Aug 30 2008
GNA: The Little Mermaid Review
This is an article I wrote for another blog that didn’t get published so I thought I would let it live here. :)
The Little Mermaid: A Comparative Review
By Whitney Moore
For a lot of people of my generation Disney’s The Little Mermaid was their first introduction to Mermaids. I was four when I was introduced to the concept and art surrounding the Mermaid myth when this movie came out. I cried when it was over. I didn’t want to leave that world and I suppose in some ways I still don’t. I still love the sea and sea creatures both real and fictional and I have even started a new series of paintings in my gallery based on the sea.
But what was it about this particular rendition of such an old and in some ways ancient story that affected me and so many others?
Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid is based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson written in 1836. In the Disney version Ariel is the little mermaid who dreams of a life on the surface because she can look up every day and see the light from above. She even goes up to the surface and sees a British Royal Navy ship one night furthering her desire to explore this strange land. But in the original story the Little Mermaid has no knowledge of the surface because she lives so far under the sea that even “church steeples piled one on top of another…” could not reach the bottom. Instead a mermaid has to be 15 years old before she is allowed to go to the surface and the original Little Mermaid has to listen to stories of the surface dwellers that her sisters tell her. So it seems that like everything Disney does The Little Mermaid was adapted to be more accessible to audiences and the artists working on the animation alike but this is not necessarily something to be held against Walt Disney.
It has become popular to say that Disney’s adaptations of classic stories is an abomination to the original writers but the vision of the Disney company has been to bring classic stories and ideas to the attention of new audiences. If anything the worst they can be accused of is getting children interested in literature. The Little Mermaid is a great example of this. The period costumes of the human characters and the songs that are reminiscent of 1950’s musicals are just two of the ways audiences can explore beyond the movie.
The encounter with the witch who gives her the legs is one of the most accurately portrayed parts of the story. In the film the classic deal with the devil is portrayed in the context of a creepy undersea cave inhabited by a large octopus who tells Ariel that she has a potion that will give her the legs she has always dreamed of but in return there is a price. In the original story the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting voice in the world and so Disney saw a perfect opportunity to give Ariel some of the best songs early in the movie. So it is truly a tragedy when this deal is done.
Overall I think this is a fitting reinterpretation of a classic story which will get children interested in this rich tradition of art and literature.
