At the beginning of the movie, “The Little Mermaid”, a group of sailors on a ship are telling stories about the legendary merfolk. A young prince named Prince Eric is also on the ship with his dog, Max, and advisor, Grimsby. Grimsby tells the sailors that merfolk are not real, but one of the sailors tells him that he is wrong. One of the sailors is holding a fish, but loses it and the fish falls back into the sea. After the opening credits, the merfolk are heading to the underwater castle for a concert. The kingdom is ruled by King Triton, who is holding the concert in his name. His seven daughters and Sebastian, the court composer, are performing a song for him. The concert is going well until King Triton notices that, Princess Ariel, his…
Transitioning on from the perspective of a communications graduate, we move on to see how gendered roles are portrayed in Disney Princess movies and how they affect young children, from the perspective of a psychology graduate. Katie Lopreore, the psychology graduate from Middle Tennessee State University, writes about how the influences of the Disney Princess films shape children through their gendered characteristics, in her journal Gender roles portrayals of modern Disney royalty: stereotypical or androgynous? Lopreore starts off with an evaluation on how many children are exposed to the Disney Princess culture, she writes “Disney brand, found that 97% of children they surveyed between ages 2-11 years old were familiar with Cinderella, one…
Throughout life, one is presented with numerous obstacles, all of which much be faced, and, ultimately, overcome. It is in the overcoming of such challenges that one will engage in a journey of the mind and body, a journey which acts as a catalyst for self growth. As one engages on an inner journey, it becomes apparent that there is always opportunity for something better, yet this cannot be achieved without sacrifice.…
In all of the movies that we had watched in class, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid has the best relationship between comparing and contrasting. In both of the movies, there is one daughter in each movie who rebelled to find their true love. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel rebelled and went to the surface to search for her prince, but in Aladdin, Jasmine rebelled the law by not accepting the prince who came to see if she's the right girl for them. Not only the daughters whom rebelled, but, the main villain in each of the movies also share a similarity for how they hunger for power. Although the villain may grew into a giant monster, they were too obsessed with their power that they didn't realize what kind situation they were in.…
secondary work from the original and whether or not they are successful. In her novel she says…
Children weren’t as interested in fantasies and fairytales as they once were. Viewers, previously limited to American kids, expanded internationally into children and adolescents alike with various racial and ethnical backgrounds. As it experienced immense success and popularity, Disney had to make room for immense restructuring of its content. Then came the rise of multi-cultural, progressive characters such as Mulan, Jasmine, Merida, Kuzco, Mowgli and Tiana, that mirrored not only the diversity of English-speaking spectators, but also the evolution of societal gender roles. Moreover, Disney started increasingly releasing live-action movies, sitcoms, and animated TV shows to appeal and relate to their young audience, and has since abandoned the production of animated feature…
Her beauty does not give her any power either. To the prince, the little mermaid is just a naïve and beautiful child. He likes the little mermaid because of her innocence and stunning beauty so wants to keep her around. In “Two Tales from Cruel Fairy Tales for Adults,” Kurahashi Yumiko states, “but the idea of actually marrying her had never entered his head; equally, he had no intention of removing her from the palace even when the time came to take a wife” (171). In fairytales, males’ love is usually more rational than females’. A man’s ideal mate needs to have some functionality. In “The Little Mermaid,” the prince speaks of“The youngest, who found me on the beach and saved my life, she was the only one I could ever love in this world” (Anderson 229). In this case, the prince identifies his marital mate is the girl who saves his life. Female characters, by contrast, tend to devote themselves wholeheartedly to love by sense and feelings. About this point, the little mermaid’s grandmother has already warned her upfront about how impossible it is to get an immortal soul from humans. But the little mermaid is so obsessed with her goal that she ignores her grandma’s advice. The little mermaid lacks a sense of human’s society and has a typical Anderson feminine identity: she is a naive and dedicated little girl, powerless but determined. Her lack of knowledge of…
In Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” we witness that there is not an actual Heaven for the mermaid but a sub-heaven that is a reflection of Heaven. It goes to say that in “The Girl Who Stepped on Bread” also by Andersen, there is a sub-hell (not actual Hell), where she stands in the form of a statue in the entrance hall. Both these place are not where the characters expected to be, yet one scarified herself ending up in a sub-heaven and the other will suffer in the entrance hall of hell for using bread as a way to get over water.…
The determination, love, and ignorance of Ariel makes her fairy-tale written by Disney movie writers John Musker and Ron Clements a classic. Personally, this is my favorite fairy-tale because Ariel demonstrates determination for love. She was willing to give up her voice just to see the prince again. “Desperate to see Prince Eric again, Ariel agreed to give her voice to the evil sea witch Ursula” (Musker & Clements 6). But though her actions seem for a good purpose, I believe that Ariel is also exceedingly ignorant. She trusts an evil sea-witch to transform her into a human for a prince that she had just met. It seems sketchy for a young girl like Ariel to trust people without even knowing them personally. Her ignorance also carries into…
The Disney princesses seem to find love in the most magical ways, but that's not exactly how it is in the real world. They can find love by losing a shoe but if we lose a shoe, it gets stolen. This assumption makes children believe that love is easy to find and long-lasting. Everyone is bound to get a happily ever after even though in the real world it might not happen that way. Molly Driscoll is a writer for The Christian Science Monitor and she sees the love connection that happens in every Disney princess movie. She says, “Professor Thompson points particularly to "Frozen," which centers on sisters Elsa and Anna, as breaking the mold when it came to princesses. The movie includes poking fun at the idea of love at first sight ("You got engaged to someone you just met that day?" character Kristoff asks Princess Anna incredulously) and the climactic battle (spoilers ahead, but some young person in your life must have made you watch this movie by now) has the pivotal "act of true love" be one between two sisters, not a romantic couple.” It was so easy for Anna to fall in love and have a strong connection. It's not that easy in the real world sadly. Some people may get a happily ever after but it's not like that in all cases. In our world we have divorce, anger, and jealousy, which is something they lack in theirs. I have friends that even tell me that they wish true love like that really existed in the world because it's so uncommon. Disney shows children that true love exists and is easy to obtain, which affects children’s knowledge of life and…
I strongly disagree with Fowls comments. He believes that Disney is taking over children's lives and that it reinforces a simplistic and narrow view of life. I do not believe that this is correct. Every little girl wants to be a beautiful princess and every boy, a big, strong man, who fights off the bad guys. These are just dreams though and we want to give our youth something to believe in.…
The princess culture can have a phenomenal effect on how little girl’s mature, perceive themselves, and even how they see their roll as a woman today. One of the biggest impacts on the princess culture is the tale of Cinderella, which we are going to dive into. Cinderella unmasks some of the questions that go along with this issue. We will look at how it shows how girls look at themselves, where the industry of the princess culture has steered us, and how different cultures use their values in the versions of folk tales and versions of Cinderella. This leaves us with one question asked in the article by Tomchin an author for Jewish Woman International ask, “How would you define the potential harm in the princess culture?”…
The Little Mermaid is based on the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. The Little Mermaid is the story about a mermaid named Ariel who longs to be part of the human world. She lives in an underwater kingdom with her father King Triton. She falls in love with a human, Prince Eric and, by making a dangerous risk with the sea witch Ursula, she trades in her fins and her voice for human legs. Ariel has but three days to make Eric fall in love with her. If he does, she will live happily ever after in his world. If he doesn't, Ursula will enslave her.…
Maybe, as a child, everyone of you has wanted to see a real mermaid, because of all the stories you’ve heard for them. Surely you have imagined this sea creatures as a very beautiful ones, and you’ve thought they aren’t real. Actually they exist, but their real appearance isn’t so magical as you dreamt. The dugong is a large marine mammal. The word "dugong" derives from the Tagalog term dugong, meaning "lady of the sea". These enormous vegetarians can be found in warm coastal waters from East Africa to Australia, including the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Pacific.Interesting fact is that they are related to the elephant, although the giant land animal is not at all similar in appearance or behavior.…
Have you ever wondered, why are there cave paintings and stories about beings that resemble a lot to humans but have tails like the ones of fish instead of feet, and live in the ocean. A discussion of this topic may lead to questions about the possibility of what we think to be a myth, might be real. It also may lead to questions because it might make us realize we are not the only creatures that do not act only by instinct, but also by reason which make it controversial. Why do dolphins like to play with us and obey us? My answer is simple, mermaids exist.…