My Life I Have Gone From Extreme Fandom

When receding into the memories of childhood, many think of the famous Disney movies that have captured audience’s imaginations for decades. Many of these films contain deeper hidden meanings in an attempt to teach young viewers a life lesson. These life lessons can be compared to pieces of literature such as the short story, “Watching and Waiting”. Examples such as The Little Mermaid, Monsters Inc, Lilo and Stitch contain the messages of not taking things for granted, jumping to conclusions, and family is not defined by blood, but by love.

When I was a child, watching Disney’s The Little Mermaid became a sort of ritual. While other girls dreamed of ball gowns and tiaras, I desperately wanted to sprout a tail and dye my hair red—not orange-red, but Ariel-red. Singing along with Jodi Benson, I longed to be a part of Ariel’s underwater world. As the years passed, my dreams faded and reality set in. Gradually, I became more intrigued with Ursula—I began to realize that she did not conform with the other female characters; though female in nature, she was a masculine character. In fact, I later discovered that Ursula was actually inspired by the drag queen, Divine (Dart). Consequently, it is her masculine characteristics that further set her apart from the world around her.

The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale that was written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1836 and then remade by Disney in 1989, which turned out to be a popular animated film targeted for young, juvenile children, specifically girls. The Little Mermaid is about a fifteen-year-old mermaid, named Aerial, who was willing to give up her family, voice and tail to win over a man, Prince Eric. Watching The Little Mermaid as a kid, I loved the movie. I never seen any negatives until watching it again as an adult. It characterizes how women are viewed in today’s society. In The Little Mermaid, Aerial is characterized for her appearance and beautiful singing voice. Throughout the film, we learn that Aerial changes her appearance against her father’s wishes all for the marriage of a man. Aerial gave up her voice and her mermaid tail to the sea witch, Ursula, for a man that she fell in love with. The Little Mermaid is about doing whatever it takes to make dreams come true for girls but shows it negatively because Aerial alters her body to please a man. “The princess stories in the folk fairy tales are full of symbolism and portray a gritty, harsh world to reinforce the cautionary aspects of the tales being told. The Disney version of the Princess story shies away from cautionary story elements and centers on the dreams and ideals.” (Bethmann 7) With the audience and popularity targeted by children, The Little Mermaid teaches

Disney directly exposes the idea that young girls should make their main goal in life to find their prince charming, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. Making young girls’ aspiration in life revolve around finding a man of their dreams “transfix[es the] audience and divert[s] their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images [Disney] cast[s] upon the screen” (22). Disney tells the audience that women need a man to be happy. Disney presents the idea that women are dependent on me. Just like in The Little Mermaid, Ariel goes as far as surrendering her voice, to a witch named Ursula, and abandoning her family in order to be with her prince. Ariel also trades in her life as a mermaid, drastically changes her body, and sacrifices her greatest talent all in order to win her prince. Disney sends the message that girls need to give up their talents and lives in order to be with a man. Disney suggests that a woman’s main priority is her lover, no one or nothing else. Disney effectively portrays women in a negative way, depicting them as weak and needy. No attempt to break the stereotypical gender roles of women are evident however, these stereotypes are growing as Disney instills this image of women in the minds of viewers.

Every little girl wants to be a Disney princess at some point in their life, I was not different. There’s something about the good heart a princess has and the love she garners, that was special to me. Through the Arteisa Pageant, I have found my chance. I didn't realize that being a princess really did mean you were serving the community, and I wasn’t just a figure. I went out and did many things that have involved serving my community such as painting a house for a resident, handing out candy to kids for Halloween and encouraging literature to be read to children by reading to them at the Artesia library.

The story of the Little Mermaid is one of the most popular fairy tales, it's Disney adaptation is also very popular. To children, it is just a story about a mermaid who turns into a human to be with her true love but when analyzed from different perspectives, it can reveal a lot about the story itself and what children are learning from it.

From the moment the world introduced us to television, we have been bombarded with images of fantasy and “happily ever after’s.” Perhaps the most well known corrupter of reality lies within the Disney franchise. Disney’s, The Little Mermaid, follows a typical fairy tale format in which all goals and dreams are achieved. Its counterpart, however, moves to the beat of a different drum. Hans Christian Andersen’s, The Little Mermaid, portrays a more serious plot much different from Disney’s loveable adaptation. One may conclude that the most these two stories have in common is their titles, but a deeper theme runs throughout both of these fictional plots. Despite these two stories’ conflicting agendas and the

“The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen is one of the worlds most cherished fairy tales. Through the years, this story has inspired its fair share of different adaptations and spinoffs, as well as intertwined itself in popular culture. Although it is widely considered a children’s story today, upon close examination, we can find various elements of literary devices and themes, all of which provide the seasoned reader with a deep connection to the story. To honor the tradition of story-telling, it is essential that a short summary of the story be given.

The Little Mermaid is a perfect depiction of the typical teenage heroine who is striving to find happiness in her own life, but is restricted by the wicked femme fatale who attempts to destroy all that is good, and sabotage the heroine’s happy ending. Our teenage heroine in this case would be Ariel, the 16-year-old daughter of Triton, the king of the ocean. While Ariel comes from royalty and is praised for her beauty, youth, and innocence, her bright and independent self undergoes a physical transformation that leads her to become a mute doll who is focused on seizing a kiss from the prince, and winning his heart. On the other hand we have Ursula, who was exiled by Triton to live a lonely and miserable life. Ursula undergoes her own transformation where her evil ways allow her to steal Ariel’s voice for herself, and use it to seduce the prince to marry her in order to demonstrate power and control. Although Ariel and Ursula both desire their own form of happiness and success, Ariel’s desire and the lengths she’ll go to acquire love represents a stereotypical society of powerless women who depend on men for their survival. As opposed to Ursula, who seeks revenge and the crown of Triton but ultimately fails; her failure demonstrates the power of men that will always dominate over women in the end, but her attempt represents the ambitious women out there that want more than just love.

Swimming Against the Current Disney’s film The Little Mermaid (1989) is the earliest most significant transition into portraying a strong female protagonist after a history of purposeless princesses who never demonstrated personality attributes other than delicateness. Nevertheless among Disney’s critics, Roberta Trites responds in her essay “Disney's Sub/Version of Andersen's The Little Mermaid” that characters, images, and conflicts of the film rob women of integrity, making the movie even more sexist than the original story by Andersen. Disney’s film industry used to be notable for their depictions of weak-minded and superficial princesses that taught the young generations, especially girls to be submissive to men and exclusively pretty.

A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these

The 1980s were a tough decade for Disney animated features. There had been a string of unsuccessful films leading to speculation about the future of the company. However, in 1989 The Little Mermaid changed the division’s trajectory. In his article in Time Magazine in 2014, “How the Little Mermaid Cued the Disney Animation Renaissance” Richard Corliss notes, “Disney had earned Best Song Oscars in 1941… and in 1947…then nothing — until The Little Mermaid again changed the studio’s luck. In the past quarter-century, ten Disney tunes have won the Best Song Oscar” (n.pag). The Little Mermaid marked the beginning of a string of animated hits, the second of which was Beauty and the Beast. In Michael Kantor’s 2004 Documentary, Broadway the American Musical, Julie Andrews, the documentary’s narrator, marks that just as 42nd street was “resurrected by Disney, Disney was “resurrected by the Broadway musical” (Kantor).

Cramped in a small Los Angeles office, Walt Disney drew a few larger than life cartoons. After Disney’s big hit Alice Comedies and cartoons of Mickey and the gang, he moved his office to Burbank, California. There, Walt and his brother, Roy, came up with their most famous movies such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland. Now with two American amusement parks, three international parks, multiple cruise lines, multiple resorts, over five hundred films, and over thirty academy award, it’s hard to not heard of Disney. Every boy or girl has at least seen or heard of Disney movies. It’s such a big part of society today that it becomes influential in a kid’s childhood. This project will look at the underlying effect of the Disney princess phenomenon and how it shapes a young girls’ perspective of herself and how she’s “supposed” to be.

The Little Mermaid is a story about a young girl who is not afraid of trying new things because she is willing to get out of her comfort zone to try new things. There is this specific quote that say the following; “Children have got to be free to lead their own lives.” (Korman, Cuddy 1994) The life lesson here is that we must not be afraid to try new things so that good things can happen in our life’s. One must not be afraid of new changes and must be willing to adapt to new and unknown situations. The Little Mermaid was not afraid however there was the situation that her father would now allow her to leave the sea which was there home and were he would be able to keep her safe. That would not stop her from going out of her comfort zone and wanting to try new things. Many of us especially adults will give in to being comfortable with what we have and will not want to go out and try new things. Life is full of adventures and I believe that we have to be more like the younger children and be willing to try new things because if we don’t then we will never leave that comfort zone to be able to move on with our lives. I will finish with this quote which

For months, a slew of Disney artist came together and worked tirelessly to release one of the most beautiful works of art on November 17, 1989 (Corliss, 2014); it came to be known affectionally as, The Little Mermaid. The storyline behind The Little Mermaid was originally written by Hans Christian Andersen (Heiner, 2007), as a fairy tail. According to Corliss (2014), The Little Mermaid was on of the last Disney animated films to be hand-drawn as well as uses cels and Xeroxing. The artist also kept the movie a classic by going back to the tradition of using songs to help the story progress, “with songs that explained the characters and propelled the action. The movie was basically a Broadway musical, but animated and underwater.” (Corliss, 2015). I chose to study a scene that encompasses the whole meaning behind the music and the plot of The Little Mermaid. This seen is two worlds colliding, the world of the sea and the world of humans in a single moment of longing and unity.