"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, October 11, 2019

The Little Mermaid (1989, G)


It’s been a while since I did an old-school Disney review, and since the new versions of Aladdin and The Lion King both came out this summer, it seems as good a time as any to look back on a classic. I was two when The Little Mermaid first came out, so I never had quite the same personal connection to it growing up as the ones that I saw in theaters when I was little, but that in no way diminishes the fact that it’s considered the start of the Disney Renaissance for very good reason.

Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton, is our titular little mermaid. Despite all that life “under the sea” offers, Ariel is enchanted by the thought of the world above the ocean and the human beings who inhabit it. When she saves the human Prince Eric from a shipwreck, she falls so instantly in love with him that she turns to desperate measures: making a deal with the nefarious sea-witch Ursula in the hopes of using magic to be with him.

Some of the older princesses get a bad rap, Ariel probably more so than most of the ‘90s princesses who came after her. “The one who gives up her voice for the sake of a man” is, to be sure, a hell of a problematic label, and Ariel is definitely shortsighted and naïve in agreeing to such a thing. But as I’ve rewatched these movies, I usually find the princesses in question to be at least a little less problematic than they’re often remembered as. I mean, no, Ariel is never gonna be Moana or Mulan, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be written off.

Ariel’s gaga-ness over Eric needs to be kept in the context of her fascination with human debris and her discontentment with where she is. Ariel wants more than the life she’s been living, and as much as she just likes Eric for being handsome and lively and a total dog person (honestly, that’d be enough for plenty of people,) he also represents the freedom of Ariel making her own choices to explore this other world she so desperately wants to be a part of. So even though Ariel is very focused on Eric specifically, it’s about more than just him. And as for the whole “giving up her voice” thing, while signing that contract is very obviously Bad Idea Jeans, it’s important to note what Ariel doesn’t give up, which is her personality. Voiceless, she’s still exuberant and forthright, drinking in everything that the human world has to offer. She won’t win a Most Feminist Cartoon Princess contest anytime soon, but it is more complicated than the one-liners usually given about her.

But enough of all that! Back to the movie. The songs, of course, are fantastic. This film was the start of the Alan Menken/Disney relationship, back when Howard Ashman was still writing his lyrics, and everything is wonderful. “Part of Your World” is one of the most classic “I want” songs around, Sebastian’s calypso-flavored numbers are addictively catchy, and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” is just a flat-out terrific villain song (that will live forever in lip-synced renditions from vampy drag queens.) Jodi Benson has such a pure, lovely voice as Ariel, and I also have to give props to Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian and Pat Carroll as Ursula.

The animation is delightful. I love the images of Ariel’s secret grotto of human “treasures,” the assorted sea creatures are colorfully brought to life, and I appreciate the attention to detail. The movie has a strong animal-sidekick game, with Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle bringing it with different contributions to the plot. There’s also Eric’s dog Max, plus we get a couple villainous sidekicks with Flotsam and Jetsam. All kinds of entertaining, and still fun to watch years later.

Warnings

Scary moments for kids and a few scenes of light violence.

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