THE LITTLE MERMAID: A FEMINISTIC PERSPECTIVE

THE LITTLE MERMAID: A FEMINISTIC PERSPECTIVE



The children’s classic, The Little Mermaid, as portrayed by Walt Disney Studios is wrought with feministic stereotyping and chauvinistic ideas. Even in animation, there are those that not only strive to push the limits of decency, but also sway the minds of the innocent viewer in the direction of their way of thinking. In watching the animated film in its entirety, the evidence is clear.
The opening sequence begins with the playful world of the sea creatures, and rapidly shifts to a contrasting first impression of humans as sea faring males that like to sing of fairy tales and display wooden women on their ships like a deer head hung on their wall. While singing their macho sailor songs of mermaids and such, they are completely oblivious to what it is like “under the sea.”
Apparently, women are not seen much differently in the world of our heroine, Ariel. The first real glimpse of this under water world int...