The Little Mermaid

Firstly, the songs in this film were even better than I remember! My favorite was “Kiss the Girl”. Sebastian is my favorite character from the film. His songs are so great and his worrisome personality is really cute.  Also, I loved the part where Ariel was talking about the spoon in such awe-inspired terms, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Have you ever seen anything so wonderful in your entire life?”. When she started brushing her hair with the fork in front of Eric and then realized it was not right, I laughed so hard.

Villainy throughout the Disney movies seems to have pattern. The Disney villains tend to live in dark, purplish rooms. They are always emerging from darkness. Also, Ursula’s eel henchmen were also darkly colors. When Ursula took Ariel’s voice, the rooms turned green which indicates evil (also seen in Scar’s “Be Prepared” and in Cinderella’s step mothers eyes). Also, her maniacal laugh was actually really scary, like I’m surprised I was able to watch this when I was a little kid. Ursula is a great villain. Partially because her songs are fantastic and partially because her character radiated evil. The way Ursula moves on land is terrifying. Also, When Ursula let her ink blot go, it was the epitome of the evil villain emerging from darkness because she literarily swam out of a large cloud of black smoke. When she tried to steal Eric, it reminded me of girls now. For example, sometimes when one girl likes a guy and then another girl hears about it, she will try to get him just because the other girl likes him. To top it off she kicks the dog… she is truly the ultimate villain. The setting at the end of the movie really gives away the villainy happening; The setting is composed of dark purples and blues. There was no sun and the water was extremely choppy.

It was notable that when King Triton was destroying Ariel’s human possessions he was under shadows, his body was completely dark besides his staff and his eyes.

Ariel’s father, although protective, is so good to his daughter. He saves her from becoming one of Ursula’s captured souls by sacrificing himself. I did not remember that from the film but it was quite touching.  Family values in the film came full circle at the end of the film when Ariel said “I love you, Dad” as she was getting married.

Overall, I loved the film. I was waiting for a much more sexist film, but I really only saw one overtly sexist part. The only part of the film I did not like was when Ursula told Ariel that she did not need her voice to get Eric to love her because men do not like it when women talk and that her beauty was enough. It is a little disturbing knowing children will see this stereotype. I think their love for each other is somewhat valid (more so than Cinderella) considering they went through such a dramatic even together. I really enjoyed all of the musical numbers and I thought the storyline as a whole was much fuller than the other Disney films I have seen.