Response to Roberta Trites

A lot of Roberta Trites's arguments I found very skeptical and very misguided. Fo example, Roberta sexualizes almost every scene in The Little Mermaid. Yes, certain scenes can imply sexual meanings, but not every single scene has some sexual connotations. For example, the idea that in Andersen's version of The Little Mermaid when she dances, it feels like she is walking on knives that her blood would flow represents the hymen breaking, was completely stretching the argument. You could argue that this fact represents how someone should not try to change who they are for other people, but you cannot stretch the argument just to make it sexual. Also the whole sexualizing Ursula to illustrate her personality was way too much of stretch that was completely ridiculous and made me think what is this author trying to prove. There are so many other arguments that one can make about The Little Mermaid, that there is not really a need to oversexualize everything about the movie. Especially, the author talking about the final scene, about Ursula taking power from Triton and her eventual downfall was all a scene about sex was completely absurd and made her lose her credibility with me. I was honestly done reading that whole section about her argument and done reading with her paper because she was fishing at things to argue about.

However, initially, I really did like her arguments because I felt that there was evidence to back these arguments up. I especially really like the argument that was the connection between Satan and Ursula and the whole argument about the scene from Paradise Lost giving the forbidden fruit to Adam and Eve is the basis for the whole movie. A lot of points add up to this fact, like going to shore is forbidden and seeing humans is forbidden which equates to the forbidden fruit, Ursula is Satan because she tempts the unsuspecting Eve, which is Ariel in this case to taste the forbidden fruit, which is going to land. If Trites had focused on that argument, instead of all the sexuality in her paper, her paper would be so much stronger instead of losing credibility with her ridiculous arguments. Another argument I really liked was the dependence of Ariel. All we see happen in the movie is Ariel's dependence on her father get transferred to her husband Eric. The stereotypical standard of women from the 1500s where women are dependent on their fathers and husbands. That idea still gets reinforced into all these Disney movies that women are dependent on a man in order to have their lives.  Disney still portrays old fashion ideas in their movies, which has been a continuing thing since the 1930s, and The Little Mermaid came out in 1989. My opinion about Trites's argument was overshadowed by all the sexual argument Trites's tried and failed to make, so I believe her article to be ineffective and made her lose her credibility in my eyes.