Response to Trites' "The Little Mermaid"

Trites has very strong opinions about The Little Mermaid and I have very strong opinions about Trites. I enjoyed reading the article, but I disagreed with most of what Trites said. Here are many of the specific points with which I disagreed. (For simplicity, Anderson’s mermaid will be referred to as ‘the little mermaid’, and Disney’s mermaid will be Ariel. All quotes are taken from Trites’ “The Little Mermaid”).

• Quest for soul versus mate
• I believe Ariel was following her heart and the little mermaid followed her brain – in a way, the little mermaid uses the prince to get an immortal soul
•  Ariel being materialistic
•    I don’t believe Ariel is materialistic – she is merely curious and following her heart
•  Negative portrayal of Triton
•    Trites depicts Triton as a symbol of masculinity and dominance – I believe Triton plays the role of a caring father who is trying to help his teenager
•    After Triton destroys all of Ariel’s possessions from the surface, the movie makes it very clear that Triton is upset with what he had to do; he is only trying to protect his daughter
• Ariel as “incapable of autonomy”
• Ariel is very autonomous and is constantly making her own decisions and forging her own path
• Despite everyone telling Ariel her what to do, she acts as she pleases – if anything she is too autonomous
• The little mermaid’s love relationship
• Speaking of Anderson’s mermaid, Trites says, “She has the leisure to develop her love slowly into an intimate relationship” - Trites unfairly avoids criticizing Anderson’s tale
• The little mermaid has no ‘leisure’ as every step on land brought the pain of two swords stabbing through her legs
• The ‘intimate relationship’ involved a female who had her voice taken away and was not able to express herself
• The loss of voice
• Trites scorns Disney for taking away Ariel’s voice and unfairly tries to defend the Anderson’s mermaid for making a righteous sacrifice 
• Ariel only wins her man after she got her voice back – shows the power of female voice and expression
• Ariel’s “pain-free sacrifices”
• Ariel gave up everything she had to follow her heart. She gave up her voice, family, friends, and risked her life
• Evil is ugly and good is pretty
• Ursula takes the form of a pretty human female, but Disney portrays her as being just as evil
• Ariel can’t defeat evil
•  Ariel saves Eric early in the movie, and Eric saves Ariel in the end – gender equality
• Stretches
• When describing Ariel’s infatuation for Eric: “This implies that the only beings worth marrying are those who are perfect and that perfection is not only somehow attainable but is actually necessary for a man to be lovable”
• Anything sexual was difficult to read and is perhaps more difficult to quote. These exaggerations were at times comical
• Flowers: “they prefigure the human genitalia the mermaids will seek”
• Blood from Ariel’s legs: “flowing blood prepares the girl for menarche”
• Ursula’s layer palace: “womb like inner chamber” with a “grotesque parody of the female anatomy”
• Ursula’s body: “breasts seem suffocating…female body as ominously menacing”
• Ursula tentacles: “eight phalluses”
• Near the end of page 150, the discussion of phallic imagery veers into comedy – it is appalling and not worth quoting