The Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid lacks one thing… women. This is not a good thing (when would it be?). Ariel, the film’s semi-protagonist and the main character lives “under the sea” with her other sisters and father. She hopes to fulfill her dreams of marrying a prince on shore, but in doing so must strip herself of her voice. There could be an entire two-thousand-word blog post about the symbolism of the threshold of the water and the land being a woman’s subconscious mind and the threshold of being a good and “tame” wife, but this blog post is 200 words maximum, and I will save that for an essay (it is not a bad point). I think that the isolation of Ariel as the only woman (with screen time, if this makes sense) makes viewers feel a sense of sadness towards her plight. We feel prepared to be in her corner in her fight to achieve her goals, whatever they might be. I believe that the reason we feel so strongly for her is that she is isolated in a world of men, even if they are only her goofy sidekicks.
I enjoyed your take on The Little Mermaid because you brought up a point I had yet to consider: the fact that there are only two women who have legitimate lines and plots. It is interesting to see how as an audience, it is easy to sympathize with Ariel when she is the only woman we see engaging in their world. Furthermore, we see the relative ease Ursula has in navigating this world with confidence and certainty, yet we are limited to the view that this is only because she is an evil villain.
I completely agree with your post (and your essay topic sounds super interesting). Do you think the Disney version could have done this differently by adding the sisters from the original story? How would that affect the pacing and the ending of the story? Super interesting topic!