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Melanie Rodriguez

Professor Kylee Pastore

Marshak 417N

9 November 2022

The Portrayal Of Behavior In Fairytales 

In The Little Mermaid does the portrayal of women and behavior have a part in essentialism for women in society? Is this fairytale about what the male perspective on women was during this time?  As we all may or may not know, The Little Mermaid by Hans Christain Anderson sheds the spotlight on the life of a teen mermaid who is curious about the human world. The author had shown us her point of view and the complications she had gone through during this process which had left me questioning the mind of the creator and why. The first word which popped up in my mind when going over this topic was essentialism. Essentialism is when a certain category, for example women, have a true nature in the way they think, act, or how they’re treated which cannot be changed at all. The reason why I say this is essentialism is because every other fairytale categorizes women as this sort of submissive pretty teen that’ll do anything for a man and it has always been a pattern in fairytales, including The Little Mermaid. The mastermind behind the work of literature did not have intentions of showing individuality for women and went by a toxic male ideal image of a woman.

            Just like any other fairy tale, we’re presented with sexism in The Little Mermaid as we take a deeper look into it. Sexism has existed even as far back in the 18th century and it can appear in many forms and writing is one of them. As we look into this subject we’re presented with the idea of men being superior and women being hopeless and how the use of discrimination is used all around. In this article the author states, “Data analysis shows that 

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there are more male characters than female characters; male characters make up more of the spoken dialogue and male characters use more sexist language than female characters. This paper argues that although Disney has come a long way in making the female characters independent and strong on their own, they fail to identify the main problem of female representation, which is language used by males.”(Begum, S). The above quote signifies that even in the fairytale retellings the men still appear sexist and have more of a voice than women. Not only that but Disney had tried making women more exclusive but failed miserably as sexist language and actions were still included in the movies. This just shows that essentialism is actually the present matter in these stories because the original and the retellings still view women the same and interpret them the same.

       Stereotypes have been made a lot for both genders and by far, as expected, women once again are stereotyped the most and portrayed in a disrespectful manner. This article states, “From the way her character is designed with a curvaceous figure and mature face to how she is practically naked in some scenes, the graphic sexualization of Ariel is beyond uncomfortable, to say the least.”(Rizivi, R).  As said above, Ariel was sexualized at such a young age in the film just like the original fairytale story. In both the fairytale and movie, she’s a young woman who is portrayed as a skinny yet curvy girl who has pale white skin and looks innocent. This also takes a huge part in essentialism because it’s a thought men have about young women and how they should look, especially during the times these stories were created. As we look back in history women have always been disrespected and beauty standards were made all the time. But people disregard this fact and still believe that the controversial actions made in the story and film shows Arial as a heroine figure.

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         Although problematic concepts were made, others believe that Ariel was actually a feminist film. Others look at Ariel as a rebellious woman who makes her own decision no matter what. In this article it states, “ The princess is represented as a beautiful, self-sacrificing, and determined young woman who illuminates the evolving state of a modern day woman. The moral messages presented in the film show that just as Ariel blossomed in a patriarchal society, girls should dream and fight for social advancement in the contemporary society.”(Study, C). As illustrated above the author suggests that The Little Mermaid is groundbreaking. It shows Ariel as a determined young female who’s changing stereotypes with her rebellious side and this film is actually revamping the way women are viewed, especially in film. Even if the author of this article believes that this story is benefiting women, it wasn’t the intentions of the authors at all. 

      As you may or may not know, Hans Christain Anderson was actually the writer of The Little Mermaid and he made the fairytale to show the sexual yet captivating beauty of the mermaids. Many authors or writers can write their own interpretation of The Little Mermaid but since he’s the creator this is the actual interpretation on what was the purpose/meaning of the story. The author of this article states, ““Generalized” beauty that is integral to femininity is also portrayed in Anderson’s tale: “They were six lovely mermaids; the youngest was the most beautiful. Her complexion was as fine as the petal of a rose…” [1](p. 57). As Nørregaard Frandsen notes for his readers, the motifs and modern themes of feminine beauty are exquisitely shown through Andersen’s eyes [5]. The story opens with a male vision [6].”(Lee, S). The above quote shows that Hans Christain Anderson didn’t have the intentions of exactly showing her as some type of rebellious person, he wanted to portray her as a young beautiful woman who captivates the male 

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gaze. He had the intention of writing these women as unrealistic standards because it’s what men preferred during that time. This overall statement fits the concept of essentialism once again since it’s a repetitive graphic,illustrated, and written issue in which women are portrayed this way for the male gaze. This gives us a better understanding of gender roles and how they’re portrayed throughout.

         As I move on to my last claim I’d love to shed a spotlight on research that has been made about characteristics and how it’s being consumed by us readers. But what we should be worried about is that this type of content is being shown to children at a pretty young age. This article states, “​​Guided with one research question, what are the symbols  of gender-stereotype and their most possible meaning found in Hans Christian Andersen‟s The Little Mermaid? is hoped to evoke the symbols of gender-stereotype whereof can be  such a catalyst for  the readers who do  not only concern on  reading the story of The Little Mermaid but also they can transfer the ideologies and virtues of being masculine and feminine to the children  through the  symbols of  gender- stereotype that has already been interpreted limited to the context of the story and when and where The Little Mermaid was written.”(Ali,S).  In the article above the author had given us a clue on how these stereotypes can be perceived by children. Children are the main audience when it comes to this story but throughout this story toxic femininity and masculinity behavior and language were used which can have an effect on children as their knowledge starts to expand more with what they hear,see, and read. This leads us to essentialism(once again) because it’s being normalized and it’ll be an ongoing behavior in which people will think is normal which will bring us no time to change mindsets.

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  Essentialism plays a big role in society in which some may or may not know. Essentialism is the concept in which things cannot be changed and rather it’s a ‘fact’ which I decided to tie to The Little Mermaid because it was portrayed all around. When I read all of these articles made by these authors I gained more knowledge on this topic and it expanded my view on this matter more. This plays a big effect all around and I believe that little stories like these can lead to a bigger problem in future society because favoritism played a big role back then and even now. It’s hard to know if things will change now but it’s important to know that in

modern day society women(and also men) shouldn’t be portrayed as the same concept over and over again and rather just influence younger audiences that it’s okay to grow up looking/acting differently. Essentialism is never a fact.

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Works Cited

Begum, Shakira. “He Said, She Said: A Critical Content Analysis of Sexist language used in  

Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) and Mulan (1998).” Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, Jan. 2022, pp. COV1+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A695168359/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=201fcfd4. Accessed 24 Oct. 2022.  

 Rizvi, Rania. “Ruining Your Childhood: Why ‘the Little Mermaid’ Is Regressive, Sexist.” The Daily Targum, 30 Oct.

2020,https://dailytargum.com/article/2020/10/ruining-your-childhood-why-the-little-mermaid-is-regressive-sexist. 

StudyCorgi. (2020, December 28). Gender Expectations in the Disney Film “The Little Mermaid”. Retrieved from

https://studycorgi.com/gender-expectations-in-the-disney-film-the-little-mermaid/

Lee, Seungyeon. “The Lightness of the Sexual Being: A Short Reflection on Hans Christian    Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid.’” Societies, vol. 8, no. 4, Nov. 2018, p. 116. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8040116.

Ali Saiful, Jepri. (2015). THE SYMBOLS OF GENDER-STEREOTYPE IN HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S THE LITTLE MERMAID. 3. 10.30651/tell.v3i1.312. 

AndersenHC_2010_TheLittleMermaid_FairyTalesOfHansChris.pdf