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selkie-on-land · 9 months ago

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Why I don't like the Ariel Live Action and my thought on this topic

disclaimer 1 : please, I'm french, I'm sorry in advance for any wrong sentences etc. I will do my best but I'm not perfect.

disclaimer 2 : I'm new on this app, so I don't know all the functionnalities, how to do this or that, I will try my best to make a descent and pleasant visual post. I know there is differents ways to respond, we can ask I think ? like publishing a post on the profile on someone (that's it right?), there is the republished and adding your own post and the comment section. That's all the option I'm aware off.

disclaimer 3 : WOW ! I just finished to wrote this down and I didn't expected to talk about so many differents subjects !

So I will, list them, as TW, so please, if your sensible to this subject, protect yourself and skip my post. Take care. 👥🤍

School harassment, eating disorder, body dismorphia, suicide attampt, sa and masculine violence in general, incest, familly abuse, racism, lesbophobia, ableism, gingerism, alcool, afrocentrism.

I'm sorry in advance if I miss one.

I hope, it will be an interesting reading.

Prologue :

I know I will receive pretty much all the hates of the world for this but, I'm autistic and Ariel was and is my very first special interest, so I don't care.

I will say/write what has to be written because I'm so sick of the misunformation about her.

I hate any misinformation at all cause I'm autistic but it's so much worst when it's about one of my s.i and unfortunatelly for me, the ones I have are very specific and the society and the patriarchy built a HUGE LIE and basically, any historical information about matriarchy/mythology/patriachy are just misunformation. But there is just too much that I can't correct everyone, everything, because I don't have the energy and because it caused me so much stress that I have a meltdown everytime. So I'm already used to the tense, so I think I will survive the hate about this post.

The real subject of the post :

The Live-Action of The Little Mermaid is at the same time good ? and the absolute worst !!!

Disclaimers : I'm not a fan of Live-Action, it's not specific to The Little Mermaid.

My pov on it is :

Either make the most realistic and exact same as the animation movies, or GO CREATIVE and create something new, a story about someone in the same universe, a prequel, anything. Like Cruella for exemple (I admid I didn't watched it), or Maleficient (I watched it don't worry and loved it) ! It works perfectly, and because it's in a total different universe but based on the same fairytale, you can create anything and it doesn't have to follow the animation movie. It's not an adaptation but more like an extra movie about this universe that you loved ! Or like Mulan (plus it corrected something that was culturally disrespectful : Mushu). I think I love them only if there are creative and create something new.

And here is why :

As an autistic person, I HATE the change, so if it must be an adaptation that I've read/seen, IT MUST be perfect and there MUST BE NOT CHANGE AT ALL otherwise IT RUINS AND DESTROYED WHAT I LOVED AND I END UP HEARTBROKEN. Truly, I had to go to therapy to deal with it and to morn all the differents possibilities of the adaptation that could be the MOST accurate to the animation movie. I waited more than twenty five years to see it and it was a disaster. Too close to be complety hated but too different to be accepted and loved.

In the differents possibilities of an live action of The Little Mermaid, I also imagined some that were about the second or third animation movie. Or about the show.

I bet no one knew (except the ones that have Disney + now), that there was a show about her adventures.

In this one for exemple, she had a mute great friend, Gabriella ! And I LOVED HER SOOOO MUCH !!! She speak with her hands (signing) and her friend an octopus, Olie, translate with his voice. He's sooo cute ! When they go swimming he hang himself on her tail, like if he was riding Gabriella. This is so cute ! I felt so seen, first because I wasn't always verbal as a kid.

And for other kids that weren't pale like me, she was very tan with absolutely wonderful almond green eyes and a bob haircut with browns/dark blond hair. (I think it showing that I had a crush on her and ship them so much lol)

And because when she saw Ariel for the first time, it felt (for me) like she had love at first sight (I knew very young that I loved only girls). Honestly, their story is more a love story to me than a friendship, but it's obviously subjectiv.

Ariel also adopted (secretly) a lost baby killer whale, Spot, a specific

under species of those that only lived in arctic or antarctic.

Killer whale are my most favorite sea animals with seals (I know they don't get along together).

Representations :

I always identitified myself with Ariel because she was a redhead and so had a pale skin. Even if when I was very young my hair where short and almost dark auburn, I could relate with Blanche Neige as I was pretty similar to her but the animation movie scared me so much that I still have nightmares of those sometimes. My hair turned even more light auburn / redhead when I started my puberty and they became slowly but definitely curly/wavy, and then I related even more to Ariel.

And I'm so glad I had her as a model because it's when the bullying, harrassment, assault, s.assault, pushed to unalive myself because in their countries (maghreb) I would I been tortured, raped, burnd alive etc. And every day they (a bunch of boys) come to tell me that I should be dead and were surprised that I didn't killed myself yet. So many times per days, every days, for four long years.

In younger classes, my bff (a girl) was from morroco, and neither her or her mother ever told me things like this. Neither any other girls or women in my whole life from those countries. Only boys and men. So it's not about the people where they were from, but the boys and men and the misogyny from where they were from.

So the fact that Ariel (and Blanche Neige too but they choose an afro descendant to represent a very pale character, we have absolutely no representation, they are all erased or replaced) must be pale was a VERY HUGE expectation for me, cause it was litteraly what partielly saved me. I however did some of the things they told me to do (atttempt in a very specific ways, I did it at the same date evey year, waiting for Death to come get me).

So in my mind castle of the possibilities, there was an adaptation of Ariel as pale redhead with her girlfriend/bff that is deaf and not "white", with her own story. And that could had been absolutely perfect ! Because they didn't had to imagine one, she already existed! (And that would have been quite an argument for the "gnagnagna woke, inclusivity bs gnagnagna".)

Girls and women deserve representation, but come on, the bare is in hell ! We deserve good representation. As a little girl I was far from looking like Pocahontas but I still related to her, because what we saw as kid is not JUST how she look likes (this is so misogynistic that we only exist and have physical characteristics) but also about what they love, what they does, what they stand for etc.

I BET every little girl that has ever seen the little mermaid identified as her when we were at the beach and damn even more if they were a rock where we could sit and do the thing with the wave ! Or when suddenly the wind makes our hair dancing and in our head we look like Pocahontas ! (But you know there is the expectation Vs reality 😂)

Physical representation matters, but saying that, it's the only things for girls to rely on is bullshit and misogynistic.

Why erasing the redhead pale mermaid when it already existed a brown skin mermaid and have both which is even better for the representation in the franchise of the little mermaid ?

Even thoug, signing girls were already kinda represented with Ariel who is a mermaid (as her human form), who is loved, accepted and have fun even if she doesn't speak. But then, there is Gabriella and she just not speak but she signs with the real signing langage ! That's amazing !

They could have done a wonderfull job and created an adaptation where there was two amazing mermaids a pale one (not a white one) and a brown one. Who instead of being in competition could have been friends and shows and learns sorority, or even for once love between two girls or here two mermaids. That would have been amazing ! I would have loved so much to have this and I'm sure little girls (whatever their skin color would have loved it too !)

Growing up I would have loved to know that there weren't anything wrong with me for loving girls and not boys like in absolutely every single movies or animation movies.

We were kissing each other in secrets, deeply convinced that we were doing something wrong, bad, and we did it in secret full of shame because we knew it was forbidden. There wasn't a rule written with it was is ok and was it not, it's more uncunscious. But at 4 y/o we already knew and felt that it was not ok, and still at 13.

I only learn that they were people that love the same sex that their own, in teenagehood, not because there was a lesson about the three differents sexuality (heterosexual, bisexuel, homosexual). No I learned it with all the slurs on all the ones that coudn't hide their sexuality and they all were bullied. It's only around my majority when I was 17 y/o that I knew it wasn't something wrong.

I was accepted in a big group of friends, we were so different from each others, with so many background, but goddess I LOVED THEM SO MUCH ! They helped me setting the things rights, like REALLY. I had no bar, no bounderies, nothing. I grew up with an incestuous big brother (it started when I was 3), violence within all my family (except my dad and step mum), and school harassment since I'm 3 until 22 y/o. No friends or rarely. Or fake ones. Until this group. They teached me that differences is fun, we can learn from each other, they were curious, everyone was curious to understand the pov of everyone even if we thought the opposite. I was so sexually abused in my life that I coudn't bare being in anything that could reveal my skin, my shape. I was soooo prude. Because my brains associated nudity with bad things. But thoses guys (we were mixte) teached me that our body exist to allow us to experiment life. They help me heal from eating disorder, bodydismorphia, shame, and so many other things. We could ALL be naked sitting comfortablelly and not good looking, with rolls, saggy boobs, het, bi, or homo, everything was fine. (Disclaimers, we were drunk when we were naked, drinking red wine, with flower or tree crowns philosophising on life etc. That was so cool and nothing was sexual. Except with one guy who did and tried to sa every girls that came in the groups, he was punched a multiples times by the others mates but not excluded sadly). And within this group they were lesbians and bisexuals persons, a couple of male bff where saying there were married to each other and kissing and every thing was fine and so funny. This was when I learned that it was ok for me to be lesbian. But for fifteen years I hated myself for being like this. Like if there wasn't enough things wrong about me there was this too on the list. It was such a relief ! I even tried to unalive myself because of this guilt.

So yes, I think we definitely should have something for the girls to let them know that it's ok. There is nothing wrong with them.

Resume of all the fact that indicated that Ariel lived in the north of the Atlantica, North of the Europe and not in the Caribbean :

Spot, the Killer Whale

Ariel meeting Great White Shark (living in cold water)

Ariel meeting Hans Christian Andersen who live in Denmark

The Kingdom of Atlantica is near the Groenland

Melody swam quickly to the Groenland, which is in the territory of the Denmark

So it makes absolutely no sense to say it actually happens in the gulf of guinea, in south africa (except for the shark and the killer whale part) or in Caribbean.

BUT !

If the goal was to have only afro descendant community in the representation, I WOULD HAVE LOOOOOOOOVED not to see a Dannish fairytale as representation.

And it blows my mind that it doesn't seemed to occur or bother any usa black afrocentrist. Like ???? This is si insulting ! They all say 'anything that is not black or brown is a coloniser' but they don't seemed to have any problem with having a fairytale that is from a country that colonized (and still doing it 👀) a lot of country in different continents including Africa to represent the afro culture ?! 🤡

You said you want to represetant "YOUR" culture, but obviously you have no idea of what culture you're talking about. You think continent and country is the same, so you think that european has no culture and at the same time you said "european culture". You talk about african culture. Asian culture. But None of them exist. You think Africa is Egypt, maybe South Africa and that's it. Asia is only Japan and China. No. And you have absolutely zero knowledge about not just geography but history too.

Denmark was one of the coloniser country of the African Continent (in case you didn't know). So no I wouldn't choose I dannish fairytale to represent the people from Africa or afro descendant no.

Mermaids are a wordwilde story because it descent and came from Matriarchy. And before Patriarchy, the whole world was Matriarchal. So you can found myths and tales about them in every culture that exists in the world.

So for an afro representation there would had been a lot of choice !

I want to hear everything about the tales of Oshun, Mami Wata, Yoruba and all of the others all over the world ! But I bet you have no idea of who they were and are.

The Yorùbá Goddess Yemaya.

Conclusions :

A huge thank you for reading my very long post.

I think I'm good. I mean, I think I'm done writing my thought about the Ariel Live Action and all the topics that were brings along it and were causing a lot of "scandale". No, wait, I forgot the word? Debate ? Idk.

Please, feel free to share with me your thought on it ! What's that makes you think ? What part are you agreeing, or not agreeing ! And please, explain to me why (agreeing and not, both). I might not get it bc we don't share the same shoes and as autistic I don't always "catch" it.

And please, don't get angry or insult me if I don't understand immediatly your thought or if I don't guess them. I'm not a mind reader, so please, if you think about something that I am not aware off or didn't bring the topic on.

We can all learn from each other. It's not because we have different point of view on something that our views are necessarily in contradictions, they can complete each other's.

Thank you. 🤍

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