FAN ART: How Disney's 'The Little Mermaid' should have ended.....

[brendala]

I love this film as much as any other girl who was raised on a steady diet of Disney princess movies. However, upon watching it as a grown up, it becomes clear that Ariel is a totally stupid, selfish, awful person (er, fish or whatever species she technically is). And I have my doubts that her relationship with Eric would survive the resolution of her "Daddy Issues".

Sorry for ruining your childhood, everybody!

[Deviant Art Link]

Comments

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I agree with rezo_eris on this. Ariel's dad fed her lies about humans her whole life, no doubt because he wanted to protect her. She says from the start that she doesn't understand how any race that made the things she loved to collect could be as her dad said they were, so like any person ought, she decided to find out for herself. Enter Prince Eric, who is everything her dad denies humans could be, so kind he braved a burning ship to save his pet dog. It's no wonder Ariel was only more curious then, enough to save his life.

It gets worse when her dad goes into a rage and destroys her beloved collection. He thought he was doing her a favor. All he did was chase her away from him. And then she does encounter Eric again, who doesn't recognize her as his savior since she can't talk. Despite this, he still takes her in, feeds and clothes her, and even spends time with her. It's no wonder that even if she initially had a crush on the human that it became something more, especially when he took on Ursula to save Ariel's life. Even her dad wouldn't be able to convince her that humans were bad after that. She had found the opposite to be true!

Ariel has never been a favorite of mine, I couldn't stand the cartoon, but she is not unworthy of being seen as a role model to kids. Especially kids that grow up being fed racist lies. Would that more kids would be like her in that respect, and find out the truth for themselves.

As for leaving my family behind...yes, yes I am. As all people who expect to marry do, some distance has to happen. And also, my fiancé gave up a lot to want to marry me, including receiving his dad's approval. Just because his dad doesn't like me doesn't make either of us foolish to want to be together.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Look, when I drew this comic, it was just supposed to be a silly joke/parody. I never intended to get into any philosophical debates about the merits of Ariel's character, her relationship with Eric & her dad, or your relationship with your fiancee. So I'm not sure how to respond to all that. And I'm sorry if I hit a nerve or something by poking fun at a dumb fairy tale movie.

As for Triton being "racist"....it seems to me that he had good reasons to distrust humans (humans EAT fish; and mermaids are friends with fish). So it's a bit disingenuous (and, IMO, mildly offensive) to compare his behavior to actual, real-life racism (even if the film-makers did intend for it to be an allegory).

[rezo-eris.livejournal.com]

It was more prejudice than full-on racism, and yeah he did have good reason to distrust humans, but he crossed the line into being completely unreasonable about it. When Ariel says "You don't even know him", as a concerned parent, the PROPER response would have been "Neither do you!". THAT would have won him my respect. Instead, his response is "I don't HAVE to know him: they're all the same!" That is just a very ignorant, generalizing comment that showed me he was being irrational about the whole thing, so he actually lost my respect at that point. He more than made up for it in his later scenes, but still...

Also, people harp on Ariel for trading her whole life for a man she never really met. Well...how else could see "meet" him when her father was forbidding her from getting any closer to the surface world all the time?

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

You didn't hit a nerve at all, but you need to understand that when you put anything out where others can see it, there's going to be a reaction. Maybe good, maybe bad, but a reaction regardless. It's a lesson I learned a while ago, so if I ever post anything that can be taken badly, I prepare for a debate from someone. (But, I tend to like talking to people to learn of differing views, so I'm okay with it.)

Fairy tales, Little Mermaid included, were often morality tales. If one cannot relate it to real life, it has failed to do what it was meant to do. There's plenty of pointless entertainment out there, Disney tends not to be in that category - unless you watch its current t.v. shows. UGH. But, that's something I'm okay not discussing.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

You didn't hit a nerve at all, but you need to understand that when you put anything out where others can see it, there's going to be a reaction.

I understand that. But sometimes it's just impossible to predict how people will react to something. :P

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

If we knew how to predict people's reactions all the time, there would never be any strife. (Unless someone was just being a jerk.) Relevent to this post, I remember reading something from a Disney person talking about people telling them to keep making box office hits like Lion King. The remark was that if Disney knew exactly what caused a movie to be a box office hit, they'd always make them!

So many aspects of life are trial and error. No getting around it.