The Nomad Mom Diary

I'm carrying around a LOT of baggage

Character Assassination Carousel: Taking Down Ariel

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We all have one…that book or story that our kids beg to hear over and over again that makes us BONKERS! My friend Nicole from Nicole Leigh Shaw Tyop Artist runs a really fun series called Character Assassination Carousel. Each month a blogger gets the chance to take down a story character.

Last month Christine from Keeper of the Fruit Loops did an awesome job of knocking Good Night Gorilla down to size in her piece. This month I’ve set my sights on Ariel. And next month, Michelle at You’re My Favorite Today will be up with something new. So with no further ado, here is my assassination of The Little Mermaid.

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The main character is a 16 year old rebellious teenager that refuses to listen to her father or fulfill any of her obligations. The little brat just flits around all day going between hanging out with a bad crowd that packs her head full of lies and misconceptions and visiting dangerous places that are off limits.

When her father attempts to bring some much needed discipline into her life, she runs off to the fairy tale equivalent of a back alley plastic surgeon. There she runs up a virtual credit card debt with the surgeon’s loan shark and then remakes half of her body. Because that is normal and acceptable.

Then she goes to a foreign country and moves in with some guy she does not know from Adam and tries to convince him to have sexual relations with her. Why? So that she can trap him into marriage. How? By sending out her “representative” who is funny and charming and never says an ill word. Big surprise, he falls for it…

Then her loan shark shows up with the metaphorical baseball bat (wait, is it metaphorical if it pretty much is a baseball bat) and her dad has to come to her rescue to keep her legs from being broken (taken away, whatever, semantics). Her new boyfriend has to kill the loan shark to save them all. Um, right.

And what price does she pay for this behavior? She gets to marry a prince. Perfect. The Little Mermaid: lying + butchering + sex + murder + mayhem = marriage to a royal. The sad thing is that the story might not be that far off from the truth (Prince Albert…Princess Stephanie…any royal from a country that starts with an “M” and ends in “onaco”). What the hell, Ariel?

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Comments

  1. Yeah, wow. Ariel. I like the Miyazaki version better, where it’s a simple case of boy-meets-fish, fish-licks-boy’s-blood, fish-turns-into-girl and brings about a tsunami, fish… it’s not actually that simple, but it’s better, is my point.

  2. So she’s basically like Dexter, but she gets to marry a royal. Messed up. But some truly unforgettable songs (like, won’t ever get out of my head) are in that movie. Can’t help but love the darn thing.

  3. This is my favorite kind of assassination. The ones that take the story at it’s face value and point out the flaws. LOVE this.

    Thanks for playing along! Well done!

  4. What do you expect from a gal who wears almost nothing in the way of clothes, lives in a phallic looking castle, and gets married to a virtual stranger? 🙂 Oh and in the grimes’ story version, she dies. I’m not sure which version is worse. 🙂

  5. Yes! The Little Mermaid is the worst role model ever! She sees some guy who’s kinda hot, so she abruptly gives up her home, her friends, her family, her VOICE, and her SPECIES to get with him. WTF?? Also, she probably ate her friends at the wedding. Le poisson, indeed.