Disney Gone Wild

Can you really call a Disney princess wild? I think so! Their fairytale stories might always have a happy ending, but the women in the stories are all courageous individuals. My favorite “wild” princess is Ariel, from the Little Mermaid.

Ariel is a young mermaid who’s unhappy with her current life “under the sea” and is fascinated by humans and the lifestyle “on land”. Her father, King Triton is king of the entire ocean and forbids Ariel to have anything at all to do with the human world. After sneaking away one night Ariel discovers a ship with many sailors on board, one of which is Prince Eric. As soon as Ariel laid eyes on Prince Eric she fell in love. Now, her only problem is that she is a mermaid, he is a human. Knowing that her father would never allow her to be with a human, Ariel goes behind his back and makes a deal with Ursula, the sea witch. Ursula allows Ariel to become human in exchange for her beautiful voice.

As Boozer quotes in his piece, Seduction and Betrayal in the Heartland: Thelma and Louise, “nothing is more threatening to patriarchal conventions than a woman who resorts to the tools of aggressive defiance” (210). Ariel clearly defies her father’s wishes by not only perusing interaction with the human world, but by going behind his back in order to become a human herself. She is also very aggressive in her pursuit. Ariel goes out immediately after an intense argument with her father, which resulted in the destruction of her “human world” collection, to make a deal with the sea witch to become a human. She obviously wasn’t going to let anyone, not even her father, keep her from her human pursuit.

Maybe making a deal with the sea witch wasn’t the best idea, but what choice did Ariel have? She was determined and didn’t let anyone tell her what she could or couldn’t do. Ultimately, she took a “wild” risk not only for the one she loved, but for herself. Yes, this is a fairytale/love story but let’s not forget that Ariel was unhappy. She longed for a different life and when the opportunity to peruse a human lifestyle presented itself she decided to take it. She then proved to all of the mermaids that humans weren’t bad and chose to remain human and live her life “on land”. Although her choices may have been looked down upon and her actions thought to be “wild”, Ariel proved that she could make her own choices and create her own happily-ever-after.