The Little Mermaid with Honey Pluton

would like to plug, just upcoming shows. We're touring once again, can you believe it? So before we go on tour though, our our first show chronologically coming up is at the Ruby in Los Angeles on April six, and we're doing Bring It On with Maggie Maggie returning favorite Uh. In mid April, we're gonna be in Denver just doing some and up shows to be announced on our individual website. Yes.

And then me, Caitlin High, I'm gonna be doing my intro to screenwriting workshop in Denver at Comedy Works on April so again, yeah, check out my website Caitlin Drown dot com for those details. And then also I'm gonna be at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania on April. I'm doing a stand up show there at the Carnegie Cinema. On April. We're going to be at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn with Melissa E. Losada Oliva doing a live show

on thirteen, going on thirty. Tickets for that are already going really fast, so if you're on the fence, definitely get your tickets soon. They're selling very quickly. Huh and uh. That's the first date of our little East Coast tour. The next one is April. We're gonna be a good good comedy theater in Philadelphia, and I will be doing my show Boss Home Is Girl right after the betel Cast live show that very same night, so stick around

for that. Then on May one, we're going to be at the Draft House Comedy Theater in Washington, d C. And then on May second we will be back at the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston. We're gonna be at the Rockwell. That's on May second. And then for all you little New Yorkers out there, I'll be back in New York on May nine doing Boss Home Is Girl at Union Hall an Oh my goodness. I'll also be doing something in New York myself. It's the same

day as our New York show. On April, I'm going to be doing another intro to screenwriting workshop, so come and learn from me a master a master um. And we're still in the process of confirming guests and movies for most of those dates, so just stay tuned to

the Twitter, the Instagram, etcetera. Will be releasing that info ace app, so go to backdel cast dot com for details on the live podcast shows and keep an eye on the social meats social And finally, we just wanted to plug our campaign to raise money for the organization called Black Girls Code, Uh, and we are doing that by selling Rise of the Matriarchy t shirts. There's only a few days left because the campaign ends at the end of March, so as much money as possible, So

please grab the Rise of the Matriarchy shirt. Designed it myself. It's cute, it's adolerable, and grab it at t public dot com slash the backdel Cast. Only a few days left and uh, we'd really appreciate it if you helped us made our goal indeed, and uh go ahead and enjoy the episode. No further ado the Little Mermaid del Cast, Hi, what's up under the show? Welcome to the Bechtel Cast Live Seattle. Wow, We're so psyched you're here. This is our last stop on our West Coast tour as our

first time coming here. We're so excited to be here, to be here just out of curiosity. By round of applause, who has listened to our show before? Hey, a coppul Okay, my favorite clap as if you're embarrassed and want to disappear, if you've never listened to our show before and this is your first time, yep, that's those are the brave. Thank Thank you to everyone who dragged their friends who have never listened to the show before to the show. Yes, thank you so much. This is how this is how

it goes. That's right. So for for the three of you, I'll tell you what the show is. Uh. Bechtel Cast is our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies that is usually bad. Right, And we use the Bechtel Test as a jumping off going to initiate that conversation, and that, of course, as a media test created by cartoonist Alison Bechtel that requires that a movie has two female identifying characters with names who speak to each other and their conversation has to be about something other than

a man. Today we have both an incredible guest and a movie that had to be done sooner later. But a movie at least, I don't want to speak for everyone, but a great movie. Or it was we all used to think. So, Uh it's a problematic slapper, Yes, I still. I fully saw that this movie was playing in in Los Angeles last weekend and I went and I cried so much. It was Wait, this movie, hideous movie? What about this movie makes you cry? Like? Which parts? Um?

You know? Lost youth? Okay, not to shame you for emotions when I think of No, just like anytime I'm confronted with something, not even confronted, Like I had a lovely childhood for the most part, but I just was like I had, like I have a nostalgia Fawcett and that just turns on and like I saw this once and I'm like, I was crying. And there were also a bunch of cute kids dressed as mermaids there. I

probably looked like a pervert being at this place. Uh, I am alone, adult, but there, but there were a bunch of cute kids that were so excited, and when Ariel came on screen, they were like yeah, and then I cried. So kids are still watching this movie. Um, I think I guess their parents. Yeah, I mean yeah, unfortant. So that's why we're here. Um. But I do still have a crying response to this movie. I see, I love it. I cry for the entire duration of Mowanna,

So I get it. But well, you're very welcome, congratulating, Thank you. I cry at everything all the time, and I like to pay to myself in circumstances where I can cry in public and it is not inappropriate. I wouldn't say that a public screening of The Little Mermaid is now that he said, I'm always just looking for a dark space to cry, a dark sanctioned space to cryan just out of curiosity. Is there anyone here who

has not seen Disney's The Little Mermaid? Good? Great? This is the first time this has ever happened at a live show. We've done probably like twenty live shows now, and there's always like ten people who are like, I've never seen the movie you're talking about, and then one person who's like, I'm at the wrong event. So all right, this is great. Shall we introduce our guests? All right?

They are a local Seattle comedian. They're the co host of the Hot Takes with Hot Dikes podcast and you can check them out on their website, Clara Pluton dot org. Give it up for Clara Pluton. God. Well, come, hi, how are you doing here? Oh my god? Thanks for having me. This is great. Um, tell us your your history, your relationship with the Little Mermaid. My relationship with the Little Mermaid has always been sparse, even like as a child, I was a lesbian, Like, I didn't like it. I

was like, this is fake news. I don't want anything to do with this. This seems wrong. I didn't like princesses growing up. I like Pokemon Sailor Moon was like the closest thing to a princess. Yes, someone was like feminist, totally nice, but you've seen it. I've seen it, so I think I watched it maybe once as a we one, but it really was when I had to watch it for this and I sunk my teeth into yes, it just did it. It never appealed to me. I was like,

why would someone not want to be a mermaid? Doesn't make any sense, right, I was like, where's my version where I turned into a Mermaid? Yeah, I plunged myself deeper into the ocean. Parents like where are you? I'm like trying to find this cool world that people want to leave for some reason that makes sense reverse dingle hoop literally, yes, under the ocean. Yeah, Jamie, what's your history with the movie? It makes me cry? I I

don't know. I mean I I had the Disney Renaissance catalog hammered into me as a kid, as a child who uh needed to be shut up. Very often VHS tapes were employed into your mouth, shut up, they would I would have the VHS for Dumbo in my mouth so I could not make a noise, and I would be watching a Little Mermaid uh double festingg Disney. Yeah. Well, my mom ran a daycare when I was growing up, so there would always be something playing for like whatever

rogue child would wander into rooms. So we were playing Disney movies at our house all the time for like the first ten years of my life. So I was very attached to this movie and most of the princess movies of this era. And I do think it affected me negatively. Yeah, for sure, Say what about you. This movie came out when I was like three, and I probably saw it when I was five, and then every day for those like next ten years. Probably your fifteen

years old? Yes, correct, you went to your homecoming in a full red wig. But does no one want to date me? I would say I had a second wave of love for The Little Mermaid in high school, weirdly where I like loved it when I was a kid, and then I loved it again as like a teacher you could purchase a hot topic and I still love yeah. Continue, Oh no, that's that's mostly it. Yeah, so this movie is very ingrained into me. I'm sure it shaped my you know, Plato brain when I was a small child

for the worst. So the philosopher right, yes, correct, you're speaking of ancient speaking of ancient Greek philosophers. Shout out to our producer Aristotle. He is not here, I know, sorry, but our good friend Sammy is here. You might remember from the She's the Man episode, so shut out for true backtal heads. Yeah, you'll know. I just feel like I never liked princesses because I always had too thick of an attachment to irony, Like I couldn't deal with it.

I was like five and I wanted to watch David Lynch's eraser Head. What I just got imo too quick? I'm like, no musicals, it's too corny. You're a child of nihilists. Fully, Fully, I came from Mitzscha and that's here. I'm jealous. But the Little Mermaid at this age now made me cry. So now it went like full throttle. Now I want my youth back. I'm like, please give it back to me. I wasted it away listening to

Marilyn Manson. I want to feel young again. Please. There was also like and when I think maybe what motivated my high school reappreciation was when I was in high school, tumbler was becoming a thing. So there was a lot of shitty fan art of like Ariel but like she had tattoos and brilliant postmodern reimagine him or she'd have like Apear doesn't even remember that she That was like of all the Disney princess she was skateboarding like with a fin It's like how And I was like, oh,

this is still nothing like me. But they just adapted, like oh what was aspirational for me as a child to what was aspirational to me as a teenager, which is like a hot goth. Yeah, so um, yeah they really they got me twice? Motherfucker's Disney. Should I do the recap um? Alright? So we see an opening shot of dolphins are jumping around in front of a ship that later stinks what is this Titanic? Big? Okay, the

fish gets away. I start crying the second the fish was like, who's Like, holy, I wish why why doesn't he come back? Started to impost gender on this fish. I don't know. We'd write a story in any case, probably a non binary fish, I hope. So we meet Eric. He's a prince. He's sailing on a shampoo's colonizing places, probably with his other white sailors. He's also wearing a blouse. He also plays the flue. The recorder the recorder worse is a confirmed recorder. I was like, way, it sounds

like a recorder. Yeah, it sounds like a recorder. I forgot that shot of him moodily sexily wearing a cape the recorder, Like what do I do? Yes, he's such a pisces. I got to say it, no, Shane, but he gets like really like broody at one point and I screenshot at it and posted it with a flute and I got rose and they're like, no, idiot, it's a recorder. I was like, okay, people in mind need to chill out. But and then you see he spoiler alert,

flings the recorder into the sea, polluting. Yes, compost the recorder, come on, so which kind of confirms that it's a recorder because he flings it with the ease that one may recording. But also real quick, Prince Eric really Eric, like what prince is named? Eric? Could be like Eric Kobia. I'm not buying it. Yeah, it's like basically like Prince Joey, Prince Brendan, Prince Toby. Like, okay, Disney, do you think that Donald Trump's son used to call himself Prince Eric

when he was Yes, I think he did. Shout out to my brother Eric, who who does listen to the podcast, so shout yeah, because I texted you Prince Erik HoTT and you're like, the same name as my brother. Can't do it, okay, So Eric, he's hanging around, uh and then the sailors are like, hey, have you heard of this King Triton? And he's like, no, what are what are mur people? And then we meet some murpy budgebold perverts tell us about the mur people. Yeah, King Triton,

we meet Sebastian the Crab. He's conducting a concert and all of Triton's daughters are singing except for Ariel. Comes on Shane and all the kids in the costumes. You're like, yeah, ever, okay, because remember in the Bomb's World days where it was like hidden things you didn't see in Disney movies. And it's like on the cover of the Little Mermaids there's a penut Tryan's castle. So the whole movie I was like, where's the penis? I had my binoculars out, like real

to see the sneaky penis. All subsequent releases post eighty nine they take out all the because the priest has a boner in the original movie, and they edited, they edited censorship. I know, it's like, where is our erect, tiny old man representation? And I'm ready, I'm horny erasure. Yeah.

So we meet Ariel. She is exploring a shipwreck, much like Bill Paxton in Titanic, and she's there with her fish friend Flounder, because the thing is that she loves humans stuff, So she's like collecting all these artifacts a fork and basically a paleontologist, except humans are a hoarder. Yeah. No, I don't like calling her like she is. She My whole thing with Area is like she starts like having an intellectual interest in something, and then it's like taken

away from her. And then they're like, actually you need a boyfriend, and she's like, oh, yeah, that's true. And then the movie she was trying to be she was trying to be an archaeologist, a woman in stem You will, well, I think that she is. I don't know, you can't have a collection and not be I sound really defensive. Yeah, you're right. It's not like it was snow globes. It different variety that inspired She was curious about that waterproof books stuff. And then she takes them lot of scuttle.

He lies to her about, right, I'm tired of scuttle. Uh. And then we meet Ursula. She's a sea witch and she's better for having been banished from the Sea Palace. So she wants her eel friends Flotsam and Jetsam to keep an eye on Ariel because she might be the key to Triton's undoing. Plots of and jets undered their own spin off. Yeah, parismatic and fun to me, Like Tomona Pumba got one right, them up to no good

squash buckling. I just wish the Flotsam and Jetsam had like different personalities, Like where's who's cranky in the morning. We just don't know who's like the night owl, who's like get to bed on time, who's like five years sober? And who's still it's Flotsom is addicted to ketamine. It's canonical Ariel. She's talking to Triton and flounder led to slip the it she went to the surface and like you can't do that because humans are evil and Barbara,

I'm not a child. It's my favorite, like, oh she's sixteen. Yeah, for what happens later? Um, And here's where I really start to see myself an Ariel, because like going to the surface for me and like sneaking, Like I was sneaking around all the time at sixteen, but it wasn't the surface. It was like raves on the South Side of Chicago and like abandoned Chinese restaurants, So like I get it. Yeah, And that's the same for Ariel. Except she's got like a cave of wonders basically, and she

keeps all her human artifacts there. And Sebastian follows her there, and she's singing about how she wants to be part of the human world, and then we see some amazing shots of her hair and some great hair shots, and just then a ship traveling overhead goes by, and she's like, wow, who's this man? And her? The movie really falls apart, right, I like the movie up to that point. And Anthropologist, Yeah, it's over. She literally starts as a young scientist and

then she's derailed by heteronormativity. Uh. And the hurricane strikes and Eric's ship is destroyed and Ariel saves him and she sinks to him and he starts to wake up, and he sees her upper body but not her mermaid fish tail gets horny. He gets very horny. He's like, I was dead but now I'm alive in horny. But she disappears into the ocean before he can like fully regain consciousness, and he was like, oh, my god, who was that. If Eric's Dogg could talk, this movie would

be over so fast. Because Eric's Dogg repeatedly has the receipts, but not like the communication that Eric would have been able to write a Craigs less misconnection like saw hot girl, maybe teen not sure, perhaps a mermaid. Good back to me, here's my kick you please, And then Ariel is swooning and Sebastian tries to convince her that where she belongs is under the sea and the great song that we all loved, but she's not having it. And then try and founds out the Ariel is in love with a human.

So he destroys all of her stuff. I hated that seeing that it still upsets me. It's very upset, like full flashbacks of my dad, like throwing my bob down the stairs. He's like, I found sheets of acid again, I'm burning them all. I'm like no. And then so Ariel goes to Ursula based on the promise that she will use magic to turn Ariel into a human for three days, and if she gets Eric to kiss her by the end of the day on the third day,

she gets to stay a human forever. And if she fails, yes, as we all know, and if she fails, she will belong to Ursula yea. And as payment, Ursula takes Ariel's voice, So she has legs but no voice, and she goes to the surface some artfully dodged nudity in this state. I'm still shocked at how far down the torso you goes like when do mermaid pubes start coming in? Because I'm not seeing any great question, Thank you so much.

My favorite line in the movie it's from the song where Ursula takes Ariel's voice, obviously, which is men prefer women to not make a word? Yeah, just children? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's I think the best Disney song of all time. Poor unfortunate souls. So Ariel's animal friends are helping her. She finds Eric and he's like, oh, you're really cute. What's your name? And she can't talk, so he's like, you're even better, right, marry me? Well, he says, do

I know you? He doesn't say you're hot? Well, he said he thinks. He's like, hey, were you that girl that made me horn you when I thought I was dead? Did I see you at the party last night? I was too nervous to say anything. I was like sort of black dab, but you look familiar, Like do you go here? That is something that Eric's do. He just comes from like a line of like swashbuckling frat bros. Yeah, you know you're pretty chill. What's your name? Don't care,

can't talxic. I want to come to my house. It's a castle. My dad lets me of a castle. It's pretty cool. I don't even know what he does, like stockbroker or whatever. There's this lady there. She'll give you a bath. It sounds us, but it is not sus because she can't talk. He's all like, oh, you're not the woman who I thought you were, but I'll let you hang out with me anyway. And he takes on a tour of the town. They're on a rowboat at night.

There's another slab that's great but problematic, and um they almost kiss and then Ursula was like, oh my god, that was too close. So lots of and jetsam come in clutch every time flotsom into Ursula is work from home. Yeah, botsom and jetsas that are in the fields, right, they're

out there. So to prevent any more close calls, Ursula disguises herself as a human woman and then uses the voice that she stole from Ariel to like seduce in an chant eric yes and then it's announced that Eric is getting married the next day because he was under a spell of horny correct and he's supposed to be getting married to the woman that is pretending to be Vanessa Vanessa Vanessa Vanessa and Eric. Yeah. So then Ariel, she and her friends are trying to stop the wedding. Well,

Aria gives up right away. She's like, like when it's like all of her friends that had to be like, no, let's try to do something. She's She's like no because she has no agency at this point. And the second she loses her voice, we just lose the character entirely. It sucks. But then she gets her voice back because like the shell necklace breaks scuttled galvanizes the various sea creatures that are annoying and that's sort of their role.

But it's too late because the sun has set and she turns back into a mermaid and and snatches her up, and all the humans are very chill about like, oh, I guess there's mermaids. There's no, that's not a dress that I mean. There's a lot of people at this wedding, and she turned into a mermaid right in front of them, and then a person they thought was a person explodes into an octopus, and we never get their side of

this story. And in fact, we don't really know what happens to the people on the boat, because I mean, what happens to the wedding game right, because about a half hour later the boat sink again. Maybe because she enhances in size by like eight thousand times and that spell was unclear to me. I think they were like, we're having mimosas, there's canopas. Maybe it's I don't know, maybe they're regularly doing hallucinogenics. They're like, well, wild weddings,

but this action I'll wasca ceremony. But do the people like, do we know what happens? I truly haven't thought of it this like, do we know what happens to the wedding? Guess I don't think so, No, there are so many people that way. What happens is that the Boner Priest justice for Boner weird, so Ursula like uses aerial as leverage to get the power away from King Triton, and then she, yeah, she like also King Triton kind of zaddie. He's very like yeah, yeah, I mean he is. He's

very buff. Long beard like Zeus vibe. The fact that his nipples are very visible throughout the entire movie is something that I noticed as a five year old and never I thought about nothing else. The way his nipple, the way his nipples are drawn. First of all, he's also hairless, which is like, okay, uh, he's a smooth zaddie. But there's no distinct. I'm sure because like Disney things that any detailing of the body in a realistic way

is repulsive. But there's no distinction between nipple and ariola. It's just like vague, large blob and you're like so, and I remember literally being like so that's what men look. They're just sort of a pancake, Like that's my dad. Yeah, they're like, oh cool, never seen my dad's shirtless. He's a humble man. So now I know, smooth part of Disney cannon. Like there's like no moms in Disney movies. We'll get there, yeah, yeah, don't worry there. Yeah, mommies

are canceled. Yeah, he's like the scrappy divorce. He's like, I got all these daughters. Yeah, they're up to seven daughters. I love to hear, like, oh, I don't know what daughters where that movie he's my Lady Gaga's dad and a star is born. Ye, He's like, I'm busy us. God here, I'm smashing your stuff. Dice can't even handle one daughter. Man can give Dice seven. He's gonna screw up. Why was Dice in that movie? And you don't know anyway.

So La is huge and she's trying to kill Eric and an Ariel and she the thing is, she gets very large, yes, and then Eric takes what used to be a Sounken ship and drives it into her pointy end first and bursts her and then she dies. Yeah, she's also made. She's made to seem like unkillable, what with the growing quite large, but then is immediately killed right right, right right. Plat and Jackson also die. That's

why there's no spinoff. They are killed and see them in how immediately Yes, And then in the the math of all that, Ariel is looking longingly at Eric on a beach and try and it's like, wow, she really loves him. I have to let her go. And then he turns her into triarchal structure to the next turns her into human again, and she goes and kisses and marries Eric, and that is the story of feminist masterpiece

The Little Mermaid. So there you have it. And by the way, I guess, just as we were talking it out now, the ship they get married on is within the past few weeks, the third ship that Eric has needed to buy rent. Yeah, he's gave me his black X. I keeps crashing all these blokes. Prince Eric is a magnesis memory. He went to Firefestfest. He's like, oh, ship, I put a dred thousand dollars on my fireband. It's

so fucking embarrassing. He's in the dot like I wanted to do body shots on Bellahadi is like for my birthday. My wife Ariel let me go. She's super chill, alright. So, I mean there are problems that people has been talking about for a long time now, the various obvious ones where you know, Ariel changes herself and sacrifices basically every significant thing about herself so that she can be with

a man all agency there. Yeah, there's you know, Ariel's voice being taken away, and you know she doesn't have access to any language that allows her to communicate effectively. This is an interesting movie. When we were like setting up this episode because we're like the criticism around this movie is so well known that to some extent it's like, yeah, it's like we all know this, but there's like there's

but there's more, more, there's more. I feel like one of the other more obvious ones is like Eric falling in love with her despite not knowing anything about her, because again, she cannot communicate in any way. I'm a septender and that happens like every ship. Every ship is like whoa, I think I love you, I don't know anything about you, Like this is so much fun for me, Like if only you couldn't talk. So let's dive into perhaps some of the intended Where should we start. I

mean we're tuan. Let's start with Ursula as a mean lesbian. Okay, let's do it. There's a lot of queer coding in this movie, and I just think like Ursla is the most badass person the whole movie. She just like hates straight people, like we'll do anything in her power to take their power away. Because obviously flatsam jetsam dating like balk icons. It's like are they brothers? Were boyfriends? We don't know. We don't have to know that they're they're touchy.

If they're brothers, they're touchy brother they're regularly like the skin to skin, they're there. They've got to be dating, or they're creepy brothers. And she just wants to ruin. She's like, I don't want straight people to be happy, and I don't want you to be happy, so we're gonna make this all your problems. I'm like, you're you're a badass. You're a sea witch? Why is that bad?

Why Disney movies telling kids not to be witches? Also, which until Halloween Town when we realized it was actually fine. And part of what I noticed on this watch because I've been I was so brainwashed by this movie is that we get really no explanation as to why Ursula

is not a part. We don't know why is there no one else in this story that looks anything like her, Like we're like people, right, and there's like so much to the point where it's like I feel like implied that she's extricated because she's mothered in this way and there's not even an attempt. She's just like, well, I used to be a part of this, but now I'm not, And like there that's all you get, And there's no

we're just supposed to assume that Triton is right. A man is rightly as as demonstrated by everything else he does in the movie, He's almost never right. He's not a good ruler, nor is he a good father. Like there you know, so that had never struck me before. Like they're just like, no, this is the villain, and this is what a villain looks like, and accept it. Right?

She did you notice that the like structure that she comes out of the first time that she's introduced is like this volva, it's just a does she tumble out of the magine incredible? She wipes her mouth. She's like, I was busy, pasty animals. It's like, why does the cool fat dike with short hair have to be bad? I'm like, I'm the whole time she's awesome. She's annoyed with clearly something I mean right when we just we did.

We just don't know anything about why she has been banished. No, there was probably like a Lilith Fair back in the day with other like tentacle lesbians, and then Triton canceled it because he wanted to have like Diplo play, but where did all the other Tentacle people go? Like, It's just I was, I was more frustrated. I mean in Ursula is the best most interesting character in the movie

by far. She's got the best songs, She's got the best henchman like Flossom and Jetsam could murder Flounder like there, they could kill him like Flounders Fox too, because it's like I feel like he's also the trope of like dopey fat boy, you know what I mean, where he's like chubby and he's like I'm slow, wait up for me. It's like wait up for him. Yeah, he's taking his time and he and you're also being reckless area out there,

I mean playing off of that too. It's like, oh, he's like a chubby boy character and he's a coward like and that's such a pervasive trope with that too. It's just like they're scared of everything and blah blah ba, and it's like, come on, she cuts all the crust off my sandwiches. I don't know if I can go in there well. La is also I have a few theories that have been testing out on the podcast, so

you may have heard these before. But movies with female villains usually have a female protagonist because I feel like it's implied that female villains can't pose much of a threat to male protagonists, so this reinforces that theory. Also, movies where a female villain makes potions and stuff like it is like a subtle way to villainize women in stem. Wow,

female scientists be dangerous. We see this in Disney movies a ton it's even up to as recently as The Incredibles to where that was a woman in stem and a villain. Interesting, and that's so true in every way. And it's also like it's like they don't want to teach young girls that you should be scared of men, and like the patriarchy is bad, so we're gonna put like this lady, this fat woman on it, so you should like fear body positivity and queerness and like your

own mother. It's like I don't like it, right, I mean yeah, and it and it does like all this whole genre movie does so much work to separate women from other women, to the point where it's very hard to see women even in the same scene where going

off what you're saying, I mean, this whole movie. And this is like said all the time, but it's about Ariel being passed off from one patriarch, her dad, and just being handed off with his permission to another man into like this different heteronormative, oppressive structure and she, you know, it's like she is given agency for maybe ten minutes, but then the rest is decided and swayed by how the men around her act. And in the meantime, any woman who is seen acting on her own is acting

maliciously and acting to take another woman down. And there is so much done to us, I think when we're young to make other women seem like a threat to Like, there's so much done to prevent women from talking to each other because then we'll like figure out it's all a scam, Like I don't know, but yeah, that is, and that's what I friends are women either like none

of the supporting characters or women. Yeah, they're they're surrounded by different men, Like why couldn't founder just like be a girl, Why couldn't it be like girl power or why couldn't we see what her relationship is with all who are like they're who are named in this movie, but they're all basically the same they're interchangeable. We know nothing about nothing about them. It would have been so easy to have two sisters in conflict of like one, you know, Ariel wants to go to the surface, one

sister doesn't think it's a good idea. Like why we're like one of her sisters being in like the Sebastian role where she's like, I'm tattling on you. Because women having jobs in this world, like they're literally in as far as we know the Mermaid world, women are performers and that's backstage. Yeah, for when Triton wants a little ditty,

he's like, gals, you know. But yet we don't see the sisters interacting with Ariel at all, which is strange because whenever she's like, oh but if I become a human, I'll never see my father or sisters again. So we don't We don't know because here the examples of them interacting in the movie. Um, one of them says, Ariel, time to come out. You've been in there all morning, because you know, women be in the bathroom, and I mean, if they're in the sea, isn't it all a bathroom?

In they'll in a way the bathroom like in the ocean. It's a bathroom. Ariel does not respond to this. Uh, And then later another sister says what's with her lately? And no one responds. So that is the interaction that the sisters have with each other and with Ariel. So yeah, it annoying a little bit more on like the character design.

Um so like with Ariel. Okay, you mentioned Jamie, like her fish bottom is so low and her just like body shape, her proportions like her it's not anatomical No, there there was another thing that made the rounds a couple of years ago, of like, where someone tried to render what would a human with those proportions look like. It's done with barbies every once in a while as well, And it is predictively horrifying. Is the scariest thing you've

ever seen, just women with gigantic heads. It's like you and but had three D. Yeah, I mean it is. It is horrifying and designed to make little girls feel bad about themselves so that they'll continue to buy products, products, products for the rest of theirs. And also she explicitly says in the movie that she is sixteen years old. So the animators are like crazy over sexualizing a teenager,

I've got some freaky Okay. So the way that this this movie is such a comes out at such a strange point in time because at the time this came out, it was considered of like, wow, a Disney princess is allowed to do something. This was progressive at the time and came before it. Why well, if we're talking princesses, it's like Cinderella being beauties snow white, so truly like there, like she's not unconscious, Like what's the problem, Like, shut up, feminist,

that's the literal bar we're coming in. It is like she's awake the whole movie, So can she speak the whole movie? No, it's you. They're like, let's give us a few years, maybe we'll let her talk, but she will be a prisoner. And that movie is Beauty and the Beast. But you know that's a feminist next because she can read fucking stupid. But the way that people reviewed this movie at the time, I mean, much of the problem with film criticism is it's so male dominated,

and in nineteen is even more so. The way people right about this cartoon is pornographic. Theys here's an l A Times clip Mermaids saucy heroin. Ariel isn't much like anderson sad noble sea maid. She's a sexy little honey bunch with a double scalloped seashell bra and a mane of red hair tossed and tumble out of bed so cow style like, so cow style, Like so what is he talking about? So cow style? What is she longboarding? It is discus and then and then put him to

the Sharks, and then in the Boston Phoenix. Uh, this one is uh, let's see, Ariel is sexy as well as sympathetic, and Orlando Sentinel, Ariel is sympathetic and in

her little bikini top rather hot. You're just like everyone. Yeah, so you know, just a reminder that straight men are scary and always want to cartoons, even when they're teenagers, even when I mean, so, the way this character was received, and I think in retrospect, like a lot of the flag that Ariel receives has a lot to do with the way adults viewed and spoke about this character, because they're like, what, Disney princesses are hot and I want

to fund them, now what? And it's like, Okay, that's a youth there like that. Yeah, so anyways, per right, right, but then what else is the Ariel is supposed to wear a shirt, it'll get wet. The option besides double scalloped bra like leave her along, I mean, unless we're freeing the nipple under the sea, which I would embrace.

But then like contrast her character design with Ursula for example, where and this is the case with I would say every Disney villain where they're designed with body types that do not adhere to like the western conventional western beauty standards, to say the least, right, so you know, when children are watching these movies and the heroes do would here to those standards, and the villains don't, you know, our mushy child brains are like doubles down right, It's like then, um,

you know, thin beautiful people are good and people who are not that are bad. I mean, And the same goes for like coded sexuality is like hetero people even if they're evil, pancake nippled fathers who don't who can't like rule it camedom to say, they're fucking they can't rule their own penis kingdom. If they're straight, they're probably

good at their job and they're a great parent. They because I think so much with Ursula too, it's like because with the way that she's drawn, it's like how bad of a thing it is to take up space. It's like I would think that there's that too, where it's like you like, these men are drawing these women to be waves because that's how they want as much space for women to take up, you know what I mean,

they want people to be quiet. But like like you're large and you're allowed and you sing songs that are cool, then you're bad. And then the thing with Ursula's character design that is kind of like stray is from the direct criticism a little bit, and there is a lot of like gray area to get into with with this discussion is that Ursula like canonically was modeled on Divine, the drag queen who appeared in all of John Waters films, and that was like the creators were pretty upfront about like,

this is who we designed this character after. And I mean in in the gay community to an extent has embraced that. And but it's just like the fact that that is the option for queer visibility is fucking ridiculous. I mean, it's just it's what's so amazing about Divine and watching her movies is she is an example of being like a fat gay person who is funny, who's radical, who's outspoken, who knows what she wants. Everyone loves her

and if you don't love her, she'll kill you. Where like she is Ursla, but like written by gay people. Like that's why Divine is so incredible. Where it's like when you let queer people write their own stories and have their own narratives and they don't get to be these like power hungry lesbians who want to eat redheads, right, and like that is sometimes what we want to do, but it's different and it's better because we said it, and you win. Both people win, the red head and

the fat lesbian. Everyone win. There's a true happy hand tank to this movie. Um Yeah. And then another another thing worth mentioning is um there is like this weird blend between most of the movies writers directors are straight guys. But the composer of the songs and also of I Think Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, it was a composer named Howard Ashman who was dying of aids throughout the writing of the songs for all three of those movies.

And so there has been stuff. I mean, he never said anything about it explicitly in terms of like how his illness corresponded to his work, if at all, But apparently he would advocate for like, Okay, I want to write like a good song for this queer coded character because at the time, like that's the only option for a queer character to appear is coded and bad. But

Howard Ashman would write the best song for them? I mean, I don't know, but it is it is interesting that, I mean, there wasn't an openly queer composer writing all these songs that are the best part of all of the movies, Like whoever wrote all of shares songs? You got to give the people what they want? Uh, So you know he's the one penning the slappers. I just think it's also so I mean clearly like a doy

to doy, like men rule everything. But it's like why do men rule writing movies for children who are women? Like I don't understand, Like why do men rule every thing? Like why I don't get why women can't even write

movies for small girls. It doesn't make sense. They're like, no, actually, we got this right, because even today they're uncomfortable looking because even today, the same writers and directors of this movie also were the major creative players of Mowanna, which again is a feminist text, so they learned a bit from between women forced them to learn was done. Yeah, it is. I mean it's it's because all this Disney stuff is like, I'm so skull fucked by all of that,

Like I can't I can't make Hazzard. But but it's interesting to see this, you know, the same the same directors seventeen years later. At least, even if they don't want to, the culture had to force them to move forward at least a little bit. Although why aren't women allowed to direct Disney movies? Still? Yeah, I'm just not really lucky that I never I never had a princess phase, and I never liked Disney movies. So I do feel grateful for whatever reason. My brain was never like Plato,

molded by that. But I was like, how can I look like Jack Skellington, Like that was my ariel. That's a that's a different form of body dysmorphia. Other unrealistic bodies I've set for, Like mom, can I have a have a straw? Black straw? Cape for Christmas. Please don't ask why I wanted to talk a little bit about

arials agency and lack thereof and her like sense of adventure. Um, because she is, as we mentioned, one of the earlier Disney princesses that has any sort of agency spur of agency, but she uses that agency to make a lot of questionable choices. But you know, she's a teenager. We all

were idiots when we were teenagers. And then she also has a sense of advance en sure much like the other like doesn't renaissance princesses, where you know, Bell is like I want so much more than this provincial life. And this is the time that the like the literal formula for these movies became like fully formed of like there's always that song where the princess is allowed to want something more, whatever that vague more is. It usually

isn't a relationship until two minutes later. Yeah, it's like Ariel starts as uh character that you know, at least there's there's something to her. She wants to learn more about this culture she doesn't understand. She's investigating stuff, she's collecting stuff, she's seeking out answers. Even if the only person she knows is a dumbass seagull, like she there was no internet, she couldn't she had to ask a seagull.

But she is like she is, I think, very active and like you know, rebels against her father and starts out as like, oh, you know, she's she's rejecting the norm of her society. She wants to learn more, and then yeah, the second after that statement is made in part of your world pretty clearly, she's like listening, here's things I'd like to know, and then as far as we know, she never learns about. It's like, why couldn't she have found like a map, you know what I mean?

And I'm just like, that's what's so frustrating, is like this text just manipulates all of our like innate, beautiful desires for freedom and like existential quandary. But these guys in the writer's room are like, I just can't think of anything else she could do that could take her on a journey of self awakening. Let's get married at sixteen,

Like there's nothing else she could do, right. The princesses, they have these a sense of adventure, but then they never go on an adventure because they just meet a man two seconds later, and then their adventure becomes they literally never go further than like a mile from their house. Jasmine doesn't even get to move like Aladda moves into her house. It's like it's fucked up. And then I wanted to talk out a little bit about just like

in the climax of the story. This is uh an example of a movie where the protagonist does not get to participate in the climax, and Ariel is completely sidelined, very damseled, because Eric has to step in and like kill Ursula and save the day. She does one she does one thing at the climax, but she doesn't get the conclusive moment that she She's even robbed of the moment where she is able to get her own voice back,

like Scuttles, the one who like snatches the necklace. Scuttles a dumb bitch, Like how dare he take that from her? He doesn't even know what a bark is? All birds know what works are, dumbass. Ariel does save a man at the beginning, so that is the thing, but that's hardly I think that at the time. This is like, oh no, she does stuff, but it's all it's like empty gestures because she's not even the hero of her

own story. What she does, which is pretty badasses that she blows smog onto that pompous guy's face because she like embarrassed a man because that dumbas bird was like it's a recorder blow into She got to put like tobacco ash in a man's mouth. So I'm like, that's feminist. That was powerful, I'll take it, which made me think that she kind of ends up becoming like the Born Sexy Yesterday type for like at least a little bit where when she gets to the human world because she

like she doesn't know what forks are. The thing is the subverts that trope I think is that she quickly learned. She like realizes that she's doing it wrong, and like, yeah, I mean I I think you're the Born Sexy Yesterday. There is something to that for this movie, because we're at least there's like some vague like, oh, Eric, you know, she's not the girl that he was horny for, but he likes her because she doesn't know how to use

things like and that's a part of the borns. Yeah, so that's like the Born Sexy Yesterday think of like even though the movie's like, no, he likes her for a reason, but it's like the reason he likes her is because she's a little baby like right, you see, Like there's like this unequal power dynamic between him and her, where like the man knows how to conduct himself in this world and she does not, and nor does she have a voice to express her concerns or ask questions.

So it's worse even where and and yeah, like the moments where Eric looks cool is when he knows how to do basic ship, where he's like, oh no, it's actually for just like I wish I was just seeing where she got to acclimate to all these things that she had in her treasure trove that she got to see. Now, that would be cool if she, like, I don't know, I was like, what's the chair? Like is it a hat?

Like who knows? Or if there is any moment where she got to demonstrate something she knew that he didn't, because there's a whole Mermaid. Yeah, there's a whole world she's acquainted with that he knows nothing about. But he doesn't, you know, I mean we guess. I guess part of the reason that is is because the second he finds out she's a mermaid, he both is like oh, and and then the movie is over. So as soon as

she becomes a human, she can't swim anymore. Remember when she dives in the sea to like go after the wedding, she would have more powerful arms. But I don't know what it's like to be a mermaid. But I think it's all core. She I mean, she had her core, and she she has legs. That's that's a big part of swimming is legs. It's not as good as a but like flounder has to like swim her to the boat,

like she can't even swim herself. My boys, Although I mean it goes without saying that there's a lot of allegedly sexy fish in this movie, however they're none of them are as sexy as the fish from This Shape of Water, who is still the sexiest fish with the firmest ass. Oh, I would say, like second to that fish should be Larry the labster from the spot. Oh. Yes, top two sexy fish, Yes, sexy crustaceans and Larry icon

a buff icon. Uh. Can we talk a little bit about the romance between Ariel and Eric romance right, Well, she sees him and falls instantly in love with him, which because movie, because movie, and that's also happens, like I can even extend my view this in Scorpion, like I can extend like seeing someone being like boiling like sure, to an extent, but to the point where you neglect what you've spent your whole life building simply Also, she's a team Yeah, so there's no time spent developing their

relationship or establishing reasons why they might like each other. It's just like that instant attraction that does happen, sure, but it's grounds for a marriage. So yeah, this is just it's a movie where the people are close to each other and they are attracted to each other, so

they must get married. Well, another another thing that's mentioned a lot in the early Disney Renaissance reviews of this movie is oh Eric is the first prince that has a personality, which again is like you, he doesn't, although he does well recorder Cape, right, so they so recorder Cape blouse. So we've got a lot of elements going on.

And because it's also like even the beginning of the movie, like they're the men get to have they get to have their storyline where they get to be like funny and quirky and like I don't know that what's again like the count olaf looking one who's like the old

Chancellor Grimsby. Also everyone's British except for Eric. I'm like, I don't understand this, and the chef from who is chef there thinks another there oh yeah, but like Grimsby gets to give Eric this like big statue and then like that gets to be like their little moment like your old that isn't extended to like any woman in the where they get to have this expose of personality. Well, the thing is like they're they're saying like, oh, Eric

has a personality, but he really doesn't. But the reason they're saying that is again because the bar is so fucking low from previous princess movies where there's some there it's always love at first sight, but it's like even more boring love at first sight, where like the prince in Sleeping Beauty is like oh and then he's like man, Jesus sleep and he's I gotta go fight a dragon

but you barely see you like you don't anything. So just because Eric is like I don't like statues and I play the recorder, They're like, Wow, amazing progress character development? Is it not like the other boy? I like the other princes. The thing is if a boy, if I met a boy when I was sixteen who played the recorder, wore capes and brooded, I would I would fuck him.

I mean, so, you know, there's a lot of different ways to view Insure, but I mean, like, because this is a manic pixie dream prints kind of he's kind of like an emo dream boy at times, but it's like he doesn't really have that much of a personality and we don't understand, right. And the thing is Ariel does have a personality, but he doesn't know that right.

But you can't talk. Yeah, like this is a movie targeted children, and like I under I understand like wanting to simplify some thing as complicated as romantic love to like cater to your intended audience, but also when you do that, it sends very confusing and wrong messages. There should be a Disney princess who gets divorced. Yeah, they should, like it should start with a marriage that is not working out, And she's like, actually, I want to get an education. If you like eat, pray, love, but a

princess eat, pray, princess um. I also wanted to talk about the spell and Sebastian's song because the spell that our Sila puts on Ariel means that like she must be kissed. So what means like a woman can't be active in her own sexuality, like she has to wait to be kissed. H And also the consent gets murky true because like, yeah, the story requires her to need to be kissed, but what if she's not ready? She

is six ten after Sebastian. There's like a bridge in the song where Sebastian like explains basic consent definitely needs like of course you're going to need a firm Yes, I'm Sebastian instead him right yeah, because he says Ariel and Eric's like, oh, I speak crap, So maybe he does have a personality. Maybe maybe because the lyrics of the song are actually this. Sebastian is like, you should kiss the girl, and he says possible she wanted to.

There is one way to ask her it don't take a word, not a single word, go on and kiss the girl. So it encourages not to check in with

a girl to see who she wants to be kissed. Also, just like informs that teen urgency too, because we all think that we have to like kiss or make out or like have sex from this like wildly young age that were even aware of any of these things, where it like really praise on the insecurity that you won't be valid unless you're kissed and you got three days to do it or you'll die, right, like your life is ruined if you don't get approval from this man,

which is entirely maybe like what if Eric wasn't what if Eric wanted to take things slow and then Ariel died? Right, yeah, it's bad for for everyone. This mean like I have three days until prom I haven't had sex. I'm gonna die. But it no, it's not even that you'll die. It's that is that someone you barely know will die. Yeah, because because what if Eric was like, man, I just like we need to also like to hear her talk. We know, like yeah, it's like Ariel could write something down.

I mean we know she can write canonically, she can write because she signed her name on the contract. So there give the lady a quill, like right, she could have expressed this. I don't know. I don't know. This movie is a mess. And also it's so short, like we were talking about sexstage that the movie is seventy minutes long. You had like at least another really like any of this down, so it wasn't just like we're going to take a woman's complete agency away so she

can't be a scientist. Women's insecurity the end, right like you had twenty minutes. Also, it's announced that Eric is getting married, and then Ariel thinks that it's her that he's getting She wasn't asked, no one, you know that it was not discussed, but she's like, yep, it's me, and she's stoked and she's so she's like, oh, I guess he decided last night that he wants to marry me, so legally I must a dog he was just going to marry someone else because she could hit like Mariah

Carey whistletones. It's it's implied that it's a curse. But that's also like trouble of implying that, like I mean, and this is like goes back forever of like men saying like oh she tricked me into doing like how men you know, often in movies, especially movies of this era will say like, oh, she tricked me into marrying her, and I didn't actually want to marry her, but she tricked And that is literally what we see happen of he is put under a spell and then gets married.

It's just you know, another way men can offload regret onto women. Yeah, like the like a queer coded character, Uh, we've already been conditioned to hate also tricked a man into marrying her when she was bad. It's like it's just bad. Yeah. I don't know if this is worth talking about, but this movie presents the idea that Ariel needs to be under constant supervision because she's like a rascally and Sebastian says, someone should now that girls fins

to the floor. Yep. Like when I was a teenager, my parents were way more strict with me than with my brother because there's like, yeah, it's the idea that like, oh, boys they're allowed to go out and like you know, make mistakes, misbehave because like boys will be boys dump off. The girls have to be you know, well behaved. And I feel like this is an example that perpetuates that, yeah, girl doesn't have like there's no matriarch figure that is

positive like a mom. It's just like back to King Chrain and just being by himself, like me and all

these daughters. Where there's that too, where he's like, I don't know what to do with my daughters, so I have to break all of her things and watch her all the time, right, Like the his solution to not knowing how to parent someone is to just oppress them and make sure that they don't stray outside the norm at all, because he's like, well, I don't know how to deal with anything but this one thing I know.

So if you don't do that, you're canceling. It would be a really good scene if Erirol would be able to talk to her sisters and be like, jeez, Dad's kind of a dick, right right, because I'm like, are they just cool with him? Like I mean, I mean that transitions really well into the whole like lack of matriarch discussion and like the way Disney treats mothers and motherhood in this very bizarre way up until very recently

and then still sometimes not well. But this is an example of a movie that most of the Renaissance movies subscribe to this exact because all the Renaissance movies aren't the same where it's like a single father, the mother is dead and not addressed. We don't know what happened, where there's no and there's no matriarch figure in her life. The same for Jasmine, the same for Bell, the same for pocahonas I believe as well, there it Mulan has a mom, yeah, but she doesn't get to do much.

And Grandma, Yeah, Mulan's grandma was like incredible, but I can't can Horny Grandma horn and Grandma Horny, Grandma Lashtag Horney and Grandma, which is a trope, but I don't always hate it, but this one lacks a maternal figure

at all. But in other and earlier iterations of like the previous generation of Disney princesses had maternal figures and they were evil, where Snow White and Cinderella have evil stepmothers, and the implication there always tends to be of like, if you are uh mother who is not a biological mother, you cannot love a child as purely as a biological

mother could, which is of course fucking ridiculous. But it's just so insidious that from like conception, from like the Jomp that we were able to look at anything and understand in any sort of like cultural way, Like we're just taught from the start from these movies that we have to hate other women. Like that's all these men want to do, and that's why they want to write these movies where it's like we're gonna make all of these insidious plot points that you will never have a

girl gang ever, he'll never be a girl boss. Yeah, And there's I mean, and the like the solution to defeating a woman is always a man, and like having a man in your life to help you defeat the only other woman you've met, which is just it's it's horrible,

it's horrible. There's yeah. And then if we're talking about King Triton, I mean, he's the worst Disney father to me, because you know, Maurice Bell's dad, he's a shitty inventor, right, so he's like incompetent, but like so are many fathers, right, Uh, Triton is genuinely a bad person. I mean, we know

he's a bad person. He destroys her ship, he totally limits everything she can do, but he's also made out to look sympathetic and by the end, we get that moment where she's like, I love you, daddy, and she's not. You know, we don't get to see that conflict play out where there's this huge conflict between them. He destroys everything she owns, she's devastated. She rebels against him by selling her body to Ursula, and then it's chill. It's

chill later on. And the fact that you know, we have we're coming off of this whole history of evil stepmothers going into this movie and we see a father act like an evil stepmother would, but then we're supposed to be like, oh, but he's trying his best. He has abs, they're like pancake nipples, doesn't get his daughter,

So it's okay that abusive selling body. And now there's kind of like an anti sex work element to this too, where it's like, I feel like they really give her this like evil like I own a brothel vibe as well, where she like owns all of these people. But it's like Trieden's a king. He owns people too. Yeah, And you know, and we don't get to really see him do anything. They're input on a little show for his

daughter's who I'm assuming are unpaid for that game. Hey, artists. Also, Triton does not check in with Arial to see if she wants to be turned back into a human. He just does it, like what if she didn't like being a human, Like what if she's three days she's like, no, I actually I'm gonna go back, like she went on like human rum Springer. Basically, I was like, no, I do want to return to my people community. And then he was just like, oh, she's looking at a human,

so better turn her back into one. Like and then the fact that she can only become a human, why is he the only person who has that power and ability? We saw Ursula has the ingredients. It can clearly be done without your fucking penis stick. They carries around like it can clearly be done, and she's smart enough we're led to believe to be able to make it happen herself,

but she just never like siblings they have. I feel like I've read Lord to that fire powers, right, I mean, they're the only two people who can do jack ship. Are they like twins? I don't know, I don't know. I mean I wish we just knew more about Ursula's background at all. We just don't know anything about totally because that would make sense, Like why are they that both people who are able to do all this like wacky incredible powerful magic. So one's good and one's bad.

But it's the same thing. But like when when the woman does it, it's actually bad. They do they literally do the same spell, but but when Tritton does it, it's actually good. And I wanted to just cover your little little context stuff really quick. Where this is one of the many Disney movies that's adapted from very old folk tale by Holms Christian Anderson ever heard of him? And uh, the adaptation of this, I mean this is

like fairly common knowledge. But the way the Little Mermaid ends in the story is that she turns, you know, she realizes that she is never going to be a part of the human world in a meaningful way because she is a mermaid. And she turns into cea foam and dies. Uh so she turns into a big pyla

come she foams okay, also does foamy and then she died. Also, I like really quick backtracking big pre foam is that like this the scene or ursula becomes massive, she has like does a giant sea queef when everything just turns like blow she sludge underneath her, and I'm like, that's supposed to be bad. She anchored herself and it's incredible. Um.

So the Hans Christian Anderson story ends very differently. Something I learned when I was researching this episode is that there is a lot of queer coding in Hans Christian Andersen stories that I wasn't aware of. Um Because at the time of Hans Christian Anderson, being queer was illegal. So he was a queer man, which was found in

many of his letters. He had affairs with men that were expressed through letters, and there was a particular affair he had with a higher class, a man of a higher class than he was, who ended up having to marry a woman of a higher class because hetero, etcetera. And so this is a part of his personal history and a lot of the interpretation around it is that the little roommaid was this expression of Hans Christian Anderson is Ariel um or who is Ariel in the movie? Uh,

The object of his affection is eric Um. And so see, turning into c foam at the end is basically just and queer relationships aren't allowed, so I have to turn into foam emotionally, So there there is I know, shout, we gotta all, you know, take a shot for Hans

tonight because he had it right, I mean. And and it is interesting like reading about queer literate or of like you have to really code in and metaphor on metaphor on metaphor to be able to discuss an issue like this at all, because if you just were queer, he would not be allowed to be, you know, working in any capacity. And so um, I don't know like learning that really and I don't think that that of reading of it is taken into account in the Disney

adaptation at all, but I did. I did find it to be like an interesting example of how queer artists had to express themselves at this time in order to express literally anything. Yeah, that's really interesting context shout shouts out to this biopic. Ya, this is the one. I don't know, there is good what's it called? Well, I hope it's not Christians Christian. Christian sounds like another guy who would blackout at a party all the time. I

feel like journey um. But yeah, yeah, so it's it's interesting that there are so many are not so many, I guess too. Uh, queer artists. Uh there where you know Hans Christnaars and Reds the original story and then it's adapted with all this incredible music by Howard Ashman, but it's still you know, ends up being an incredibly oppressive, heteronormative piece that uh you know has been decimating the lives of children for going on thirty years. Indeed, tes incredible.

Does anyone have any other final thoughts? Let me check my note here. Note talked about the Sea Queef. So I just wish that this story what could have been

written with like Ariela is like a riot girl. That's like what I because like we're weren't watching the We're near Olympia where that I just feel like they have that so close where it's like such a cool story to talk about being sixteen and like hating everything and wanting to swim to the surface and like pick up a cool rock you found near a train track and added your collection and like see if it's a crystal maybe who knows. But instead they had to make it patriarchy.

I just like want there to be retribution for Ariel and like have her sing in a band called like clitteral Attack or something. Click yeah, everything has to be seen. Were like c microphone. When she sat in her sea chair and ate sea food. She had sea bugles for a sea snack. I just wanted to say that there is a line that Scuttle says, um, look with the catfish dragged in, and I just want to say that cat fish have zero nipples, and that's at fish fact

with Caitlin Um. I would like to say that Alfred Molina could have played any part in this movie because he's a versatile character actor who we know and love. You know, my close friend at this point, Uh, Alfred Realina, he has laid eyes on my face, I would say, and I'm just I'm just channeling him, my close friend.

I would say that he received the script for this movie and wrote back a long letter explaining that actually this was a story by a queer author and that he wasn't seeing any of those tones represented, and so he refuses to participate, even for seventy five million dollars. What a story. I think it's not a story, it's the truth true. So out out to icon out. Let's take some questions or comments from the crowd. If you have something, come on up so that you can talk

into the mic. Does anyone have yeah, come on up, Hi, what's your name? Hi? I just want to take a second to cape for or to like record or cape for Ursula as feminist icon because even as like a straight little girl, I was like yes, because she like is trying to topple the patriarchy. She runs her own business, she has employees, she's obviously in charge of legal, like she's drawn up which neither of the two heroes we

see signing a contract even look at. But we're like, yeah, that's cool, Like she's trying to disclose everything to them, and she's like, by the way, no one up top is gonna want to hear you talk in arials like chill, and then she just signs a thing. By the whole time, Ursula is just like trying to run her business. She's above board, she really is. That's right. She's done a four one K Yeah. Yeah, no, we came up. We have like a headcanon now that like because she's the witch.

We were like, oh, maybe she was like the c medicine woman and maybe she was the Sea do La and that's why Ariel's mom is dead and why tried and kicked her out of the ocean. That's why she's so mad that thank you I have that shirt. That's a great point about there is a plot point in this movie where it's just like, no, sorry, it's illegally binding document. You're like, okay, weird moment to adhere to the rules of the real world. Any any other questions

comments come up? Hi, My concept of Ursula is a little bit more sexual. But I have two concepts or theories. I feel like, what happens to the wedding guests, possibly when Pursla becomes really huge, is like a Titanic reference where everyone's actually drowning in the water while this whole scene is happening, but we don't see that Titanic element where none there were not enough lifeboats on that boat,

exactly unbelievable. The other theory that I have is that King Triton actually killed Ariel's mom because Ursula was doing some weird tentacle like sexual beautiful things with Arrow's moms. So that's why Ursula turns him into a turret at the end, you know, because she that she's trying to take back what was her kingdom, which was a big, you know, lesbian kingdom. Yeah. Wow, cannon cannon. Ursla is just trying to topple the Dick Palace, the literal Dick

Palace and turned into a quefdom. Yeah, we had someone else if you're yeah, so, I just want to say Ursula has like several hundred lost souls trapped in her cave. And like, I think this is just further evidence that Trying is a terrible ruler, because I feel like there's not that many people in the sea. Like if if like half the people in this room disappear and all of a sudden, I feel like I would look around

and be like, oh, maybe some people left. But he's just like this several people who I've never seen again and who are so yeah. And he also seems to know where she lives. Hi Larry turned now And clearly they're like a lot of people dissatisfied with their lives that are like taking drastic legal legal measures to like try and find a better life. But they're just like no, and King Traydon has like no feelings about any of these people who have just left left his kingdom for

to try and better themselves. God Trying is liked is turned to my all my daughter, Uh we we had we had another another question up here. I just wanted to say that, Um, there's not only a demonization of queer coded characters, but of Octopi. True quick in defensive Octopi. They are incredible carreactakers. When a female octopus gives birth, she lays all of her eggs and then stays with them, caring for them until she dies as a sacrifice. So quick defense of Octopy. Thank you? Are you a woman

in stamp? Wow? Paternal icons brave. Yeah. To further talk about Ursula, Um, this movie, this movie does pass the loftist test. Yes, it does. Well. This woman in Charge it does, thank god, honest woman in charge. She is the baldest woman and she is truly in charge. Wow. I think we have time for one more. If there's one more. Um to your point that like Ursula and Triton were like siblings. I googled it once the lights came up. They're like confirmed siblings. It was like part

of the original screenplay was that they were siblings. And you know her like little shell that she wears, that was like her source of power, and Triton got the trident and she got banished because like she was trying to be too greedy because they got like two halves of the kingdom. And so he was like, you're too opinionated and you have too much power. Yeah, you get to banish her then, like you're you're not better? Was

doing good signing contracts. She's a lawyer. Now, if that person's points right, then Ursula was sleeping with trite with a hit with her brother's wife. I mean, honestly, imagine if you're like sister, who is a lawyer and smarter than you, started hooking up with your wife, you'd be like, oh my god, I also love thank you so much? Right, was like, actually, they're all I love. Everyone's unhinged. Yeah,

that's what I do. Though, like Ursula, she probably didn't want more power than him or and like she wasn't being greedy, she just wanted equal power. And he's like you you're banished, right, but he shouldn't be in theory, if they have equal power, why would he be able to manage her to to like Vagina k patriarchy. And also it looks like Ursula's like area is the same size as the kingdom, where as you pointed out, like fourteen people, she's storing a lot of souls he's in

charge of like a private school, second grade class. She shouldn't Marie condo her soul storage. Should we decide if it passes the Bechtel test? No, no, you know, but you sure right, because even the few conversations are like exchanges between Ariel and Ursula that technically may pass because a man's name isn't mentioned, because there's like there's a line where like Ursua is like, the only thing is to become a human yourself, and then she's like, can

you do that? But the context is all about a man and changing ariels whole self to be with a man. The one exchange I found that may pass is bad. It's towards the very end where Ursula is about to do the death quiff and Ariel says, you monster, and Ursula says, don't mess with me, you little brat. So so, you know, an iconic change, that was the one maybe I was able to find interesting. That's an excerpt with

me talking to my mom in high school. You monster, I feel like because Ursula's whole goal is to overthrow and steal the power of Triton, which she rightfully like that was She's just trying to topple the patriarchy. So yeah, and then and then Eric stabbed her poor Ursula. Yeah, I would. I'm okay with saying that's a pass that I think that that is somehow a pass because she is kind of It's still contextually about a man, but it's about overthrowing a man. So please disregard everything we've

just said. The Bechtel test is a perfect metric and it passes to feminist text. Shall we give him give it nipples? Yeah, let's on our nipple scale zero to five nipples. Based on its portrayal of women, I'm gonna go with a half nipple. I think more of an Ariola. It is definitely a king Triton pancake Ariola. Yeah. I mean between any like semblance of agency and like sense of adventure that Ariel is given is immediately taken away

from her. The whole story is about her sacrificing, you know, herself and everything about herself to be with a man. All of the character design that is damaging, all of the queer coding that's damaging everything about it is not good. But I have to give it a half nipple for the song, Poor Unfortunate Souls. So that's that. Uh but yeah, so half nipple will go to Ursula. Yeah, I'll give

it a half nipple as well. And just to add to that, it is like frustrating to uh see uh female character in spite of all the like negative physical things that are happening in the character design and all that, but to have a female characters set up with a personality with an interest that isn't a heterosexual relationship and like setting up here's gonna be a cool character that we can root for and then literally remove all of it and then to a point and when you see it,

when you're young enough, you don't even realize that that's what's happening. Um. So that made me sad. Half nipple because Ursula and I'm giving it to Flats, Um sure, because I don't think eels have nipples and I would like to give them a shot. Maybe the person who knows a lot about octopuses, do eels have nipples? Confirmed? Um? Yeah? Same?

Like half to full to one nipple. I think it's like the only to me cool thing about this movie is that Ursula is so badass, and I think it's really cool twenty nineteen to have this like resurgence of queers and allies alike who understand like how radical she is, like even within how unfortunately she was portrayed in this movie.

But to now have this like icon of like fat Dike who like is a lawyer and someone has now pointed out to us like anachemist, like and like pays her own bills, like pays the rent, like mortgage, like on top of it, like good credit score, like to just have her to exist in all of our cannons and all of our cultural understandings of Disney. To me, it's like that gives it the one. But that's because of us, not because of them, Like we gave her that. Yeah,

what would you like to give your nipple too? Oh all right, I got carried away. Um it sounded like a threat the way I'm gonna give my one nipple to the woman who give aerial to bath. Oh. Yes, another character who we get to sort of meat, but we never get to get to know her as well as literally any man we made at any point in the story. But she seems nurturing. I don't know she does bathe a nude stranger. I don't know what the customs in this country a sure go sure, Well that's

the damn show. Get up yourselves, got up for Clara, Clara? Where can people follow you? What would you like to plug? Um? You can follow me on Instagram at real Chris Angel. I'm trying to get crossover fans and that's c R I S. S. Angel Real Chris Angel. Please follow me. He's furious awesome. Thank you again for coming. Good night. So that was the episode. It was so so so much fun. Thank you to everyone who was there. It was packed shell, Yes, so much fun. Just a couple

quick notes. Uh, we did the like Q and A at the end, little you know, audience questions and comments so much. Yeah, but the audio quality some of the people they couldn't make it up to the stage to talk into the mic. So there were a couple of people whose questions comments we had to cut because just the audio didn't pick up on the recording. Our apologies go out to you if you had your comment cut. One of them to our houses kill us. So one

was defending Scuttle. I was there for it. I was I was fully there for yes, we we we we were sorry. We came down so hard on Scuttle. Shouts, shouts, out to the scuttle sand. We were put in our place,

Yes indeed. And then another one was a mother who said she recently watched the movie with her young daughter and just was horrified at the messages that the movie was sending and how her daughter was struggling to understand what was wrong with the movie because all of this like patriarchal ideas being implanted into the minds of like and yeah, yeah, starting with they get the kids young with the patriarchy, but shouts out to Seattle mom, who was doing the work getting out in front of it,

crushing the patriarchy in advance. Yes, indeed. And then the last really quick thing was that, Um, I was talking to Joan Ford, a friend of the cast. Are on our Scream episodes, so if you haven't listened, and go back and listen, And I told her that we had recorded a Little Mermaid episode and she asked if we had talked about the interpretation of the movie as a trans narrative at all, right, and there's so there are so many fascinating different interpretations of a movie. Um and yes, yes,

I said, I said I didn't. I didn't think we did. But would you mind sharing your thoughts, and she said, I'll just go ahead and read it here. Um as I've transitioned, I've come to think of Ariel as sort of a trans icon. The parallels are pretty clear. She was born into one body, but feels like she belongs

in another and does the work to make that transformation happen. Sure, she makes some bad choices along the way, but the road to realizing your true self is usually a rocky one, especially if you have a family that doesn't accept you and you're forced to figure out stuff on your own. In parentheses, writing this, I'm realizing we should be celebrating Sebastian and Flounder as Cinema's original trans allies. Sebastian takes a little longer to get on board, but he really

redeems himself during Kiss the Girl. Anyways, That's why I take issue with the aerial changes herself to be with a man narrative that critics tend to impose on the movie. Ariel wants to be human from moment one. She sings part of your World her trans anthem, long before she ever sets eyes on Prince Eric. Eric maybe the catalyst that finally gets her to take action and go see Ursula, But that decision is all rioted in her long held conviction that she wants to be where the people are.

Whether or not Eric is worthy of her, it is kind of beside the point to me, as I think it's pretty common for kids to latch on to new people when they're going through this kind of big self realization. Maybe they're going to be together forever. Maybe she moves on when she realizes the world is huge and there are so many more humans out of the sea. The important thing is that he was there, offering her that

possibility of a new and different life when she needed it. Uh. And then again in parentheses, she says, by the way, I know him being kind of generous about Ariel's options as a woman in the eighteen hundreds. But whatever, it's a fantasy. If a Mermaikan girl legs, then I think

it's also fair to think she can have an amicable divorce. Also, anyone who thinks giving up your voice to a sea, which is rough, should try getting hormone replacement therapy through Kaiser Permanent If you don't know what Kiser permanente, as it's like a healthier facility in California, She said, they make you jump through so many hoops. I wish I knew a c which who could have cut me that

straightforward of a deal. So that's what John said. So I thought that was a really um awesome interpretation of the movie. Uh. And then I was just chatting with her a little bit after that, and we agreed that that was more than likely not any of the intentions of the filmmakers to try to create this like allegorical transnarative, but that's what fantasies are for, and that's why we got to discuss so many different interpretations of it in the episode as well. I'm so glad that she let

us know because that tracks. Um, I don't know, I mean, as as problematic as these um old fairy tales tend to be, there are always a million different ways to see yourself inside of them, and which is, you know, probably why they're they're still around. I love that, Yeah, John, John and everything. Yes, follow her. You can check her out on Instagram at Joan Hayley Ford and read her

book as well. Yes, indeed. So yeah, that's just the kind of the after the footnotes, No, oh my god, to channel Miles Gray that we wanted to increase that we wanted to include on this episode. And then also just to say thanks again to our guest of the show, Clara Pluton. We wanted to say thanks again to the jewel Box Theater at the Rendezvous in Seattle for having us, and thank you to everyone who came. It really was such a fun um a couple of shows that we

did there and we will be back. I got that was the show where someone brought me on Mike's hard lemonade uh light lamp. Whoa wait, yeah, like, oh I heard Mike's hard lemonade light and I thought of like crystal light, like diet on powder, like a bud light kind of thing. I wish they made it like cocaine for him, but they do not yet. Um, yes it was. It was an illuminated sign type yeah that shows with

me always This specific show looms above. And then also thanks again to our road dog and audio engineer Sammy Junio, friend of the cast, She's the Man episode. Go back and listen to it, uh and I believe you know. Thank you for listening. Check us out on all the normal places becktel cast dot com, on Twitter and Instagram

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