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![pg13-mermaid1.jpg](https://upontheshelfreviews.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/pg13-mermaid1.jpg)
“Love is a disease only humans catch. Somehow you’ve caught it, and when you’ve caught it, you can never be rid of it.”
– The Sea Witch’s definition of love, directed towards the lovestruck titular character
There’s a turning point in a child’s life where one discovers that the stories they knew weren’t always sunshine and happily endings. Nine times out of ten, the tale that causes that shocking realization is The Little Mermaid. If you’re only familiar with the animated Disney classic, as is the case for most within my generation, then the revelation of how it originally goes is a bitter pill to swallow. That moment came for me when I received a storybook containing folktales about the sea. I turned to The Little Mermaid first since it was the only one I was familiar with and…
![](https://media1.tenor.com/images/ef98e77fd252bbccbb9be822860392ff/tenor.gif?itemid=15642732)
Yep, there’s a lot to unpack here.
Mermaids have a long, rich history in folklore around the globe. The short Western version is take the bird-like Sirens of Greek mythology, throw in some manatee sightings by horny sailors during the Golden Age of Sail and BOOM, you got your alluring half-human half-fish women. The beauty and mystery surrounding these creatures have inspired countless works of art and literature, chief among them being the fairytale by this walking case of internalized gay panic.
![](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/2/hans-christian-andersen-1860s-danish-school.jpg)
Ah Hans Christian Andersen, the forerunner of all angsty self-insert incels. Granted, when you’re an awkward lonely kid with bisexual leanings growing up in a time where anything remotely gay was considered sinful, you’re bound to develop a few issues. Hans was deeply in love with several women way out of his league throughout his lifetime, but it’s been well-documented through correspondence with male friends that he had feelings for men as well; feelings that he barely acted upon because they weren’t reciprocated (and also the toxic “homosexual = hellbound” mindset). That desire to be with someone living in a remotely different world, to walk alongside them even if every step is pure silent anguish, even if they’ve already given their heart to someone else of the opposite gender, makes Hans’ Little Mermaid all but an open confession of his forbidden love.
It’s no surprise that such an evocative, passionate fairy tale would become one of Disney’s biggest hits. But here’s where opinions on it split. Many fairy tale critics and die-hard Andersen fans lambasted Disney’s Little Mermaid for erasing the grimmer aspects and giving it a happy ending where the mermaid gets her legs and the guy. This in turn gave way to armchair critics and fake feminists (or “faux-minists” as I call ’em) shitting on the movie for supposedly teaching girls to throw away their lives for a man. But consider this: if the original story has queer undertones, wouldn’t the superior ending be the one where the lead achieves her goals despite the odds? Hell, I know several trans people who cited Disney’s Little Mermaid as their guiding light during their transitional journey. After all, the movie is about a woman who is fascinated by a world she is barred from because of her body, is repeatedly told by controlling bigoted parents that her feelings are wrong, undergoes a physical transformation to be a part of that world, and ultimately finds comfort, acceptance and true love in her new appearance. Plus it was written by openly gay Disney maestro Howard Ashman, god rest his soul. If this film ain’t a positive LGBT+ allegory, then I don’t know what is.
And how does Andersen’s Little Mermaid go? Well, the mermaid’s princely pursuit is but part of her goal. In the story, mermaids are blessed with an incredible lifespan but not immortality because they lack an immortal soul. The only way to obtain one is by earning a human’s love. Then their soul rubs on you like a cat shedding hair on your pants, never to come off. So in order to win the prince’s love and shoehorn a heap of that Christian moralizing Andersen loved, the mermaid has her tongue cut out in exchange for legs. The prince, however, treats her like a pet, and then tosses her aside when a more socially acceptable companion comes along for him to marry. She then sacrifices her one chance to save herself and jumps from the prince’s wedding ship where her body dissolves to nothing on impact. But it’s okay, because some angels make her an air spirit and say she’ll eventually get into heaven, give or take three hundred years.
…So, to all the folklorists and Disney-hating faux-minists who are reading this, you’re telling me that this miserable tragedy that Andersen wrote in a fit of metaphorical self-flagellation is the best possible outcome? That the true “happy ending” for the coded-gay character is for them to mutilate themselves then DIE, painfully, alone, brokenhearted and forgotten, forced to wait centuries in limbo before they find peace?
![](https://media.tenor.com/images/751e5d3fc161691a88e0b601dab969cf/tenor.gif)
And that’s not the half of it. Andersen saw fit to tack on one of those Victorian-era morals made to bully children into model behavior. The text explicitly states that the mermaid gets time off her purgatory if a child is good, but if they cry, then each tear adds more to her sentence. P.L. Travers summed it up so succinctly that I’m just going to quote her:
A year taken off when a child behaves; a tear shed and a day added whenever a child is naughty? Andersen, this is blackmail. And the children know it, and say nothing. There’s magnanimity for you.
She may have been wrong about how Disney handled Mary Poppins, but we stan a queen who calls out manipulative twaddle when she sees it.
All this is a roundabout way of saying that this Faerie Tale Theatre episode was among the last faithful adaptations of Hans’ Little Mermaid before Disney radically altered it, so grab your Prozac, readers. We’re going deep under the sea of depression.
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