The Trouble with Ariel: A Rant

No offense but Princess Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid is a boneheaded moron. We are introduced to her presence when she is a no show for her concert debut. Embarrassing her sister's, the composer, and her father.
We are later introduced to her while she's entering a sunken unstable ship, putting herself and her best friend in danger, who as a fish (or half fish) should know are usually teaming with sharks.
And afterward she doesn't really show much concern for her friend Flounder's well being.

Once she realizes that she forgot the concert she swims back to her father, who has every right to reprimand her for her behavior, lets her go swimming off with nothing much but a warning and a tiny crustacean as a babysitter. (This girl needs a team of armored guards to keep her in check.) After we find her rather impressive collection of human belongings. Now, if you haven't realized her rather careless selfish behavior you almost see it now within her pretty little song about wanting to be human.

I'm making the assumption that every little girl wished to be something she wasn't, from a princess to a ballerina to a pirate, but as Ariel sings you feel this is more then just a girlish fantasy. Ariel is obsessed, it's all she can think about. She disobeys her father, by swimming back up to the surface, obviously a dangerous place for a half human fish, a species of some great secrecy. In turn she sees and saves Prince Eric (Why? because she thought he was handsome.)

Who knows how many others drowned in that storm but at least the handsome Prince Eric is safe. I'm not saying it was wrong to save him, in fact it's one of the few things I like her for. It was around the time she was singing to him that she got that crazed fan girl look in her eye and basically said that she'd do anything to be with him. Even when Sebastian sings probably one of the greatest Disney songs since Sleeping Beauty, we find Ariel has left him in the middle of his song to day dream in her human treasure cave.


So that is where the fish food really hits the fan. Her dad finds out, who is obviously upsets, because being a "reasonable merman" he knows that humans are dangerous. (Maybe not in a Disney movie, but everyone knows if you came across a real life mermaid, you'd be haulin' that thing in for some serious mula.) Had it with his fluff for brains, selfish, rather obsessive, danger seeking youngest daughter he trying to show some sense into the only way he knows how, granted he might have gotten a little carried away but I could see how he found her obsession concerning.

She claimed she loves this human who she has never spoken to (no, singing to him while he's unconscious does not count) King Triton is of course angry and worried and more the likely disguised with this confession and blows apart her treasure cave, including the larger then life sized statue of Prince Eric.

Ariel, being upset by this painful dose of reality cries her eyes out. Enter eels. These two eels works for Ursula, the sea witch, who as we have met earlier is holding a firm grudge against King Triton, and who's real wish is to damn souls, ruin lives and of course turn King Triton into a worm. These Eels talk young Ariel into coming over to Ursula's for a nice chat, and hey maybe even a deal with the devil! (Seriously that's basically what a contract with Ursula is.)

Ariel finding what little of her conscious she has declines the offer at first until she sees Eric's face. Her desire to become human so fierce she changes her mind and follows the eels.

All this time Sebastian and flounder actually feel sorry for this rather selfish young brat. That is until they see her swimming away to Ursula and instead of sending one of them to her father they both follow her knowing it was unlikely they could talk this bratty teenager out of selling herself to the witch.

Ursula gives a rather fun, convincing little song trying to convince Ariel to trade her voice for legs. Ariel questions, how she is to get a man to fall in love with her without being able to talk/ sing. Ursula sings the rest of her song saying "You'll have your looks, your pretty face, and don't underestimate the importance of body language" making rather suggestive movements, (not all that surprising from Disney but still very inappropriate for a kids movie.) Even after she sees what happened to all of the others who sold themselves to Ursula and after Ursula's rather vulgar suggestions for catching a man, Ariel agrees and signs the contract.

Now her comes one of my favorite parts of the movie, Ariel's silence. Without her voice you can short of see her virtues, she's sweet, inquisitive, adventurous and she found a prince who seems to appreciate she dangerous behavior so more power to her I guess. She is rather sweet when she is silent and Eric is smitten right away with her even though he believes she's not the girl he's looking for. Even with Sebastian's encouragement he doesn't kiss her, now most people are annoying with this but I happen to appreciate Eric's propriety (even though he was so closely tempted). He's only know her for a day, he believes there is another girl out there with the voice of angel, or a siren in this case, in those days and even to some people nowadays (people I happen to be among) it is completely inappropriate to kiss someone after only knowing them a day. (shippoopi!)

Ah, but Enter Ursula again, she disguises herself as a pretty young woman who has Ariel's voice, the voice Eric fell in love with. Poor little Ariel is heart broken and instead of trying to do anything about it she weeps on the pier.

Eventually, she gets her vice back, Eric realizes she's the girl of his semiconscious dreams and his kisses her. Ah, but it's too late, Ariel's life officially belongs to Ursula now, ah, but who should chance to swim by just in time but her dear old dad, King Triton. The one Ursula has been after all along. Being the good Merman he is, really he's probably my favorite character in this entire movie, He does the fatherly thing and sells himself to Ursula to free his daughter and become a worm, (a very cute if not sad one I might add).

In the mean time Eric is going out on the open ocean on a paddle boat to save Ariel against the now all powerful sea witch. You could imagine how that would turn out in any other place besides a Disney movie. But no! Eric is alright in fact he kills the sea witch, frees the king, and gets the girl... well the fish.

King Triton, after changing back into a merman realizes that Ariel really does love Eric changes her into a human so she can Marry Prince Eric, Sebastian exclaims despite earlier reports that "children need to be free to make their own decisions". Even if those decisions include, disobeying your father, selling your life/soul/voice to a sea devil, putting your family and friends' lives in constant danger, and being just a plain old spoiled brat.

She says so herself really in her main song "Part of Your World" she says "Wouldn't you think, I'm the girl, the girl who as everything... but who cares? no big deal, I want more." You short of wonder how a girl with so many other siblings can be so self involved. I'm not saying I'm any better, I'm a selfish little brat too but at least I know and I am and try to change.
Seriously though, what kind of role model is Ariel to young girls? She's disobedient, selfish, spoiled rotten and willing to ruin lives of everyone around her to get what she wants and she does eventually get what she wants, I guess Disney though that if she gives her father a kiss goodbye it redeems her from all the trouble she has caused. Frankly I'm annoyed that Disney didn't stick with the original where she turns into sea foam, even though The Little Mermaid in the Anderson story has redeeming qualities which Ariel does not possess.

Still it's pretty sad when the only thing you like about the main character is that she doesn't actually kill anyone and that she's completely silence for a good portion of the movie.

Story: After Cinderella Part 1

Have you ever heard of the tale of Cinderella? A beautiful girl forced to work as a servant in her own home, until she went to a ball and was carried away from her horrible life to live happily ever after with the prince, yes of course you've heard it. No one ever talks about what happens after because no one really cares except for the people involved. Well Mary was one of those people.

She was "Cinderella's" one and only daughter, by the way her name really wasn't Cinderella. Her name was Eleanor, which is a name she detested, mostly because of the unflattering nickname her stepsisters gave her. This story isn't really about her though; her story has been told and retold so many times surely most of you know it by heart. This story is about Mary, plain Jane Mary who wanted nothing more then to be invisible.

Her mother spent all of her life in an ashy corner of the kitchen craving someone to take notice of her and then there was Mary. She preferred sitting in the shadows of my older brothers but because she was the only daughter of the most beautiful woman in the country she was often asked for, everyone wanted a glimpse at the most beautiful woman's daughter but she considered herself only the watered down version. Luckily for her once they saw her quiet beauty against her mother's glory they returned their sites back to her mother, which she had no problem with.

I'm getting carried away, in order for this to make sense something about her mother's story has to be put into the light. I hate popping your bubble but Cinderella didn't have a fairy Godmother. She had a regular Godmother. Why didn't she come into play sooner when she was being abused? That's simple she lived across the country, and she was almost as blind as a bat and since she refused to get reading glasses, she often went without reading her mail, not that Cinderella was even allowed to send her anything.

The truth is, Mary's mother's godmother, Violet, was in town for the ball herself, she was in her thirties but she was still unmarried and so it was her duty to come when summoned. That is when Violet found Cinderella in her troubling state and came to the rescue. She had her servants clean the house, pick out the lentils, she found the perfect dresses for each of the three balls, and the shoes, which were really fur, not glass, were actually a little quirk of Violet's. Even though Violet had terrible eyesight she loved to hunt, and with all the animals she eventually killed she made good use of what she killed. So besides have mostly an all meat diet she wore a lot of fur, and that included her shoes. Then you know how the rest went.

It was Violet who had planned this trip, Mary realized as the traveled down the road in an unmarked carriage. Violet had put up the proposition that Mary could go to the neighboring kingdom and offer for one of the king's sons and even though Mary felt sick at the thought of leaving she didn't protest, because one just didn't protest with one's Godmother especially not Violet. Her parents didn't much like the idea but Violet talked them into it, for they also couldn't argue with someone like Violet. Sure she was short and old, mostly blind and slightly eccentric, but it was all part of her charm, and even if you could refuse her something she pulled out the "I'll be dead soon and then you'll be sorry" card.

So there Mary was, curled up on one side of the carriage while her handmaid sat opposite both completely bored out of their minds, they had been riding since early afternoon. The road was rough as it went through the forests of Adrian's Shadow. Mary looked out of her window just as it was getting dark and marveled at the beauty of the shadows of the trees. She had just decided the forest was well named when the carriage came to an abrupt halt right in the middle of it.

"Thieves!" Hearing the fear in his voice she pulled off her crest ring that her mother and father gave her just before she left and stuffed down into her bodice just as a blazing light from a torch burned outside the window. Mary didn't make a sound, unlike Anne who screeched when they reached for her to pull out of the carriage. As the man took Anne the opposite door of the carriage opened and grabbed Mary.

©2011 ~Pumpkin-frog