Below I will provide a short excerpt from my exploratory essay “The Little Mermaid’s of this Century” where I talk about how the story of Hans Christian Andersen‘s The Little Mermaid and Disney’s 1989 movie adaptation misrepresents the gender roles that these characters portray, harming impressionable young audiences.

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An exciting point that Fasil points out, is the difference between the way Ariel and Ursula are perceived in the story. Ariel, like her sisters, follows the general barbie-like body: tiny waist, big chest, long hair and big eyes, which is considered beautiful. However, looking at Ursula, she is drawn out to be old and on the bigger size who is subject to a rather viscous role. This misrepresentation of Ursula’s character is very unforgiving and allows the audience to think that if you cannot fit into the mold of a princess, you are not beautiful or powerful. However, Fasil presents Laura Sell’s idea that I believe is a necessary point of view to consider, “Ursula is the female symbolic encoded in patriarchal language as grotesque and monstrous; she represents the monstrosity of feminine power” (Sells, 1995: 184).

If you’d like to read the full essay, this link will take you straight to the document!