Part of That World: How The Little Mermaid (1989) Can Be Considered Queer Cinema

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In April 2022, I logged onto YouTube to see a new video from one of my favorite channels, Dreamsounds. The video was titled “Trans Mermaid & Coming Out.” Marlene Bellissimo, one of the creators of the channel, pairs her experience of coming out as a trans woman with an analysis of 1989’s The Little Mermaid through a queer/trans lens. The video hit close to my heart as a nonbinary person with a love for mermaids.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved mermaids. The Little Mermaid has always been crowned as my favorite Disney film, and I can relate any situation in my life to an episode of H2o: Just Add Water (much to my friends’ dismay). For the first two years of college, I co-created and produced a television show about a mermaid and her college friends. Not only were the main character and her friends queer, one of the main themes of the show was choosing to tell people about your identity rather than people forcing you to find out.

Mermaids have always been associated with queerness, especially with transness, due to the transformation from mermaid to human and their lack of genitalia. The Little Mermaid is not shielded from this notion.

The underlying queerness of The Little Mermaid has been present since the fairytale’s inception. The fairytale’s author, Hans Christian Andersen, wrote the story to cope with Edvard Collin rejecting Andersen’s romantic feelings. A century later, Howard Ashman, a Jewish Gay lyricist, was one of the leading forces in adapting the tale into a Disney animated musical. Even though the original tale and Disney film aren’t explicitly queer, The Little Mermaid is open to queer reading because of its theme of identity and style.

Now, Queer Cinema is focused on reworking social constructionism and breaking old traditions. According to Ruby Rich, a film critic who coined the genre “New Queer Cinema,” New Queer Cinema “...accompanies identity politics.” It embraces what is defined as “not normal” lifestyles and criticizes the limitations of binary gender and sexuality.

Throughout the entire film, Ariel, the main character, wants to become human and live in the world above. She will go to extreme lengths to collect human items, including facing a shark and disobeying her father, King Triton’s, rules of never going to the surface world. In the underwater world of Atlantica, it is forbidden to go to the surface world. In his confrontation after finding out about Ariel’s crush on human Prince Eric, King Triton argues, “He’s a human, you’re a mermaid,” after which Ariel yells back that she doesn’t care. In Ariel’s world, the social construction established is that the interaction between humans and the merpeople is not only strictly prohibited, but the idea of becoming one or being with one isn’t even thought about. But by Ariel defying what her world tells her is right, she follows her own ambitions and where she believes she belongs. She finds that she aligns herself more with humans than merpeople. This is emphasized at the end of the film, where she becomes human completely and marries Eric.

But Ariel isn’t the only character that can be seen through a queer lens. Ursula, the film’s villain, has built a connection with queer people, especially in the Drag community. This isn’t a coincidence due to Ursula’s character design being based on the Baltimore-born drag queen, Divine. In addition to her inspiration being a drag queen, Ursula is also cast out like Ariel. Both characters relate explicitly to the queer community based on their outcast feelings and specifically with Ariel finding a place that accepts her. A characteristic of Queer Cinema is the unconcern with positive images of queerness. If there were films that only had queer heroes, it would create an expectation of perfection from the queer community, and if there were only queer villains, villainy would relate to queerness. But there is a clear assertiveness about the expression of sexuality as multiplicity and not as fixed or essentialized. Ursula isn’t a villain because she is based on a drag queen or her comfort in femininity; it’s based on her ambition and wants for power. Ariel’s heroism comes from her curiosity and naivety. And even if these characters aren’t queer in the film, they’re read as queer by many fans.

Even a queer reading of the film is a characteristic of Queer Cinema. Ariel isn’t openly a trans woman, but her storyline of transition and being her true self connects with many trans women. In the Dreamsounds video, Marlene mentions that she and one of her friends (who is also a trans woman) both were like Ariel while they were learning their new voices. They didn’t know how to speak in their new voices. Ariel went out “...into the human world without a voice,” and Bellissimo knew “exactly what [Ariel] meant.”

The Little Mermaid’s medium supports the film’s place in the Queer Cinema genre. The genre is described to be a collection of different genres and voices. The film’s genres are animation and musical. The film wouldn't work without both of these elements. The animation creates an imaginative underwater world with bright and beautiful colors paired with songs that are fun and heartfelt. Howard Ashman, the lyricist and one of the main forces of the original film, stated that animation “might be one of the last, maybe the last great place for Broadway musicals... it’s a whole other world.” Both mediums at the time in the eighties weren’t popular; however, the combination of the two created “a period of rebirth and new creative heights...a new narrative formula in which stories were told in Broadway-style acts, and characters projected their internal emotions as songs. With innovative airbrushing and backlighting effects...the era drew massive audiences and is often considered the peak era of the company.” Also, with animation and musicals, there are more voices in the room, which includes the animators and the writers of the music, creating an environment for people from different walks of life to contribute.

To many, the idea of The Little Mermaid existing in the Queer Cinema genre is an odd one. However, if the layers are pulled back, it is clear that the film not only exhibits queerness through its origins and production but also in the film itself. The film’s storyline resembles the theme that is constant in the Queer Cinema genre of reworking the social constructionism and struggle of identity. Ariel’s arc focuses on her desire to become human, though the underwater world is against humans in general. In addition to Ariel’s connection to the queer community, Ursula is also linked to the queer community. And even though she was the villain to Ariel’s hero, Queer Cinema doesn’t care about what archetype the queer characters are, just as long as they’re queer and resemble the queer community.

Queer Cinema isn’t looking for perfect depictions of queer people. Ariel’s recklessness and Ursula’s powerful demeanor reflect on that requirement. Even if the characters aren’t outwardly queer in the film, Ariel’s storyline of transformation is compared by trans women to their own lives. Finally, with the two combined genres of animation and musical, The Little Mermaid fits the final qualifications for a place in Queer Cinema. It doesn’t have a single aesthetic in its two genres. Without its queerness and the queer creators, The Little Mermaid wouldn’t be as memorable today and wouldn’t have connected with so many queer people, including myself.