of identity politics. Honestly, I think you can get whatever you want from most of these kids' films.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Aren’t many kids films about self discovery? So you literally are supposed to get whatever you are looking for from these films.
YarickR2 6y ago
What if it's just a musical, without any hidden meaning, and no ideological messages ? No, that's bullshit, everything must be a product of some kind of conspiracy
pvaldes 6y ago
Ponyo is still the best film about this theme by a nautical mile. Much more subversive and deep.
goto11 6y ago
Apart from Ursula being inspired by a drag queen, I think the the gay subtext is imagined by the author. Reading homoerotic implications into the sailors being all male? Come on. Obviously "I long to be part of that world" can be interpreted in a number of ways. This is the strength of the genre. But as a metaphor for coming out as gay, it is a bit weird because this desire comes before she sees the prince and falls in love. The Little Mermaid was groundbreaking compared to previous Disney heroines because the story is driven by her desire. Cinderella and Snow White are innocent victims of unfortunate circumstances. Ariel lives a privileged life, but desires something else. While Ursula is ostensibly the villain, it is still Ariel which seek her out and willingly enters the deal in order to get what she desires. Of course agency is also the ability to make mistakes.

53 points by thinkingemote 6y ago

pretty sure that Ursula was the villain, not some secret feminism hero. Frankly everything she says is bad advice so what exactly is the message? I am getting lost with the new narrative these days. The advice was be yourself not sell some preconceived notion....yet Ursula was all that and more bad traits. she was the epitome of falsehood. she was not true in anyway and used deception to get her aims....what is the message exactly?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TeeMassive 6y ago
Yeah the whole thing doesn't make sense unless if you already are looking for that kind of message in the first place, which I doubt little children has the ability nor the will to do so.
Barrin92 6y ago
>she was the epitome of falsehood. she was not true in anyway and used deception to get her aims....what is the message exactly? the positive message of a trickster (or witch) character can be to be subversive, play by your own rules, not seeking the approval of others, being individualistic, breaking norms and so on. For women in particular this can mean using femininity to your advantage rather than treating femininity as weakness. Using sexuality as a way to exercise control, basically think of the police scene in Basic Instinct as one of the most (in)famous examples. This sort of subversive, rule-disregarding and gender-affirming version of femininity has been lost almost completely in modern fiction, with (actually both 'progressive' as well as conservative) storytellers opting for some sort of Christian, timid, asexual 'strong women'. So it's not surprising that many people today will not see how someone like Ursula can be a positive character, but there is a very plausible way to read her as one.
- Dracophoenix 6y ago
  The femme fatale hasn't disappeared from fiction. Although the outwardly stoic woman has proliferated through out film and television almost since the beginning of the silver screen, characters like Catwoman and Harley Quinn are as popular as ever. Whatever merits Ursula's take on these traits may have are overshadowed by her role as a Svengali-Mephisto vis-a-vis an innocent and naive Ariel. Ursula makes a woman out of Ariel (quite literally) not out of a deep and abiding sisterly/motherly love but to advance her own agenda and does so at a terrible price for Ariel. That shouldn't go unnoticed.
bitwize 6y ago
I think it's very egalitarian to write a female villain who is every bit as powerful, cunning, and packed with personality as the male villains. Audiences actually love a good villain... look at the lasting appeal of, say, Darth Vader. Or Sephiroth. Growing up, my favorite bit about the Power Rangers was Rita Repulsa. The Rangers themselves were lame, but it was hard for me to think of a lead villain in an action-oriented kids' franchise who was a woman, and not subordinate to some other villain, until Rita came along. Yes, Lord Zedd would come along and upstage her, but for that first season Rita was it.

AndrewBissell 6y ago

What seems more likely, that the identity-focused themes in The Little Mermaid are somehow genuinely subversive and were slipped past the suits at Disney, or that Disney has learned how to incorporate certain themes to apply a patina of subversiveness to its otherwise straightforwardly propagandistic movies? > While teaching young Ariel how to “get your man,” Ursula applies makeup, exaggerates her hips and shoulders, and accessorizes (her eel companions, Flotsam and Jetsam, are gender neutral)—all standard tropes of drag. “And don’t underestimate the importance of body language!,” sings Ursula with delicious sarcasm. The overall lesson: Being a woman in a man’s world is all about putting on a show. You are in control; you control the show. Sells added, “Ariel learns gender, not as a natural category, but as a performed construct.” It’s a powerful message for young girls, one deeply threatening to the King Tritons (and Ronald Reagans) of the world. Ah yes, teaching young girls to wear makeup and accessorize, truly a crushing blow to the patriarchy.

apozem 6y ago

> In classic Disney animated features of old, plot was advanced through dialogue, and songs were incidental. For instance, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the song “Whistle While you Work” does nothing to move the plot forward. Ashman and Menken approached the film’s book as they would a Broadway musical, using songs to impart critical plot points and character development. A podcast I like [1] covered The Little Mermaid recently and pointed out the songs help maintain the “realism.” If Ursula told Ariel in dialogue she had to lose her voice to become human, that would raise a lot of questions. But when she does it singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” you’re like, well, yes, of course. As someone who doesn’t know much about musicals, I thought this was a neat magic trick. [1]: https://soundcloud.com/griffin-and-david-present/the-little-mermaid-with-esther-zuckerman https://soundcloud.com/griffin-and-david-present/the-little-...

lupire 6y ago
> If Ursula told Ariel in dialogue she had to lose her voice to become human, that would raise a lot of questions. But when she does it singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” you’re like, well, yes, of course. Why?
- Trombone12 6y ago
  As Marge excuses herself after joining in with the taunting of Lisa's vegetarianism: "I got caught in the rhythm". If it still doesn't make sense to you: don't worry about it, it's all just made up anyway.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Curious, how much of the movie do you remember? I'm not sure I can answer your question, but when I read the GP, my mind is filled with the Ursala's menacing voice. "You poor, unfortunate souls! Who cares? So what?!" It's all a matter of delivery, really. The best artists can make almost anything believable; music isn't required. But music was the tool these artists chose.
  - BenFrantzDale 6y ago

rtrdea 6y ago

Dumb. OP is dumb for sharing this

grawprog 6y ago

This seems like kind of a stretch to be honest. The original story, about a mermaid longing to be human was written in 1837. And that trope in general, not fitting in with the current society, goes back a lot further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid I highly doubt current identity politics were on the mind of the original writer when conceiving the story originally. As for the Ursula stuff, if 'feminist' was the archetype they were going for, they certainly managed to portray feminists in a fairly negative and terrible way. Ursula was not a sympathetic character by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing wrong if people want to interpret the story that way, that's the thing about good fiction, it makes you think and can tell a different message based on perception, but I doubt it was intentionally subversive and written with those ideas in mind.

jbrnh 6y ago
I think it is a commonly held view that HC Andersen conceived of TLM after his unreciprocated love interest in his (male) friend. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hans-christian-andersen_n_5637320 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hans-christian-andersen_n_563...
- pitt1980 6y ago
  The link doesn’t support the implication you’re making.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  Your link doesn't seem to support what you're saying? It says that he wrote his letter about Riborg (a woman) and sent it to Christian (her brother) as a confessional. After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    > After Riborg's death, it was found she had kept Andersen's poems about her. LOL, brutal.
  - 6y ago

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago

This article is like the english teacher who finds deep meaning in an author describing a bed of roses... what a bunch of BS.

WalterBright 6y ago

> Roger Ebert, to his credit, described Ariel as a “a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently.” What about Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine who broke every last social rule of her time? She married for revenge, married for money, married for fun, refused to wear mourning clothes, ran her own lumber business, cheated on her husband, wore makeup, took advantage of her sex appeal, etc., all for selfish reasons.

cbozeman 6y ago
Maybe I watched the wrong movie and read the wrong book, but doesn't Scarlett end up ultimately paying dearly for those transgressions? A miscarriage, a dead daughter, and the man she actually loves ends up leaving her forever[1] over shit behavior. Sounds less like a heroine and more like a cautionary tale, but I guess that's the rub with every story true and fiction; whatever moral you want to extract, you usually can. [1]: I don't count Ripley's Scarlett, because Margaret Mitchell flat out refused to write a sequel to Gone With The Wind.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  It wouldn't be much of a story if it didn't include tragedy as well. Bonnie's death was not the result of Scarlett's behavior. As for Rhett leaving her forever, the story ends with Scarlett already bouncing back and working on a plan to get him back. She also achieved a great deal with her transgressions, much to the envy of her contemporaries. She did whatever she wanted, and to hell with social rules.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Hands down, the best thing that came out of TLM has to be Negativland's Gimme The Mermaid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTZoxVH7OCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTZoxVH7OCg ref: https://rockasoo-thegoodmusic.blogspot.com/2006/09/negativland-gimme-mermaid.html https://rockasoo-thegoodmusic.blogspot.com/2006/09/negativla...

AussieWog93 6y ago

I've watched a video from Jordan Peterson where he interprets it as a criticism of identity politics. Honestly, I think you can get whatever you want from most of these kids' films.

hinkley 6y ago
Aren’t many kids films about self discovery? So you literally are supposed to get whatever you are looking for from these films.

YarickR2 6y ago

What if it's just a musical, without any hidden meaning, and no ideological messages ? No, that's bullshit, everything must be a product of some kind of conspiracy

pvaldes 6y ago

Ponyo is still the best film about this theme by a nautical mile. Much more subversive and deep.

goto11 6y ago

Apart from Ursula being inspired by a drag queen, I think the the gay subtext is imagined by the author. Reading homoerotic implications into the sailors being all male? Come on. Obviously "I long to be part of that world" can be interpreted in a number of ways. This is the strength of the genre. But as a metaphor for coming out as gay, it is a bit weird because this desire comes before she sees the prince and falls in love. The Little Mermaid was groundbreaking compared to previous Disney heroines because the story is driven by her desire. Cinderella and Snow White are innocent victims of unfortunate circumstances. Ariel lives a privileged life, but desires something else. While Ursula is ostensibly the villain, it is still Ariel which seek her out and willingly enters the deal in order to get what she desires. Of course agency is also the ability to make mistakes.