"Mermaid? Angry mermaid?"
For the past two weeks, every single time we get in the car, Lucas requests to listen to the soundtrack from the recent remake of The Little Mermaid. Since I showed my sons the trailer for this film months ago, they have all been excited about watching it. Seeing Lucas' eyes light up every time Ariel appeared in the trailer was especially cute.
The original Disney animated movie The Little Mermaid is one of my life's most important cultural influences. When it came out, I was about seven years old, and I immediately became obsessed with this film as soon as I watched it. After watching it, we got the soundtrack CD, which we listened to repeatedly in my house.
I remember going to a book store and seeing the piano/vocal songbook on the endcap of an aisle and being so excited. More than the notes, I noticed this book also had the lyrics. I wanted to get this book so badly, but my mom hesitated because it was in bad shape. There was only one copy, so my mom eventually agreed to get it for me. I have fond memories of my brother and I singing the songs from the film and watching this film over and over when it finally came out on VHS.
I've watched many Disney movies with my three sons, and The Little Mermaid never really appealed to them. I don't think we even go to the end of it. They enjoyed most of the other Disney films from that era, but something about The Little Mermaid didn't click with them. That's why I was surprised and excited when they got so into to see the new version of this film.
I love analyzing movies. I wanted to be a film critic at one point in my life, so part of my brain looked at The Little Mermaid through this lens when I watched it. Halle Bailey and Mellisa McCarthy were wonderful. The film was too long, and the special effects were inconsistent. The animal friends didn't work, and much of the added dialogue and songs didn't enrich the narrative. The updated musical arrangements of the scores and the songs were lush and vibrant. The original soundtrack had a lot of synthesized instruments, and replacing those with acoustic ones really made the music shine.
What matters isn't what I think, but that my children loved the film and continued to engage with it weeks after watching it. My oldest son, Ollie, got so excited when I printed out the lyrics so he could learn them, and my youngest, constantly listening to the songs and singing along, is wonderful. There is so much joy when he hears the music, and watching him move and sing along to the music is pure joy.
I'm not thinking too hard about the fact that Lucas' favorite song is "Pour Unfortunate Souls," and he loves the line "Go back to your DADDY." I just feel good that he is engaged with music with such interest and joy.
One of the points of discussion about this film is that Ariel is no longer white in this new film. Watching this film critically, it's clear that Halle Bailey is an excellent actor and singer. And I'm so glad that our children are seeing an outstanding, talented Black woman in this role.
When Dr. Clark did his doll test as part of the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court case, he showed that Black children did have racial awareness and how messages about racism affected the way they saw race and themselves. This study clearly showed that separate was not equal. This was dramatized in this scene from the mini-series Separate but Equal.
I've been thinking about those children and the way they saw Black identity, as I've seen Lucas experience a Black mermaid. I'll never forget when, one of the first times Lucas watched the trailer, he pointed to Halle Bailey as Ariel and exclaimed, "Pretty mermaid!" If you ask Lucas about her, he will describe her also as beautiful. It means something that Lucas sees beauty in a Black character. So as tired as I am of listening to the soundtrack, I'll keep playing it as my parents did for me and share in part of his world.
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