One of the most common criticisms of Disney films I hear is
that of The Little Mermaid. This beloved musical tale, based on the story
by Hans Christian Andersen, is argued by many to be the film that returned
Disney animation to its glory. Others
look upon the film unfavorably under the argument that it sends a superficial
and unrealistic message to its audience.
They say the heroine changes herself to impress a man she’s never met and
somehow lives happily ever after, and this is a terrible moral to send to young
women.
Although both valid arguments, I’m most fascinated by the
realistic situations it presents. Yes, I
said realistic. The depiction of an
average adolescent’s struggle through common situations, among fantastically
exaggerated ones, always strikes me as utterly relatable to anyone who’s ever
suffered through the rough teen years.
Just like many Disney fans, I’ve connected to a few
characters more than others, and Ariel was definitely one of them. Adolescence isn’t kind to many people, and I could
speak from experience. I was quite awkward,
angsty, and lost in life, and it wasn’t until later in college when I took a
whole class on the teenage years that I realized, “Oh my gosh, I was normal!” It was a great feeling and from then on, I
was interested in helping other teens through their rough patches. Since then I’ve mentored and volunteered with
teens and loved every second of it. Now
when I get the chance to help a teen improve their relationship with their
family it’s yet another great accomplishment.
So I totally “get” Ariel and, although she makes some crappy choices in
her journey, it seems normal to me and actually well done by the Disney
storytellers.
Let’s take a look at some of the little things that make
Ariel’s character so true, and some of the common adolescent traits she
portrays. The first is Ariel’s obvious
discourse with her father, King Triton.
Most of their interactions in the film involve conflict between the two
of them, and it’s pretty believable how frustrated each is with the other. Ariel has a passion and is restless with the
life she’s always known. This passion
happens to be the human world; something she’s exploring but not too familiar
with yet. I look at this as a metaphor
for adulthood.
Teens get stuck when they start to get tastes of the world
that is waiting for them as grown-ups, but can’t embrace it full on quite
yet. It’s such a frustrating place to
be, and Ariel’s song “Part of That World” really paints a picture of the range
of emotions she feels: curiosity, excitement, depression, dissatisfaction. She’s gathered all these bits and pieces of
something she can kind of relate to but it’s not yet actually attainable.
This frustration and longing for something impossible leads
to some other well-known teen behavior, including truancy. Sebastian complains that she fails to show up
to her music rehearsal, and we see what happens during the musical concert with
her sisters. Something else is occupying
her mind and so things involving the underwater world, or childhood in our
metaphor, are uninteresting and unimportant.
The pleasure of the here and now outweigh the implications of skipping
class.
Another prominent teen trait is Ariel’s inability to foresee
possible dangers and consequences of all her actions. This is evident in her introductory scene, as
she fearlessly explores shipwrecks, ignoring her friend Flounder’s nervous
protests. “Nothing is going to happen!”
she teases him, which turns out to be false as they end up escaping from a
shark attack. Same goes for Ariel’s
curious trip to the surface to learn about Eric’s ship, as this too, ends in
near-perilous circumstances. Teens,
especially the younger ones, don’t have the ability to think realistically
about what their actions may cause in the future, which is why so many end up
in “what were you thinking?!” situations… because they simply weren’t.
Additionally, those who try to hold her back and set limits look
more and more like villains. One
significant change in teen thinking is the realization that their parents are
not, in fact, perfect. Children are
cognitively wired to idealize their parents, but as teens develop abstract and
logical thought, they realize otherwise.
This comes out in the heated discussions between Ariel and her
father. The yelling and lecturing he
turns to as a tactic only makes her angrier and feel less understood. When Ariel begins to argue, “I’m sixteen, I’m
not a child anymore!” he loses control and starts speaking in absolutes with a
“my house, my rules” mentality, “you will never go to the surface again.” This back-and-forth results in a flurry of
emotions that end with both parties hurt and nothing solved.
Other mistakes Triton makes in the process are his general
non-acceptance of his daughter’s identity exploration. This is a common problem with parents of
teens, but they rarely know that experimentation and fascination with new
things is absolutely what they’re supposed to be doing. Sure, sometimes those new things aren’t the
most healthy or productive to society, but they are learning experiences all
the same. A better route would have been
placing reasonable guidelines on Ariel’s exploration, and supervising her
visits to the surface while educating her to the dangers. Then, setting rules regarding the boundaries
Triton decides on and following through on those specific agreed rules. Large, vague, and umbrella-style rules don’t
do anything but dare teens to rebel.
This is illustrated perfectly by the turning point in the
film. Triton had used an outside source
to spy on his daughter and pose as a friend.
When it became clear Sebastian had betrayed her to her short-tempered
father, it was a twist of the knife. To
a teen, finding you have one less person on your side is a really terrible
feeling. At these moments they honestly
believe no one else in the world has ever, or can ever understand what they’re
feeling at that moment. So she runs,
err, swims right into the arms of the first person promised to understand
her. Teens do this all the time, when
faced with similar situations of parents who fail to adjust to teenage
parenting. Take gangs, as an extreme example. Consequently, Ariel ends up making a foolish
choice based purely on emotion, and again the pleasure of the possibilities
outweighs the misery of her current state, despite the chance it can get
better.
Once getting a taste of the human world, as a teen does of
adulthood, it’s fun and carefree at first, but inevitably falls apart. She can’t quite stand on her own two legs (a
convenient metaphor) and stumbles along with what little knowledge of this vast
new world she has. She doesn’t even have
her own voice yet, but mimes her way thought what she thinks she is supposed to
do as a human/adult. Ariel falls fast
into the infatuation of first love and when it doesn’t play out she is
crushed. Although ever the fighter, the
end result is that her father comes to her rescue and Ariel is sorry for her
reckless decision. She learns her lesson
when her love and her father are endangered and they barely escape from and
defeat the dangers of temptation, Ursula.
At the end Ariel’s father has a seemingly convenient
breakthrough, as he grants Ariel her wish of staying in the human world. But I don’t agree that it’s a convenient
ending, and instead argue that its a portrayal of a strict father realizing he
has to let his daughter start growing into an adult. He ceremoniously grants her legs, or
metaphorically freedom and understanding.
Although no good parent would let their teen instantly become a complete
adult, it’s a symbol of a shift in perspective and letting old obsolete rules
go. And in the end they still remain a
part of each other’s world.
I hope this extensive analysis sheds a new light on how the
film and its heroine is viewed. It’s
true that if taken literally, the story seems extreme and preposterous. But it’s the little details of authentic
adolescent behavior and the underlying themes that make this film stand out to
me as a former teen and current therapist.
