Coming Of Age In Ariel's The Little Mermaid

Disney movies are constructed in a traditional and a similar way. Throughout the movies, it can be seen that all Disney films have lots of details in common. Whether it is a based on the life of an animal or human, they all have a certain goal they are determined to accomplish. Disney sticks to its own style and bases all the movies created to fit that specific style. In order to make it a true Disney movie, it must portray an identical plot.

George Bemard Shaw once said, “We are all dependent on one another, every soul of on on Earth.” This incredibly true for the character Sal. She dependent on many people to know how to feel and do. This also relates on how she always depends on people she knows very well. In the book Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech, the external forces change Sal’s life dramatically.

The transition from a girl to a woman is created by the socially constructed ideals of femininity often depicted in commercials, books, and mainly films. One of the famous animated princess Disney films, The Little Mermaid can be easily added to yet another Disney film portraying hegemonic femininity. In the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, (Ron Clements, John Musker) a beautiful, young mermaid is willing to make a risky deal with an evil sea-witch because she yearns to walk on land and fall in love with a Prince, while secretly the sea-witch wishes for the mermaid to lose the deal. Ultimately, mermaid ends up achieving her dream of marrying the Prince, although the evil sea-witch tries to destroy the plan. Throughout the fantasy/ melodrama film, the main protagonist Ariel reinscribes the hegemonic codes of femininity. Hegemonic femininity explicitly promotes the roles and physical attributes that women have to take in

After reading “Mermaid Fever,” the statement that I think this essay makes about societal attitudes is that people will react and behave very strangely to anything that is out of the ordinary. The narrator bases his essay on a public beach, located in a small town in Connecticut, and out of the blue, this teenage girl’s body was washed up under the tide line one summer night. After extensive scientific tests and examinations on the body, the news finally broke out that the girl was a mermaid. The girl was soon transferred to a local museum in town where she would be put on a glass display that will be open to the public. This news brought the whole city together, and people waited in line for hours just to observe this fond discovery. Most women and teenage girls loved the idea of the mermaid that it grew into a new trend of fashion. Their obsession over this new trend even encouraged them to walk on beaches with mermaid suits and their breast exposed to male voyeurs. Millhauser wanted to justify to his readers that this societal attitude the people had on the creature can get out of hand and lead to madness and instability within the town. For example, a fourteen-year-old girl was assaulted at a party by some high school girls, painted her hips down a green, bound at the ankles and tossed into her into a stream.

Taking into consideration the first and main version of The Little Mermaid, author Han Christian Andersen’s, Little Mermaid, written in 1837, has different characters than the 2006 interpretation of the short story, Aquamarine. From an addition of two new female characters to the subtraction of the royal titles that each character possessed, Aquamarine is based on a twenty first century setting. The plots between the two also greatly differ and even lead up to different endings. Similarly, both mermaids are searching for love and both mermaids asked to be human. Both mermaids have a due date that forces them back into the ocean if they do not find love. While Anderson’s mermaid’s failure would lead her to her ultimate death, Aquamarine’s would lead her to go back to the ocean and marry whomever her father desires. The ending greatly differs for, in Anderson’s original tale, The Little Mermaid fails to find love and sacrifices herself for the Prince. She is then required to live off her life as a spirit, doing good deeds to humans for her to regain her soul back. Similarly, Aquamarine does not find love with the lifeguard, Raymond, which causes a huge ocean storm due to her father’s rage. Her two best friends, Claire and Hailey jump into the water to save her, and it is their

“The Little Mermaid” shows the trials of the youngest mermaid of a Sea King who has six daughters. The Sea King is widowed and his mother takes care of his palace. “They were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish’s tail. All day long they played in the great halls of the castle, or among the living flowers that

Across cultures and civilizations, the sea has always been an important figure both in the benefits it provides in daily life and its presence in storytelling. In consequence, sea monsters have been important figures in myths and stories whether it be in 1000 BCE Babylonian culture, or in 20th century America. The Babylonian Enuma Elish and Disney’s 1989 The Little Mermaid both feature a powerful female antagonist, Tiamat and Ursula, respectively, and these two figures bear many similarities. In both stories, the female antagonist holds strong relationship to the sea, and has supernatural abilities that aid her in her quest to defeat the heroic characters in the story. Additionally, Tiamat and Ursula engage in battle in their respective tales, and are defeated and killed in almost identical fashion.

The Little Mermaid which was produced in 1989, was the first Disney movie to challenge the traditional gender roles, for the fact that Ariel wanted to explore, and was more independent and assertive in her desires than the earlier princesses of the 1930’s and 50s films. Also the prince in The Little Mermaid went against traditional gender roles as well, simply because he was more affectionate and loving than his prince counterparts in other Disney films. “Both the male and female roles have changed over time, but overall the male characters evinced less change then the female characters and were more androgynous throughout.” (Descartes & England, pg.566). Disney movies have been for a long time a strong media target for children, and can serve as a way to address stereotypical gender roles (Leaper, 2000). These studies suggest that children observe gender stereotypes at an early age unintentionally. Since children’s brains are constantly soaking in new information about the world around them, they have to do so in a way that they are seemingly most comfortable. Studies show that children are most comfortable learning from people who are actively in their lives and attractive movie and TV

The Disney movie Little Mermaid is an unsuitable movie for the children due to its negative gender representation which overemphasizes physical appearance and stereotypical gender roles through the characters in the film.

This description of what the Disney Princess is like; give us a big concern in the influence this image is giving to the little girls. Unfortunately, what girls learn as children carries on into adulthood. They have problems in understanding what it really means to be beautiful since the stereotype of the Disney Princess, they also learn in finding a ‘Prince’ that has a lot of money, which truly means they are not finding true love or getting in love of someone for who they really are just only because of what they have to offer. Women must learn that Princesses are only for entertainment not an example of

Most of us have grown up watching Disney films but never really thought of what they exactly mean to us. Our understanding of what it means to be a Disney princess is probably one of the reasons to what made us subject to the regulation of cultural values. Cinderella and other similar Disney princesses may be recognised as a part of an individual’s childhood but the values and ideas it conveyed can still be reflected in our decisions and behaviour as adults. Many young girls perceive Cinderella as a role model and create expectations and beliefs based on what is portrayed through her unfortunately these expectations are not fulfilled and ends in dissatisfaction. The research paper begins with a brief introduction to Psychoanalytic theory followed by an analysis of the Disney film “Cinderella” which will enable the reader to understand and relate to how the film influences and

In Persepolis, a bildungsroman genre graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, the main character experienced many events that made her become fully grown up in Iran, yet the turning point was her life in Vienna. A bildungsroman is a novel that describes the process in which the character grows from child to adult, which he or she has a reason to start a journey while the coming of age is difficult, suffering, uncomfortable, and long. There are many particular events where Marjane has many difficulties on the process of maturity. When Marjane is still a child in Iran, terrible historical events happened around her and formed her to become more mature. Although they made her become a mature child, the real part of her life that changed her were her

“When I grow up I want be a princess.” Almost every little girl 's dream was to grow up and live the life of the princesses we saw in movies. It was not until I actually started to analyze the movies that I realized that I do not want to be the princess I see on the screen. For so long I fell in love with the idea that I will one day find a man who will take care of me. I also pushed myself to fit the image of a “perfect princess”. By this I mean, I was obsessed with becoming a size 0, wearing dresses all the time and even trying to talk like the princesses. One of my favorite princesses from Disney was The Little Mermaid. Analyzing this movie has made me realize that women have been portrayed in such a diminishing way at such a young age.

...and there is so much out there for us to discover… we have a perfect role model in Princess Ariel..she’s a daydreamer, who loves exploring and has a thirst for a life in a better world which leads her on her adventure to find love in a world where they dance with legs and swim without tails.

In The Mermaid’s Sister, by Carrie Anne Noble, the main two characters Maren and Clara are raised as sisters by Auntie Verity, who is a specialist at potions for illnesses. Both children came to her as babies. Maren came by a clam shell and Clara came by a stork. The main issue in the book is Maren is changing into a mermaid. Clara does not want her to become a mermaid. A friend of theirs O’Neill who accompanies Scarff, says he will try to find a cure for Maren. Clara loves O’Neill herself, but she thinks Maren has always loved him. O’Neill comes back for a visit with Scarf. O’Neill and Clara agree to take Maren to the ocean. They are accompanied by Osbert the dragon and Pilsner the raven. They are followed by Simon Shumsky, who loves