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After suffering excruciating pain-the Little Mermaid's newly formed legs are cursed each step feels like she's walking on upturned knives-she is rejected by the prince in favor of another, normal woman, and the nameless creature is returned to the troubled sea from which she came, dispersed into the water as effervescent froth, cresting each wave in turn. There is no happy ending for the mermaid in Andersen's version for her, a devouring infatuation with a handsome, indifferent prince leads to her exile from her family and birthplace, and the decision to sell her voice-her soul-in order for a chance at love.
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The Andersen tale is much darker, befitting not only from the black Danish seas from which its heroine originates but also from the fact that many believe Andersen was inspired to write this story because of his unrequited love for Edvard Collin, a member of the Copenhagen elite, who did not return Andersen's love. Well, that's how the Disney version goes anyway. Boy and Girl from different worlds are thrown together by fate they fall in love, but something stands in the way of their happiness (in this case, as per usual, an Evil Woman) fate intervenes again, though, and Boy and Girl live happily ever after. It has all the classic hallmarks of familiar love stories. On the surface, this makes a certain kind of sense. Why now? Why has our culture, in a time of seemingly unparalleled divisiveness, embraced these particular symbols with an unabashed fervor?įirst, a little history: Even before Disney put its indelible mark on The Little Mermaid, the Hans Christian Andersen story was surely one of the most widely known fairy tales of all time. While there's undoubtedly some truth to at least the latter part of that assumption (and probably the former, to some extent, too), there are also other truths at work here namely that, from rainbows to mermaids to pale pink hues, all of this imagery has, at varying times, been used as powerful symbols of queer resistance, making its recent popularity and mainstreaming a fascinating aspect of our current cultural climate. And, really, what could be more basic than a desire to leave a dark reality for a self-constructed fantasy world of pastel pinks and mythological creatures, ones with long flowing hair and iridescent rainbow hues? It seems like an obvious, if indeed juvenile, reaction one which can be easily dismissed as not only a millennial refusal to grow up, but also a capitalist inclination to capitalize on that refusal. In times of extreme despair, it makes a basic level of sense to seek out positivity, to find the proverbial silver lining, the rainbow after the storm. And, to a certain extent, that might be true. everything.Īt first, this striking dichotomy appears to be a study in intentional contrasts it seems as if the light exists only in reaction and opposition to the dark.
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That version of our world is filled with things like rainbow bagels, unicorn toast, mermaid hair, and millennial pink. The ominous specters confronting our culture right now-impending climate change, the national opioid epidemic, whatever it is that Donald Trump decides to go on a Twitter rant about next-hang heavy over our collective consciousness, casting our daily lives in a darker light, though you wouldn't necessarily know it if you were to take a quick scroll through popular Instagram accounts.