Now, y'all should know by now that The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney Princess movie, so to say I was excited is probably a bit of an understatement:
But I was even more excited by the fact that, after seeing a regional production in Raleigh, I was pretty sure the Disney Powers-That-Be had their writers read academic criticism of The Little Mermaid and fix most of the issues critics had with it.
And after seeing the National Tour, I'm convinced of it. (There's a paper/conference presentation in here somewhere...) Here are some of the things I noticed:
- The Broadway version (BV) establishes fairly early on that Eric feels more at home at sea than he does on land -- he specifically says that he'd rather be a sailor than a prince -- and he wants a girl who can swim/would feel at home on the ocean.
Given that this is paralleled by Ariel's desire to be a part of the human world, I think it works to establish their similarities -- they both feel out of place in their world, and long to be a part of the other's world -- as well as emphasize how well-suited they are for each other. When they end up together, Ariel won't have to completely give up her family, because Eric feels so at home at sea. - Triton has more depth as a father. Whereas in the film he comes off as a domineering ruler first and a father second, here he's humanized a lot more. His role as the single-father-of-7-teenageish-girls is heightened, and you get to see that he's struggling with how to raise them -- especially the rebellious Ariel. He wants to do right by them, and protect them, but they're at an age where he just doesn't know what to do.
- The whole play takes place over a year -- bookended by Eric's birthdays. IDK if that helps much, in the grand scheme of things, but it does make Ariel's decision to join Eric a little less impetuous.
- The theme of tolerance-of-differences and prejudice is super-heightened: there's a lot more talk of "hating humans" and "all humans are evil" based on the actions of a few.
- We do get an answer as to why Triton hates humans so much -- he believes they killed his wife -- so cross that off the list of criticisms.
- We also get an answer as to why Ursula was banished and why she hates Triton so much -- and this is probably my favorite improvement from the animated film. While I still don't get why Ursula is an octopus if she's related to Triton and the other merfolk -- maybe it's like a Wicked thing, where Elphaba is born green? -- their familial connection does explain the tension and animosity. And "Daddy's Little Angel" is the best musical addition to the BV -- it's a whole song about how Ursula killed her 6 older sisters in order to inherit the throne, but forgot about her baby brother (Triton) who grew up to take it from her because, you know, she was intent on evil misdeeds.
Sidebar: in the original version of the BV, Poseidon had just two kids, Ursula and Triton. Upon his death, he gave Ursula the shell and Triton the trident and told them to split the oceans and each rule half. Ursula got greedy, wanted to be sole ruler, so Triton banished her. Apparently, this wasn't well-received -- or well-conceived? -- so they tweaked the backstory. I gotta say: I like the tweaked version better. After all, it heightens the parallels between Ursula and Ariel -- the 7th daughter, different from her sisters, misunderstood by her father... - In the end, there is no melodramatic scene where Ursula steals the trident and Eric goes after her and they have the weird, dramatic sea battle while Ariel lies helpless at the bottom of the sea. It's a little clunky and rushed, but Ariel definitely has a more active role and saves herself: she steals Ursula's shell -- the source of her power -- and smashes it, breaking the spell and destroying her power.
Lots of improvements, at least based on academic criticisms. In fact, the only thing that I wasn't a huge fan of was this whole "Cult of the Good Mother" thing -- the idea that the dead mother is this pure, powerful figure who would make everything better if she were there and whose absence drives a surprising amount of character actions. Triton invokes her -- only by her role: he refers to her as Wife and Mother, not by her name -- when he's turning to Sebastian for help: he says something like, "If only their mother were here, she'd know what to do, what to say to her, how to make everything right." And then again, at the end, when it's revealed -- Spoilers -- that Ursula was the one who actually killed Triton's wife (why or how remains unclear), this is what motivates Ariel into action. Not being tricked by Ursula, not her father giving up his power -- the invocation of the dead mother.
Which...sure. On the surface not a bad thing...but I feel like I'm more aware of how mothers are portrayed in the media these days and anything that excessively glorifies motherhood as this natural, easy thing....makes me twitch a little. I appreciate movies like Bad Moms and TV shows like American Housewife because they de-romanticize motherhood and get at the idea that motherhood is hard. For some people, motherhood may come easily -- but the level of selflessness and self-sacrifice that parenting -- and especially motherhood -- requires is glossed over quite often. There is no magic moment that, once they put that baby into your arms, you suddenly know how to do everything and you have all the answers. So, sure. Ariel and her sisters probably would have benefitted from having their mom around, but that doesn't mean she would have had all the answers or known exactly what to say to Ariel or how to "handle" her rebellious nature. Maybe Ariel's mom would have been just as frustrated as Triton was. Maybe -- okay, probably -- she would have been constantly fighting over something with her SEVEN daughters: the only semi-perfect mother/daughter relationship I know is the one between the Gilmore Girls.
But, hey. This is Disney, so maybe Ariel and her mom would have gotten along just fine.
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