Sir, I Don't Think We Watched the Same Movie...

[risa_fidda]

This post will serve as a defense of Ariel, the protagonist of one of Disney's classics The Little Mermaid and as a response to an utterly repugnant and asinine comment I saw when lurking on The Little Mermaid board of IMDb. Now, I'm sure some of you are probably raising an eyebrow at a defense made for this Disney Princess, as Ariel is usually

Comments

[ladyhadhafang]

To be fair regarding the climax, I don't think that there's much you can do being stuck at the bottom of a whirlpool. But so agreed with your comment, all the way.

[dustbunny105]

Agreed about the whirlpool thing. Why do people blame the princesses instead of the writers who put them in situations where they can't act/are rewarded for not acting?

[ladyhadhafang]

Because that would actually make *sense*, and most of the Internet doesn't like that. (Much)

But thank you. :)

[shotglass]

Can this person just take a moment and remember that Ariel is 16? She's not a grown-ass adult who is supposed to have a sense of perspective. She's brave, she has hobbies and interests, and she's loyal and protective of her friends. Sounds like an a-okay chick who made some bad decisions. Ursula took advantage of her desires, warped them, and gave her something that seemed to be an easy task - would have been an easy task! If Ursula herself hadn't interfered.

Now, I do see Triton's side of things, if only because as far as he's concerned, humans are just as dangerous as drugs - he's dealing with a child who is seemingly addicted to something that will kill them. That's a very real parental fear. But it's all in the course of the story, he realizes his error, and happy end.

[dustbunny105]

I hate when people disregard how old the princesses are. They aren't adults and shouldn't be held to the same standards as adults.

Though nothing will ever annoy as much as people picking on Snow White for being a pushover and for jumping at the prince's attention. For crying out loud, she's a fourteen-year-old survivor of abuse. How about criticizing the dwarves for taking advantage of her situation to get a pretty housekeeper, or for claiming to want to help her while doing nothing to encourage her to find her prince, or for displaying her thought-dead body because she's too pretty to hide away with a proper burial? UGH.

Edit: Er, sorry to go all off-topic on you. I seem to have a lot of feelings.

[whittertwitter]

Not to mention how many people are just parroting the Nostalgia Chick's review and other reviews like it. Because, as I've said before, god forbid people think for themselves! We'll just let Internet celebrities do our thinking for us! :D [/sarcasm] I'm sorry, I just get so annoyed when people obviously haven't seen the movie in a long time (if EVER) and criticize the characters based on things they didn't do.

[beata_malfoy]

I remember when I saw that review, I agreed with the counter-arguments presented by her friends and other users (minus the over-the-top insults) far more than I did with the Chick herself. The "traded her voice for a dick" argument sounds suspiciously similar to what she originally said when declaring her hatred of the movie in (I think) her Top Ten Disney Villainesses video: "I sold my soul for a vagina and a man I don't know!" Name one person who made a good decision about love at age 16. Even the people who did find their future husband/wife at that age must've made some serious mistakes along the way, I doubt it would've been a fairytale romance.

[whittertwitter]

It was that video, yes. I swear, I have heard that exact phrase so many times from so many different people, it's really starting to get on my nerves. Slut-shaming is totally a feminist thing to do, you guys! [/sarcasm]

[beata_malfoy]

And ironically, she criticized "Cruel Intentions" for doing this to the antagonist at the end.

[ginnekomiko]

The thing that urks me about this whole thing is, has anyone read the original Anderson tale? A lot of these flaws can be traced back to that mermaid because that's what she was based on. Sure, Disney changed the ending, and now most people assumes it ends happily, but they also fleshed out her character more so that her wants and mistakes made a lot more sense.

[whittertwitter]

Exactly! Disney gave her a reason for wanting to be human outside of love! There was even a fucking SONG about it, but apparently everyone only remembers the reprise.

[dustbunny105]

To be fair, Eric does sort of become central to her motivation for becoming/staying human. Of course, even that makes sense at the time. To start with, Ariel's only just become infatuated with him when her father destroys her collection and leaves her in a vulnerable enough emotional state to be taken advantage of by Ursula. To go on, once Ariel becomes human, getting Eric to fall in love with her is a pretty major priority if she doesn't want to become part of Ursula's creepy garden. Personally, I've long been fascinated by the possibility of Ariel realizing that, however great a guy he is, her feelings for Eric aren't what she thought they were.

[whittertwitter]

Exactly! I've read a couple fanfics that explore just that possibility, one with Ariel deciding that life as a human isn't all it's cracked up to be and returning home and another where Eric wants to be a merman and they go back to Atlantica together.

[dustbunny105]

No wonder the generation of females that have grown up with this tripe have turned out to be such self-serving, conniving little *beep*

Lost me at "females", tbh. Though I cast a long enough look at the rest of the sentence to wonder when the complaint stopped being that Ariel gives up her life for a man.