When evaluated under a feminist lens does the little mermaid sink or swim?
In 1989 Disney released “The Little Mermaid” and the Disney renaissance began. But it has become trendy lately for people to criticize some of these films for not being feminist. One of the biggest critiques from these people is that “The Little Mermaid” is not feminist because Ariel gives up everything for a guy. The little mermaid was my favorite Disney movie when I was a kid, so I want to reexamine this movie to see if it really needs a modern update or not.
First the animation/character design: the design of Ariel is a classic Disney princess look. She has a small waist, a little button nose and big blue eyes. What sets Ariel apart from the other princesses is her bright red hair. As far as her outfits go her most iconic is her mermaid form with the green tail and the purple seashells. She also has a pink ballgown, a blue dress and a wedding dress. Ariels dresses are not sexualizing her in any way. Even the seashells aren’t really there to make her seem sexual, all the mermaids we see have seashells, so it is presented as normal for mermaids to dress this way. However, she is highly unrealistic proportion wise.
The songs: the songs are very important when examining this film from a feminist perspective. The most important song is “Part of your world.” This song is not about Eric. This is a common misconception, in fact Ariel sings this song before she meets Eric. If you pay attention to the lyrics, they are about how Ariel wants to experience life on land, learn more about human culture and her wanting more for her life. Not once in this song does she mention romance or love. It’s just about her burning desire to live on the land. Now when she meets and saves Eric, she sings a reprise that is more about her wanting to get to know eric and her wanting to be part of his world, but the original song is not about that. The next song people point to when they are arguing that this film is anti-feminist is “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” Specifically, the lines referring to women not needing to talk because mean prefer quiet women. Now, when I was a kid, I didn’t even pick up on these lines. But the whole point of this song is that it is the villain song of course the villain is going to say untrue things because at this point in the film she is trying to convince Ariel to give up her voice. Ariel is hesitating because she doesn’t know how to get Eric to fall in love with her if they can’t talk and she can’t sing. Ursula is trying to convince her that she won’t need her voice. You are not going to get positive messages from a villain song.
The plot: When examining the plot from a feminist lens people often point out that the story being about a girl giving up everything even her voice for a man is not feminist. However, as I pointed out earlier Ariel has always been passionate about the human world. Eric was just a catalyst for her to finally pull the trigger. Also, Ursula targets her when she is emotionally vulnerable, and Ariel is a teenager so her making rash emotional decisions makes sense for her character. Another thing that is frequently mentioned is that Ariel and Eric have a very short relationship and Ariel can’t speak through most of it. Well, it is true that Ariel and Eric only had three days to get to know each other, we don’t know how much time passes off screen between them reuniting at the end and their wedding. Also, Ariel and Eric have a remarkably balanced relationship. Ariel saves Eric twice and Eric saves Ariel at the end. Now obviously this is a movie from 1989 it is not going to meet all our modern standards for example Ariel and Erics relationship could use some more development. Other than that, I don’t think this movie is antifeminist.
Conclusion: To conclude the little mermaid holds up remarkably well after all these years. If you take more than a surface level examination of this film, you will see that most of the criticisms lobbied against it are misinterpretations of the film. This film is beautiful heartfelt and demonstrates a female protagonist who is not afraid to go after what she wants, and she even saves her prince a few times. While it is not perfect it is also not nearly as bad as others claim. In my opinion an update is not required. However, if you want to check out the new version, I recommend giving this film a rewatch beforehand. So that you can accurately compare them.
4/5
Image Sources
https://www.amazon.ca/MCPosters-Disney-Little-Mermaid-Glossy/dp/B07F1SB3TX
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/703975524/vintage-clothing-pink-dress-little
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_%28The_Little_Mermaid%29
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-songs-in-the-little-mermaid/ranker-music