The Little Mermaid

What is your favorite Disney movie? My solo show has a lot to do with fairy tales, happy endings, and wishing upon a star; and I’ve found even living in Norway Disney movies are loved and watched by almost everyone as children and even grown ups. I think that’s because all of those films have something everyone can relate to, and something that captures your imagination even as an adult. I still love watching Disney movies, especially the older ones that are hand drawn.

Growing up, my mom was obsessed with Snow White. We had Snow White figurines, dishes, dolls, and I even remember a vintage flour bag from probably the 30’s or 40’s printed with Snow White. My favorite Disney movie was always The Little Mermaid. I recently died my hair very red and was ecstatic when I looked in the mirror and perhaps childishly thought, “I look like Ariel!” As a kid, I really didn’t know why I loved the movie so much, I just remember loving the water, swimming, and especially mermaids.

My best friend and I were obsessed with mermaids. We used to write notes in coke bottles that said things like, “Dear Mermaids, we are best friends who really want you to turn us into mermaids so we can live underwater with you. When you get this, please come up and find us and give us fins. Thank you. See you soon. Trey and Rachael”. In fact, this leads to one of my favorite stories to tell from when I was a kid… See, Trey lived on a beach in our home town of La Conner. A beautiful beach not made of sand, but of rocks, covered in drift wood, and the islands not far from it did not have palm trees, but Evergreens. One day Trey and I thought the Mermaids had probably already tried to come get us, but since they only had fins, they couldn’t come further than the shore. We had the genius idea to find a good piece of drift wood, put it in the water, and sit and wait.

So we did.

And we waited, and we waited… And waited. Soon, the drift wood began to do just that… drift. We were so excited. We were out in the water, looking down, honestly believing that soon enough, beautiful mermaids would swim up to us and take us back down to their kingdom. Not surprisingly, day turned into afternoon, afternoon turned into evening, and our parents really wondered where we were. Well, we were wading out in the ocean, of course! Trey’s dad came out eventually and found us, and if I remember correctly, he had to take the paddle boat out to retrieve us. If I also remember correctly, he wasn’t too happy with our reasoning for this adventure.

Like I said, I really love mermaids. But getting back to my point of The Little Mermaid… I never knew as a child why I loved it so much besides the fact that there were, well, mermaids in it. As I got older and watched the movie again, I realized. Ariel is a girl who’s lovesick, lonely, and misunderstood. She wants to be “part of another world”. She falls in love with someone she doesn’t really even know (however that goes for most Disney princesses;) but is willing to sacrifice everything and anything just to be with him and live happily ever after. Since she is mermaid and he is human, their relationship is forbidden, but through their love and work she is able to enter his world and live happily ever after…

Sound familiar?

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