You may find this difficult to believe, but in the 3-4-ish decades of my life, I had never seen The Little Mermaid. I’ve had ample opportunity to, given that it came out in 1989. It’s just one of those things I never got around to doing.
As a matter of fact, I have seen very few TV shows and movies that most of my peers grew up on because we didn’t have cable in our house when I was a kid. But more on that later.
I finally watched it for the first time with my daughter, Luna, 2 weeks ago. She adores mermaids and hadn’t seen the movie yet, so since we have a Disney+ subscription, I decided to put it to good use.
Needless to say, Luna absolutely loved it and immediately asked for Little Mermaid costumes and toys. Don’t you just love the endless wonder and joy of toddlers? (I am planning on getting her a mermaid costume in the coming weeks. She’s gonna love it!)
As for my thoughts on the movie…
My gut reaction was to be enamored. I finally watched this beloved movie that everyone and their accountant loves! It’s obviously wonderful! Right? …
I will say that as a whole, I enjoyed the movie. It was a fun story of adventure and love, and the general themes of pushing boundaries and gaining new experiences were ones I could relate to. There were parts of the movie that I loved:
🧜🏽♀️ The musical ensembles
I really enjoy singing, and I found that the music cute and catchy. The songs weren’t awkwardly shoved in or contrived like so many musicals tend to do. I think my favorite song was Part of Your World, as cliché as that is. I find it the most fun to sing, which sways my decision considerably.
The entire Kiss the Girl scene was adorable and hilarious at the same time. The way Scuttle kept squawking the entire time gave Luna and me a good laugh, and the synchronous singing and dancing of the other animals was fun.
🧜🏽♀️ Ariel’s curiosity and desire to expand the boundaries of her world
This is a theme I can get behind. Being curious about the way that others live and wanting to experience new cultures is natural and healthy. Ariel’s growth mindset is admirable, and the way she collects and meticulously arranges items she finds is scientific and orderly, which appeals to me.
Depicting a strong female lead character who not only follows her curiosity and passion but who does so in the face of an authoritative figure who tries to stop her? Major props, Disney.
🧜🏽♀️ Prince Eric and Grimsby’s personalities
Prince Eric’s down-to-earth personality and total lack of snobbish dickishness is refreshing, albeit unrealistic. Most male leads are depicted as being complete and total jerks to the female lead, especially 35 years ago. His gentle and kind spirit, as well as his genuine care for his crew and subjects is admirable.
And I have to say his butler, Grimsby, is a breath of fresh air as well. In what few movies and shows I’ve seen, it’s been the case that if the royal is not arrogant, than the butler is. But that was not the case at all here. If anything, Grimsby, despite his unfortunate name, was even more kind-hearted and wise than Prince Eric.
At one point, when Eric is still heartbroken over the “mystery girl,” Grimsby gently suggests that Eric focus on the girl who is with him, whom he has clearly fallen in love with, and I loved that scene. There was no manipulation, no ulterior motives. Just a kind man who was genuinely concerned about the emotional condition of this man who is like a son to him. It is clear to me that Eric has been very heavily influenced by Grimsby, and I love both of them.
🧜🏽♀️ Ursula is a decent villain, and she delights me.
While Ursula’s motives were not especially clear to me, she was still a decent villain. Sometimes, a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil is fun, and Ursula is one of them. They didn’t try to give her a half-baked back story, they just made her the sworn enemy of King Triton for no apparent reason, and it worked.
The two eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, were your run-of the mill, sniveling henchmen. Ursula seemed to genuinely care about them, though. She calls them her poopsies, which was delightful and adorable. And towards the end, they are killed in the fight, and Ursula’s wail of grief sounds utterly sincere. I love it so much more when villains care about the ones who work so hard for them instead of being verbally abusive to them.
I greatly enjoyed all of those aspects of the movie. On the other hand, there were a few things I didn’t like about it. I know this is a huge nostalgia movie, so I will tread lightly with my opinions.
🧜🏽♀️ Ummm?? Ariel is 16, and Eric is what, in his mid to late 20s??
This is me treading lightly. I mean what message are they trying to send here?? A 16 year old girl meets a man who is at least 10 years her senior. She basically runs away with him, and after 3 days, he falls in love with her. THEN, her dad is all, “Oh OK. Well he seems like a nice chap, so why don’t you just MARRY HIM AND MOVE IN WITH HIM IMMEDIATELY?”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So many stinking red flags in this situation. And before anyone tells me to hush and enjoy the movie because it’s just a movie, it’s not just a movie. Ariel is adored and admired by little girls around the world. This is a terrible message to send, and I will never be OK with this. As soon as she is old enough to understand, I will explain to my daughter why this is not OK on so many levels.
🧜🏽♀️ Ariel feels restricted in the ocean… the most diverse environment on Earth.
OK this isn’t major, but it bugged me. The oceans contain the most diversity of animals, terrain, and plant life. I can understand that Ariel feels trapped because she isn’t permitted to leave her father’s territory. But the first place she wants to explore is land “where the people are”? Not the vast expanse of the ocean, huh?
It seems a bit arrogant of us land people to assume that we’re the most interesting thing out there to explore. Just saying.
🧜🏽♀️ King Triton is not only useless against Ursula, he is abusive towards Ariel.
Oooooooooooooookayyyyyyyyyyyyy. Let’s talk about King Triton. What a douche rocket. He is wholly useless, for one thing. He can’t do anything without Sebastian’s help and hosts concerts in his honor. Like seriously, what a self-absorbed, useless dick.
But the way he treats Ariel, holy Hades what the hell. Wanting her to be on time to her commitments is understandable. But completely refusing to listen to her thoughts, completely shutting her down without giving her the respect she deserves as his daughter, as an individual is appalling and abusive.
And the way he threw a tantrum and destroyed her cave? Somebody get this family a counselor or two, this family is terribly dysfunctional, and he is at the center of it. I realize this was a plot point, and it’s sadly the reality of so many families, but I was so angry watching his tantrum. I mean really, is he a 5 year old boy or the ruler of a kingdom?? The stark juxtaposition between Triton and Eric as people and rulers was obviously done on purpose but it made Triton look so much worse.
A quick aside to say that I hear so many parents say, “I’m not your friend, I’m your dad.” And I think all parents expect their children to just do what they’re told and shut up whenever there is a disagreement, automatically deferring to the parent.
Growing up, my mother demanded respect, citing herself as the mother and my sisters and me the children. However, respect must be mutual or it is lost. When I was told to shut up and defer to her without so much as an explanation or a conversation, I lost respect for her. (We’ve since learned healthy communication and conflict resolution.)
Why the hell do we as a society believe that it’s OK to treat people this way? Why do we suck at conflict resolution? What does it hurt to have an open and honest conversation with our kids about what our concerns and reservations are? Why do we insist upon invalidating and minimizing our children’s own concerns, fears, desires, and emotions?
Take Triton for instance. Perhaps he is afraid of the land people because his wife was killed by some of them. I don’t know, I’m making a guess because he refuses to give any explanation for his emotions. Which means, of course, he doesn’t tell Ariel anything of the kind, so she has no chance to empathize with how he feels. She is a child with a terrible role model, so she likely doesn’t know how to think empathetically in that way.
Furthermore, Triton shuts her down anytime she wants to talk about the land people. All of the trinkets she collected were precious to her, and he destroyed them knowing that. He never shows any interest in having a conversation with Ariel about how she is feeling, how he is feeling, and how they can resolve their differences in a healthy way.
AND he could have allowed her to explore the land at any time in a safe way with him! At the end, he changes her into a human so she can be with Eric. Which means he could have just done that THE WHOLE TIME. He just chose not to for whatever reasons he refuses to reveal to anyone.
And his foolishness was all for nothing anyway since he let her go live on land 3 days later. *face palm* Seriously??
Side note to the aside – My #1 rule with Luna is this: I listen to Luna, then she listens to me. When she is upset, first I find out why. Then I offer my perspective on it, and we continue in conversation until we reach a resolution. I demonstrate the respect that I ask for before asking for it in return. It’s a pretty good system that works for us (90% of the time. Come on, we’re human.) I don’t say this to toot my own horn but to offer a different perspective and a different way of doing things.
OK getting off my soap box now. Back to The Little Mermaid….
🧜🏽♀️ No one on the surface bats an eye at all the magic happening around them.
Another minor things, but this bugged me too. No one is even surprised that there is a magic shell that breaks and releases Ariel’s voice. They all just watch as it swirls through the air and back into her larynx. And then Ursula starts her nonsense, and again, they don’t really care or have even a single moment of shock. They just jump into action.
Fine, that’s all fine, maybe they are just that kind of “act now, ask questions later” type of people. But then when Ariel and Eric get married 15 seconds later, no one is surprised by the merpeople. It is literally never addressed. The whole movie, Triton is desperate to keep the merpeople secret from the land people. But then it just stops mattering, and the humans don’t care, and Triton doesn’t care, and it’s just fine, everything is fine.
🧜🏽♀️ Ursula is defeated by Prince Eric poking her with a toothpick….
Alright, so Triton, for all his magical powers and strength, can’t do anything about Ursula. He just gives up and turns into a soul worm. But Eric takes a broken piece of wood and stabs her, and she disintegrates.
When this happened, I expected her to laugh and pull it out of her like it was nothing, maybe throw it back at Eric, impaling him.
No.
She just dies.
What the heck? Powerful magic can’t stop her, but a little wooden skewer can?! Poor Ursula. Such an undignified death. She should have been defeated by all the merpeople coming together with their magic to ensnare her in her own soul garden. But to make her death so pathetic is unfitting and just sad. She deserved better than that.
So there you have it. Those are my thoughts on Disney’s 1989 movie, The Little Mermaid. Like I said before, it was an enjoyable movie, and for the most part, I really liked it. I still can’t believe it took me this long to watch it! But now I can file it under the Watched column. Yay!
Onward to the next film…
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Two things!
One, please note that the names of everyone in this blog have been altered to protect the people I write about. My main goal is to explore my experiences and my growth, not air anyone’s dirty laundry out. Any likeness to people you know in real life are probably coincidental. (I mean what are the chances? It’s a pretty big world!)
Two, the thoughts and opinions I express in this blog are merely a result of my personal experiences to this point in my life. If there is anything I have misrepresented, overlooked, or have a blind spot for, feel free to leave a comment or email me at contact@livingbetween.net. (Yes, this includes typos. Let me fix my typos, please!) All I ask is that you always remain respectful.
Talk soon!
– Lynda –
Living Between 