Ariel did not simply âgive [her] voice up for a man.â
Since childhood, Ariel has been among my favorite Disney princesses. I connect with her deeply â and whenever someone (like Keira Knightley recently) brings up the old line that she is a âbad role modelâ for young girls because she âgives up her voice for a man,â my heart breaks.Â
That reading of Arielâs character is reductive and inaccurate.
Everyone always mentions that Ariel was interested in the human world before meeting Eric, but not as many people point out how radical that makes her in the context of her own society.
Ariel lives in a society that is xenophobic towards humans, Triton at various points calls them âbarbarians,â âsavage,â and âincapable of any real feeling.â She lives in a society that constantly tells her that her interest in the human world is wrong and bad, something she struggles with at the start of Part of Your World:Â
By seeking a fuller understanding of the human world, Ariel actively challenges her fatherâs xenophobia, thinking for herself instead of accepting her societyâs fears and prejudices.
The film goes out of its way to establish Ariel as an outsider within her own society. Think for a moment about the opening lines of Part of Your World:Â
Look at this stuff.
Isnât it neat?
Wouldnât you think my collectionâs complete?
Wouldnât you think Iâm the girl
The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove,
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Lookinâ around here youâd think
Sure, sheâs got everythingâŚ
People who criticize Ariel so often mis-characterize her as simply a spoiled teenager. The very statement, âShe gave up her voice for a man!â implies sheâs a foolish girl who throws her life and agency away in a fit of pique. Â
 Yet, the opening of Part of Your World anticipates that certain members of the audience will have a superficial understanding of Arielâs pain and directly addresses that. On a superficial level, Ariel does seem like âthe girl who has everything.â She is the daughter of the most important merman in Atlantica, she has countless treasures hidden away in her grottoâŚ
But thatâs the thing, you see. Theyâre hidden in her grotto. Ariel may be the daughter of the sea-king, but the sea-king hates and fears humanity. Part of Your World is the most heartbreaking rebuttal to anyone who sees Ariel as a shallow teenager because it shows how alone she truly is. Except for Flounder, she has no one under the sea she can genuinely confide in. (She confides in Sebastian, of course, but he was sent by her father to spy on her and he does betray her trust â by mistake, but he does). Her sisters and the rest of Atlantica presumably do not question the prejudices that cause the human world to be forbidden to the sea folk.
Ariel is an outcast, forced to hide who she is from the people who should love her unconditionally.
The more Part of Your World goes on, the more devastating and resonant Arielâs collection of artifacts becomes.
These artifacts represent a void in her life and, at the same time, are the only means she has of filling that void.
She longs to have knowledge, but her society imposes ignorance on her. She longs to see the human world herself, to ask questions and finally be answered â but it is all denied her. The imposed ignorance forces her to live vicariously through the artifacts she collects.
She cannot see a couple dancing, so she must content herself with a music box.
She can only experience the shadow of fire on oil and canvas.
Her collection perpetually reminds her that there is a world beyond her reach. At the same time, it is her central way of interacting with that world. Yes, she can go up to to the surface and talk to Scuttle, but her collection is something so much more personal. These are items she saved from the ruins of ships, sometimes at the risk of her own life⌠so she could study them, learn from them, and lament the unjust rules of her society that prevent her from learning moreâŚ
Her courage, her curiosity, her thirst for knowledge are all bound up in these precious possessions.
And yes, they are objects. Yes, she wants more than a collection of objects. But this collection is all she has. And, as far as Ariel knows, it is all she will ever haveâŚ
When youâre all but alone in the world and you have only meager scraps to cling to, those scraps mean the world to you.
And, I remind you, Ariel cannot even openly enjoy her collection of scraps, the shadows of a world she cannot touch. She has to hide even them, guard them, keep them secret.
Arielâs grotto is a place of solace and security where she can be herself without fear of judgment.
There is a reason the destruction of Arielâs grotto harrowed me more as a child than any other scene in a Disney film. I could hardly watch it. I hid my face. I begged my family to skip scene. I was reduced to a sobbing mess. On a personal level, it harrowed me more than the destruction of Cinderellaâs dress. Â
That reason is because, in watching the scene, I felt the pain of a place of refuge being invaded.
By the time we reach the destruction of the grotto, we are as emotionally invested in Arielâs collection as she is because we see that the objects are more than objects. They are extensions of herself, encapsulating all her feelings of hope and hopelessness.
Destroying those items is like annihilating a part of her soul.
That is why I hate the âshe gave up her voice for a manâ line of thought so much. Because it so blatantly disregards the context of the film. Because it paints Ariel as a shallow teenager. Because it places blame for what follows solely on Arielâs shoulders and absolves Triton of any wrongdoing.
I want to tread carefully here because, like Ariel, Triton is a nuanced and complex character. He has good intentions and cares about his youngest daughter.Â
Yet, even a well-intentioned individual can be in the wrong. Even an individual who is right about certain things (Ariel is indeed impetuous and reckless at times â though I hope my analysis reminds readers that those are not her sole character traits), can be wrong about other things.
And Tritonâs confrontation with Ariel highlights his failings and his faults.
Look at Arielâs face when she first sees her father in the grotto:
The enhancement of expression in animation allows the audience to clearly see the fear in her face.
Triton has created an environment where his own daughter is afraid of him.
No parent should do that to their child.
Confronting Ariel, Triton says, âI consider myself a reasonable merman. I set certain rules and I expect those rules to be obeyed.â
On one level, Triton is right to expect his children to respect the rules he sets in place.
 What I feel Triton misses, however, is that respect is not the same as intimidation.
Since Triton wants Ariel to accept his rules based solely on his authority as her father, he makes it impossible for there to be any communication between himself and his daughter.
This dynamic means that he will not listen to Ariel even when Ariel is in the right and he is not. Children should listen to their parents, but in the same way, parents should listen to their children.
Triton may be in the right to worry about his daughterâs safety, but his fear is still born of bigotry â bigotry that Ariel recognizes and rejects.
Triton, after all, grows angry at his daughter because she wouldnât let another living being die. He specifically calls her out because she ârescued a human from drowning.â When Ariel counters that allowing someone helpless to miserably drown is cruel, he shuts her down with:Â
When Ariel points out the illogical nature of her fatherâs brutal line of thought and says, âYou donât even know him!â, Triton responds:  Â
Even if a viewer is largely sympathetic to Triton, that viewer cannot ignore Tritonâs prejudice in this moment.
He generalizes millions of people.
And if the rules he sets down include the tacit understanding, âLet innocents die because, by virtue of their humanity, their lives have no value,â then maybe those rules deserve to be broken. Maybe those rules need to be changed.Â
Ariel may be a teenager, but she is wiser than her father here.
(Also, can I say that Arielâs body language here breaks my heart every time I see it? Sheâs swimming away from her father, recoilingâŚÂ
âŚuntil sheâs cowering behind Ericâs statue. She looks like sheâs about to cry as her father pours forth more vitriolâŚÂ
âŚand after she bursts out with the exclamation, âDaddy, I love him!â, sheâs terrified that sheâs said it.)
Triton believes that he alone is in the right and destroys the grotto because he feels it is âthe only wayâ to âget through toâ his daughter. He believes he must be cruel only to be kind. Â
Tritonâs unwillingness to listen to his daughter â his unwillingness to treat her with the same respect he demands of her â only widens the gulf between them.
 Ariel does not go to the sea-witch because she has been mooning over a man.
Ariel goes to the sea-witch because she has no voice in her own home. Becoming human, she gains the ability to live life on her own terms. Becoming human, she ironically gains the voice she has been denied for so long.
Ariel goes to the sea-witch because her father sends a message to her â a message that she does not matter, that there is no place for someone like her in Atlantica.
Triton may never have meant to send that message, but send it, he did⌠and he should be held accountable for that.
Indeed, the film does hold him accountable for that.
After destroying the grotto, Triton realizes he has done a horrible thing.
Look into his eyes after Ariel falls to weeping:Â Â
Look at the regret in his eyes. Look at the remorse. He knows he has gone too far. He never meant to hurt his daughter like this.
And when Ariel vanishes from Atlantica, Triton takes responsibility for his actions. What does he say when his daughter cannot be found? Does he say, âWhat folly has my daughter gotten herself into now?â
Simply saying that Ariel âgave up [her] voice for a manâ ignores the painful complexity of the situation in which she finds herself. It ignores the depth of her motivation. It ignores Tritonâs culpability. It ignores her best character traits and only highlights her flaws (and yes, she has flaws, for she is a multifaceted, well-written character.)
But Arielâs rejection of prejudice, her ability to see beauty in a group that nearly everyone around her demonizes, her courage and determination and love, are all venerable traitsâŚÂ  Â
âŚand Arielâs courage, determination, and love are what inspire Triton to open his heart and change.
Some people say that The Little Mermaid is more Tritonâs story than Arielâs. I disagree and feel that assessment unfairly dismisses Arielâs emotional journey. Triton has a compelling arc in the film â but that arc is only set in motion because of Arielâs agency.   Â
He learns from his daughterâs example.
Why donât we talk more about Ariel, the young woman who always challenged her fatherâs prejudice? Why donât we talk more about Ariel, who actively spoke out about the flaws she saw in her society? Why donât we talk more about Ariel, whose actions helped change that society for the better? Why donât we talk more about Ariel, who formed a bridge between two worlds and enacted positive change?
Why donât we talk more about that Ariel?
I know Ariel can be impulsive, but she is sixteen years old, and her impulsiveness only makes her character realistic. She makes mistakes but, like her father, she owns up to those mistakes and learns from them:
There are critics of Arielâs character who want to make the story of The Little Mermaid black and white. Because Triton recognizes Arielâs impulsiveness, they ignore Tritonâs faults and trivialize Ariel.
Yet, the story the film presents is not so black and white. Ariel and Triton are not so one-dimensional.
They both learn from each other and grow together.  Â
This embrace is so meaningful because, by the end of the film, Triton finally shows Ariel the same respect he asks of her and in so doing, he earns her respect.
Ariel, meanwhile, recognizes her own mistakes and gains a new appreciation for her father.
The Little Mermaid is a beautiful film and Ariel is a brave, inspiring, complex heroine.Â
