The time has come to discuss 1989’s Disney classic - The Little Mermaid!

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Based (loosely) of course on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of The Little Mermaid.

Aly kicks us off with a biography of the author before taking us on the journey of what exactly was changed when Disney took up the tail…er…tale. We’ll give you a hint: less blood, tongue cutting out, and death. She also talks about a lot of the feminine metaphors put onto mermaids and The Little Mermaid in particular.

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Speaking about this famous aquatic lass wouldn’t be complete without mentioning her iconic statue in Copenhagen, dedicated to Christian Andersen’s arguably most famous work. Unfortunately, we also learn that mermaids are a bit of a hot button topic when it comes to feminine issues (mainly related to the idea of giving up your voice for a man, it rubs some people the wrong way). This leads to the statue being vandalised multiple times over the years, as you can see below.

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In Aly’s talks about mermaids, she not only covers the types of mermaids and their place in various culture’s mythologies (from Greece to Ireland to Asia) as well as their history in art….she also covers real life “sightings” of mermaids. Of course, once people start to get excited about something, some shyster is going to try to make a buck off of it. Introducing P.T. Barnum, famously of Barnum and Bailey’s CIrcus and the watered down movie ‘The Greatest Showman’ (Note: Aly seriously loves this movie but totally admits that it’s problematic in it’s glossing over some of the major issues with this historical figure). Barnum bought a “real life mermaid” called the Feejee Mermaid and had it on display. It was a fish stitched together with a monkey.

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Sarrah comes in and takes over with some major studio news, Disney was changing up as we hit the renaissance. A lot more employees came in, and the studio expanded to three locations.