In this op-ed, writer Leah Marilla Thomas discusses how The Little Mermaid gives Ariel legitimate, nuanced reasons to fall in love with Prince Eric — giving both characters nuance missing in previous iterations.
In the original 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, Prince Eric was little more than a haircut.
Don’t get me wrong. It was a great haircut. But an animated hunk with a floofy dog and even floofier fringe who’s not that concerned with a girl’s conversational skills can only go so far. Rob Marshall’s live-action adaptation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey as Ariel, gives Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) a personality. I’m as surprised as you are to say that, of all things, it has me believing in Disney romance for the first time in what feels like forever. It doesn’t hurt that Bailey and Hauer-King have effervescent charm and chemistry. What’s more, The Little Mermaid is a healthy depiction of what it’s like to have a crush, and presents being “boy crazy” as something that is not shameful or shallow at all.
In the new film, we learn that Eric was adopted by the king and queen of an island nation after a shipwreck, so he’s a little bit of an outsider even in the royal family. He’d rather hang with the sailors. And he’s passionate about exploring and forging ties with other cultures, citing trade and advancements in both medicine and technology that are just one sea voyage away. He wants the island to grow, and not get left behind. These opinions are sparingly deployed throughout the film, but effective.
But I’m not just here to praise The Little Mermaid for making a male character three dimensional. That’s not exactly surface-breaking storytelling. What this does is show us why Ariel is attracted to Eric specifically, not just the first human boy she sees. The two of them have common ground. They’re both curious. They both shirk royal duties. Ariel is convinced that humans can’t be as dangerous as the mermaids think, and Eric doesn’t believe the human stories he’s heard about mermaids luring sailors to their deaths. When Ariel first sees Eric on the ship she overhears Grimsby scolding him on the Queen’s behalf the same way Sebastian scolds her on Titan’s behalf, and she relates to that. Recognizing a part of yourself in a crush, especially as a teenager is so, so real. That feeling of “I just get him” is still somewhat immature, but it’s not all libido.
Related: Halle Bailey: Ariel Taught Me Who I Am “On My Own”
The live-action film even gives Eric a room for trinkets he’s collected on his travels, equivalent to Ariel’s grotto of whosits and whatsits galore. They’re even lit similarly, if you look closely. Ariel’s grotto has a clearing through which a single beam of light escapes. Eric’s has a skylight. Then, in Eric’s “grotto,” they teach each other things. Eric shows her his maps, and Ariel wordlessly teaches him about geodes and conch shells.
I’m very proud of the creative team here, to be frank. Since mansplaining became trendy to talk about, adapting a story in which a female character is 1) genuinely ignorant about the world around her and 2) unable to speak could be intimidating. It would be easy, and in my opinion lazy, to back away entirely from Eric explaining anything to Ariel in the name of feminism. Instead, Eric and Ariel share their knowledge and enthusiasm with a kind of ease that’s fun to watch and honestly very romantic! I think about something Mike Schur said about Ben and Leslie on Parks and Recreation in a Season 3 DVD commentary (seriously) a lot. “There’s lots of different ways you can try to show that people are meant for each other,” he said, “and one of the best ways and most effective ways is to show that they’re both the same kind of dork.”
There are some quotes floating around about how Marshall’s film updates previously problematic aspects of the story, namely that Ariel leaves the ocean and gives up her voice for a man. Bailey told Edition magazine in March that the film’s take is more nuanced. But you don’t need to work hard to convince me that Ariel wants to experience the human world for reasons beyond a single hottie. She’s obsessed with the human world! She has a whole collection of human things! The song “Part of Your World” lays all of that out before she even meets Eric. It’s Ursula who, in the animated film, twists her desire and reframes it into something problematic. She convinces her that Eric, and not anything else, is worth the sacrifice. She encourages her to use “body language” to attract the prince and then calls Ariel a tramp when it actually works. It makes it seem like Ariel was easily taken advantage of because she’s a horny teenager, even though we know that making a deal with the proverbial devil was her choice.
Some previous attempts to update Disney romance tropes in live action remakes, in my observation, focus on "improving" the female characters by giving them agency and what I think they think are respectable interests. For example, the live-action Aladdin’s Jasmine is active in politics. In the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Belle is not only a voracious reader, but an engineer who invented a washing machine. (This is one of many examples of female characters with STEM personalities in Disney films, alongside Dumbo, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and A Wrinkle in Time).
But their male counterparts are relatively unchanged. Aladdin is still a charming underdog, but a liar. The Beast is still capable of change but initially vain and cruel. The live action actually takes away his inability to read, so Belle has even less to teach him. Mulan made a wise choice by creating a new love interest that is not Mulan’s commanding officer, and therefore removing a tricky power dynamic in the original animated film, but the romance is all but gone. I’m not really rooting for any of these couples to find their happily ever after. But with The Little Mermaid, I was as anxious as Sebastian for Ariel and Eric to kiss already.
There's this idea in Hollywood right now, and especially at Disney with Marvel and Star Wars, that female characters can't be strong if they have love interests. It’s like someone observed that women were just waiting around to be kissed, and they took kissing off the table entirely. I’m over it. Just because a person is self-sufficient and doesn’t “need” something, in this case a man, doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to want one. Connecting with another person and falling in love is not a weakness! Hopefully The Little Mermaid can be a positive example. I wouldn’t be surprised if it inspires a generation of ‘shippers, to be honest.
Love and flirtation is something to be celebrated and cherished in the new film. Before King Triton learns that it’s a human his daughter has a crush on, he’s practically giddy at the thought of her being in love. There’s no pressure on Prince Eric to find a wife, but when Grimsby sees the spark between the prince and Ariel he enthusiastically encourages it. By the end, he’s on board like everyone else. It’s easy to root for these crazy kids and hope that Ariel gets that kiss. It helps that Eric isn’t just some guy. It helps that he and Ariel are the same kind of dork.
