Well, you know

Okay, I have a confession to make. Despite the fact that The Little Mermaid has been my favorite Disney movie for almost twenty years, and despite the fact that I am very obnoxious about reading the source material movies are based on (if they have one), I didn't read the original story by Hans Christian Andersen until...yesterday. I really have no idea how this horrendous oversight occurred, but at least I finally rectified it. When I was doing research for my thesis on how Disney portrays gender, specifically in The Little Mermaid, I became familiar with the differences between the film and the fairy tale, but there was one article I read that said that all of Andersen's descriptive powers go to creating the undersea world, causing readers to wonder why the little mermaid would ever want to leave, which is such a lie. His descriptions of the world humans inhabit are just as beautiful as the undersea world, so whatever. The other thing I want to bring up is that I guess it's pretty accepted that ol' Hans was a closeted homo, and "The Little Mermaid" rather reflects that, and I think it is true. The little mermaid endures all kinds of pain to be accepted, but she remains an outsider. The prince falls in love with her, but he will not marry her, and that whole thing just sounded so much like two boys growing close, one longing to tell the other how he feels but unable to use his voice. Poor Hans.

As for the differences from the Disney film, well... The one that bugged the crap out of me was that in Andersen's story, it was merpeople tradition for the merchildren to visit the surface once they turned fifteen, but in the film, it is expressly forbidden--and Ariel is the only one who wants to go up there anyway. Also, the sea king is barely in the story at all, but he is a very imposing force in the film--that would have been a useful thing to know when I was writing my paper. Oh well. In the story, the sea witch and the little mermaid don't really make a bargain--I mean, she still has to give up her voice (really, her tongue, which, ewwwww), but the sea witch doesn't really seem to get anything out of this exchange, since the tongue is used to create the potion that will turn her human (interestingly, Ursula throws a disembodied tongue into her potion during "Poor Unfortunate Souls"--where did it come from?). Ursula wants Ariel in her power to use her as a bargaining tool for regaining the kingdom from Triton, but the sea witch apparently just wants to cause the little mermaid pain? I don't...know. And here's a thing I kind of discussed in my paper: Ursula is a female character who is ambitious, who wants power, and so she must be destroyed. The sea witch is just a witch--she has no designs on the kingdom; she's just a tool for the little mermaid to use--so nothing happens to her. That's a theme in Disney films: powerful women must be destroyed--Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, the step-mother, to an extent, in Cinderella, Ursula in The Little Mermaid--hell, even Cruella DeVil in 101 Dalmatians. I forget what my conclusion was about that, but I was clearly unhappy about it.

Anyway, so "The Little Mermaid" ends with the prince marrying the wrong girl, and the way the sea witch's spell worked, the little mermaid had to either marry the prince or turn into sea foam as soon as the sun rose after the prince married another. Her sisters, to spare her this fate, go to sea witch, and she tells them that if the little mermaid will kill the prince with this knife, his blood will turn her back into a mermaid, so she can at least spend 300 years with her family before turning into sea foam. But then she cannot go through with it, and as the sun rises, she throws the knife into the sea, expecting to dissolve into nothing, but! That does not happen. Instead, she joins the spirits of the air, who spend 300 years on earth, trying to do good deeds, like sending cool breezes to the deserts or something, until they earn an immortal soul and are permitted into the kingdom of god. So hooray for that. But then it ends, like, super weirdly, with the spirits of the air telling the little mermaid that every time they blow through a house with a child in it that loves its parents, god takes a year off their 300-year sentence, but every time they blow through a house with a bratty kid, a day is added to the time they must serve. Like, what is with the admonishment for the children at the end? "Do you want the little mermaid to get to heaven? Then behave yourself!" What?

One last thing: the little mermaid ends up as a spirit of the air, as I have said, and that, my friends, is what Ariel in The Tempest is. An oblique Shakespeare reference in a Disney film! Love it. Oh, or maybe "ariel" became a generic folkloric name for a spirit of the air. Whatever! It's a Shakespeare reference if I want it to be. I also found this bizarro lesbian retelling of "The Little Mermaid," and it had more similarities to the Andersen story than the Disney film, obviously, but the mermaid's name was Ariel and the name of her "prince" was Erica, which is straight outta Disney. But the thing that made me squeal with glee was that Ariel's best friend in this weirdo story is named Caliba, which, hello, has to be the author's feminized form of Caliban. Though, uh, Ariel and Caliban were hardly friends in The Tempest. I don't care! Shakespeare references everywhere!

All right, now that I've probably alienated my three readers, let's talk about something I know we all enjoy: Tina Fey. She is set to host Saturday Night Live on the twenty-third, which will be the first time I will watch SNL since she left, because the show totally sucks without her. In my head anyway--I don't exactly know that for a fact. I do know that "Weekend Update" sucks without her, because I watched one with Seth and Amy, and it was just painful. Poor Amy--she's funnier than that. Anyway, having Tina host will be totally awesome, because I used to watch SNL, hoping she'd be in a sketch and not just "Weekend Update," and usually she was just in "Weekend Update," but as the host, she'll be in, like, every sketch! Hooray! Although, if she's not in charge of writing them, how funny will they be? Well, we shall see, shan't we? It is Tina Fey, after all. Whatever she does is awesome. I wonder how weird it will be for her, just being there to act, since I know she thinks of herself as a writer more than an actor. Even though she stars in her own show.

I watched Across the Universe with Charles last night, and only one of us fell asleep! And it totally wasn't me. That should be how I judge movies: if I can't fall asleep during my first view of it, then it gets an A. Anyway, I did like it, but when did Evan Rachel Wood start sounding exactly like Kirsten Dunst? That was unsettling. Also! Dear Prudence was totally a lez! Her intro, singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" longingly to some blonde cheerleader, confused me, but then she was totally in love with Sexy Sadie and ended up with Lovely Rita, the contortionist--much better than meter maid, I'd say. Heh. I think my favorite part was "Hey Jude" at the end, because I've been singing "Hey Jude" since the film ended. Oh, and "I've Just Seen a Face" in the bowling alley, because it got all crazy, with the dancing and the bowling and the lights. Wee!

So I got distracted around the time Bono's Dr. Robert showed up to sing "I Am the Walrus," and then I saw him on a psychadelic bus, and I was like, "Is he...supposed to be Ken Kesey?" And then he said something about being a navigator, which was what Kesey was called among the Merry Pranksters--The Navigator--and then he said, "You're either on the bus or off the bus," and I was like, "Okay. Definitely Kesey." And then he disappeared. That was weird. And the whole Eddie Izzard Mr. Kite thing was rather disappointing--too bizarre for me. I was all, "When did they drink the kool-aid?" I totally missed the whole acid test portion of the film, but whatever. I don't like the acid trip stuff anyway. And I figured Jojo was supposed to be Hendrix-like, but who was Sadie? I would guess Janis, but I don't know.

Anyway, it was good. I don't usually take a shine to redoing Beatles songs, but I think this worked. I almost bought the soundtrack last night, but I need to chill on the crazy iTunes purchases.

I definitely write the worst film reviews ever. God only knows how I got an A in that film class I took. Oh, right, there were books involved.