I'm probably feeling a little defensive of my second favorite Disney movie because I repeatedly have to defend my favorite Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, from accusations that it's anti-feminist.
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In fact, I think I would have greater problems with a story that implied that changing the status quo could be so easy. The little I've seen of the sequel, on the other hand, does show Mulan going on to provide an inspiration to other little girls in her village.
But the major reason I don't take issue with the character's exceptionalism is because even if not much has changed in the rest of her world, that doesn't lessen the fact that things have greatly changed for Mulan. She is the character with whom the audience (of primarily young children) is intended to identify, and I don't really find the messaging problematic in that regard.
And at the very least, I give it more credit than Brave; Mulan never apologizes to her father for defying him.
Yup, yup, yup and ditto.
I've heard men criticize The Little Mermaid before and it really bothers me, but it's so hard to put into words why. I'm of the age group that watched it A LOT growing up and it was never my favorite film (I kinda preferred 101 Dalmatians, Cinderella and various other animal centric films.) But to echo Cotterpin, I don't find either The Little Mermaid or Mulan problematic. They both take women and their ambitions and challenges seriously which is a lot more than some "strong female character" movies do. We kind of talked about this on The Avengers thread, but I've been realizing it's much more about how the story respects the woman as a complete person and makes her feel real than it is about how many stereotypes she breaks. The stereotype-breaker movies feel a lot more superficial than the take-the-woman-seriously movies and seem to get a bit more praise for how "groundbreaking" they are in the press, but they don't seem to resonate with actual real-life women as much.
If it's only guys bashing how anti-feminist a movie is and women seem to love it (Twilight, Titanic, The Little Mermaid, etc.) then I feel like something's missing. If that many women love it then there's probably something real and serious in there that our culture trivializes about women. When people take what could otherwise be a thoughtful discussion about women and the arts and turns it into "why women are dumb for liking Twilight", something has gone seriously wrong. There's few things more soul-crushing to a woman than misogyny in the disguise of feminism. Misogyny, in part, minimizes the strength of female voices and their struggles; misogyny in the disguise of feminism practically eliminates female voices altogether. Women and teenage girls in particular have a hard time getting listened to once a man declares something "anti-feminist". If they defend it, the women look unenlightened, backwards and simple. If they decide to agree with the man, they reinforce the feeling that men know best and must decide what is fit for women to experience. That's not to say that men can't recognize mistreatment of women and call society out on it, just that, imo, women should be the key voices in a discussion like that.
That said, I've been trying to figure out why The Little Mermaid works for me (and my sister) specifically for about the past year, since Scriptnotes did an episode on that movie and basically said it was anti-feminist. We decided that it does a few key things wonderfully:
1. The narrative is guided by Ariel's main desire. She wants to be a human and live with the man she's in love with. She makes sacrifices to do this in giving up her family and her main talent, goes up against near insurmountable odds, defeats the villain, reconciles with the father, becomes the master of two worlds, literally gains her voice back and saves the prince in the process, btw.
2. Her voice. She sacrifices her voice *literally* to get what she wants in life and that's something a lot of women can relate to. (My sister really agreed with this part of the story resonating with her, as I recall.)
3. The villain is a woman and uses her insight into Ariel as a woman to manipulate her. She does this by keying into her dislike of her father, her romantic feelings towards this guy, the value Ariel places on her "one talent" and her fascination with the "other world". Disney female villains are a bit of a trope, but I think it's used to especially good effect here. Ursula is a fully realized character with actual motivations that make sense and she stacks the odds against Ariel in a way that makes Ursula look smart while still making Ariel look real, if a bit naive and vulnerable which gives her room to grow as a character during the rest of the movie.
4. The prince has something of a personality. Many 90's girls name Prince Eric as a character they love and why wouldn't they? Unlike other Disney princes, he actually gets to talk! He behaves in a believable, thoughtful and respectful manner towards Ariel and even has a key signifier of Disney main character personhood: an adorable animal sidekick.
5. Did I mention SHE saves HIM in the end? And HE is the one entranced by an evil witch.
6. She looked somewhat unconventional. It's easy to forget this in the age of Pixar red-heads, but a female Disney heroine who wasn't blonde was actually groundbreaking and ushered in a new era of diversity in main characters for the company. The Little Mermaid behind the scenes even talks about the moment when the Disney guys realized this plucky mermaid girl could have something other than blonde hair and how important that moment was for them and the reverberations of that decision. The behind-the-scenes are worth a watch, I'd say, if even just for that moment.
Pro-tip: since there appear to be a lot of dads of daughters on this board I thought I'd share how my dad handled this issue, since it's something I'm really thankful for: He exposed us to variety of movies/stories (all age appropriate) and encouraged us to share our gut reactions to whatever we were watching. He didn't just provide them but watched them with us (even if it was The Little Mermaid for the 100th+ time) and had long thoughtful discussions with us regarding whatever topics came up. He treated what we liked with respect. If we had a particular interest or really enjoyed one specific movie he'd try to find all the other similar movies and present them to us for our judgement. He rarely prescribed movies and when he did they were films like The Karate Kid that were personally important to him and he would share why he loved it and where he was in life when he saw it. That said, he did try to make sure we saw a lot of classic musicals, I think in part because of the wonderfully realized women they portrayed. We were free to like or dislike any movie, but instead of saying "yes, that's the right opinion" or "no, it's not" he would just sit down, look at us seriously and ask "Why don't you like it?" or "Why do you like this movie?" and then, as I said, listen for a long time. This gave us a chance to develop and feel secure in our own opinions and come to feel that our home was a safe place for creative exploration. That meant more to us than any supposed "message" in any movie. I think you'll find that your daughters are naturally going to gravitate towards self-respect, standing up for themselves and movies that respect them as women if you, too, treat them and their opinions, whatever they may be, with respect.
Alright /preachy rant. Thanks for listening. This is probably redundant in places as I've been flying for hours, but it's an important issue to me and I'm glad you guys talk about it.
Good solid choice.
