The Little Mermaid has always been a story about exclusion – and its author was an outsider

The Little Mermaid live-action remake that Disney is planning has received an astounding amount of criticism. Millions of people disliked the 2023 movie teaser on YouTube, ostensibly because Halle Bailey, a Black actress, plays the mermaid.

Ariel was a red-headed mermaid who appeared in the 1989 Disney animated picture, which served as the inspiration for the forthcoming movie (and a singing crab with a Jamaican accent). A Black mermaid is not “genuine” to The Little Mermaid fairy tale, it is imply by most of the current criticism.

Fairy tales, however, are frequently updated over time in fresh ways.

The literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen differs significantly from the 1989 movie version. He had trouble expressing his wants because he was an outcast bisexual. And he wrote The Little Mermaid while a man he was fascinated with was getting married, so it wasn’t the Disney fans’ typical happily ever after romance but rather a story of tortured unrequited love.

The first Cinderella was Chinese

It is wrong to express outrage about fairy tales that span ethnic and cultural lines. Numerous civilizations have their own versions of the most well-known stories, and well-known narrative types have a history of travelling the world. The manner in which they are recount has evolved as well: from oral transmission to textual versions (dating back to the 17th century), and now to cinema, television, and games (from the 20th century).

Fairy tales have persisted because they are always being repeat in fresh ways to appeal to shifting audiences and cultural conventions.

Yeh-Hsien, a Chinese language variety, is the earliest Cinderella version known to exist. It was originally publish about 850, whereas Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, which served as the model for the majority of the modern versions, appeared in print in 1697. Yeh-Hsien makes wishes using fish bones instead of a fairy godmother, who she does not have. Cinderella should only be portrayed as Chinese if fairy tales are only supposed to “belong” to the first civilization in which they were ever spoken or written, according to logic.

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid

Since Snow White in 1937, Disney’s animated versions have come to define how we as a culture perceive fairy tales. It’s one of the reasons we’ve lost touch with the many cultural traditions and origins of these stories. These family-friendly movies also clean up previous versions of fairy tales, which were sometimes grislier and more unsettling than their Disney counterparts.

Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is a terrible tale of sorrow and great sacrifice, unlike the Disney movies. The creator of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, expressed her distaste for the mermaid’s prolonged suffering and her opinion that Andersen’s “tortures, disguised as piety” were “demoralizing.”

The protagonists in many of Andersen’s stories are little, vulnerable people who pique our empathy. As in The Little Match Girl, this fragility may result from being underprivileged and neglected. Or it could be bring on by characters who find it tough to move about. From one place to another, the tiny Thumbelina must be carry. And as she moves, the Little Mermaid characters feels as though metal blades are stabbing her feet.

The Little Mermaid is another outstanding illustration of Andersen’s emphasis on feminine sorrow and sacrifice. She first becomes mute after the sea witch cuts away her tongue. She walks on her tenaciously acquired human legs in a “beautiful, floating” manner, maintaining her exquisite elegance.

The mermaid twice intervenes to save the Prince. She first takes a life-threatening risk to save him from a shipwreck. However, because the Prince never harbors romantic feelings for the mermaid, Andersen’s fairy tale is not a love story. Although he is moved by her affection, he abuses the mermaid inhumanely. Additionally, he grants her “permission to sleep on a velvet cushion at his door.”

When the Prince weds a different woman, the Little Mermaid clutches her bridal dress’ train while contemplating “her death and of all, she had lost in this world,” displaying the height of self-sacrifice.

The sea witch had promised the mermaid an everlasting soul if she could make the prince fall in love with her. If not, she would pass away on the first day after his marriage to someone else from a shattered heart and turn into sea foam on the seas. When given the option to murder the Prince or return to her family in mermaid form, she chooses to give her own life in exchange.