Comments | hated_character: Sir, I Don't Think We Watched the Same Movie...

risa_fidda in hated_character

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

Mar 15, 2012 13:08

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 ( Read more... )

" female characters, crying "slut/whore/playboy", crying "female = whore/slut/skank/tramp/, disney, crying "selfish!", , “good traits what good traits”, crying "in love = stalker!", crying "spunky female = bitch", hypocrisy, crying "real heroes sacrifice and suffer

Comments 26

dropsofgleam March 16 2012, 16:12:40 UTC

Actually, Ariel is bashed in a regular basis. When she's not accused of being a bitch to Triton or irresponsible, she's called "slutty", "weak", "dependant on males" and "antifeminist" because she loved Eric. To this I say, hello? Eric was one of her motivations but not the only one, and again Ariel was a teenaged girl who's very sheltered and almost babied by a father who has a good heart, but a terrible temper. (And he ends up regretting it when Ariel runs away, too.)

And reading the comments? My "respect" for The Nostalgia Chick keeps dropping and dropping. She bashed Sailormoon to Hell and back because it wasn't "feminist" enough for her tastes, and now she shits on The Little Mermaid because the protagonist is a teenage girl who acts and thinks like one! She's supposed to be a "feminist", she should know better than whining about girls for GASP not being perfect.

whittertwitter March 16 2012, 17:34:17 UTC

She bashed Sailor Moon?! What did she say?.

insanepurin March 16 2012, 19:44:03 UTC

What the heck? I thought she admitted she had never seen Sailor Moon on the "Top Ten "Hottest" Animated Guys" video.

tari_silmarwen March 16 2012, 16:15:02 UTC

Ursula was the one insisted on that part of the bargain and then begun to teach that all men want is just a pretty face.

Not to mention the reason she's giving that advice and insisting on taking Ariel's voice in the first place is because she's deliberately stacking the deck against her. She wants Ariel to fail miserably at getting Eric to fall in love with her. Telling Ariel her looks are all that matter to guys and that they don't like conversation is just a means to convince her to give up the goods.

And heck, even without her voice, Ariel still showed plenty of personality and agency. To hear some people talk about it, giving her voice away was akin to selling out her whole identity and giving up all her self-expression and "changing herself for a man". I guess they must have missed the whole middle part of the movie where Ariel is so happy and excited and eager to see everything on her tour with Eric and has relatively little trouble expressing herself to him and having conversations with him. She's the exact same ( ... )

whittertwitter March 16 2012, 17:35:36 UTC

I hate the whole "Ariel sold her soul for a man" thing and I wish I could shoot it dead in the backyard.

That and the whole "Belle had Stockholm Syndrome lol" thing. Least original ways to bash characters EVER.

insanepurin March 16 2012, 19:55:09 UTC

I hate the whole "Ariel sold her soul for a man" thing and I wish I could shoot it dead in the backyard. Ariel had wanted to BE human for a looooong time before she saw Eric. She wasn't even planning on turning human in order to see him again. The catalyst for going to see Ursula was when her father destroyed everything precious to her that she'd spent years collecting at personal risk to herself. That made her emotionally fragile enough that Flotsam and Jetsam could easily take advantage of her. The Little Mermaid has flaws and can be problematic in places, but I hate it when detractors misrepresent the actual issues.

Agreed. Agreed SO much. I'm sick of the whole "OMG BELLE HAS STOCKHOLM SYNDROME!!1!11" thing too. :/

insanepurin March 16 2012, 20:09:35 UTC

People often criticize Ariel for not being a good rolemodel (to be fair, there's the whole "Disney Princess" franchise, but that's another subject), but to be honest? She's a friggin' 16-year-old. Of course she's going to do stupid things! Ariel's only human... which is what she wants to be in the first place. :o

I get that Disney films and their princesses have their share of flawed storywriting and character development (come to think of it, why didn't Ariel just write a note to Eric? She was able to sign the contract with her name... I don't remember if the film explained if writing was off-limits or not), but some people look WAY too far into it and find Unfortunate Implications that aren't even there. :/