imonarollercoasterthatonlygoesup:
I always find myself feeling incredibly sad while listening to “Part of Your World.” I know a lot of people see it as a sort of selfish song because in the beginning she essentially says she has all these things but she wants even more. Sometimes she’s even seen as a bratty or selfish character. But I don’t see it like that, I don’t see her like that, especially as the song progresses and if you know the story behind it.
As many of you know in the original story Ariel is a nameless mermaid princess who ultimately dies never achieving this prince she had fallen for. Worse yet she bubbles up into sea foam and can’t go to heaven because mermaids don’t have souls (as said in the story). It’s an ode to the young naive love and broken hearts of millions of teenagers for generations. This story was written by Hans Christian Anderson known for such stories as The Ugly Duckling and The Little Match Girl. He wrote it and along with a love letter sent it to a man he had fallen for who was set to be married (just as the story plays out). The love was not reciprocated, none of his loves were. He had fallen in love with both men and women. He died with nobody to love. Now if we replace mermaids with the idea of a being gay in that time, he was like this mermaid, looking at lovers and those he desired and unable to be with them. Mermaids have no souls probably came from the idea that gays were said to have no souls, to be treated as less than human. All he wanted was to be Part of that World.
Who wrote the song? The music was by Alan Menken and the lyrics by Howard Ashman, known for their work in many of the 80s-90s Disney films. Howard Ashmen was a gay man. He died two years later. You can even hear him sing Part of Your World.
Disney is known for sweetening their stories, for making them kinder and gentler than the originals. The Little Mermaid may be one of the most powerful Disney movies if you hold it in account with all of its background and not just the “cute redhead mermaid” as a lot of people do. So when I hear this song I think of how in the story it would stop when she was done singing, she never really got to see that world, not much of it at least. In the story she couldn’t even cry. Mermaids can’t cry. That’s why I like this movie and this song. Disney fabricated this tragic forgotten character a beautiful, fantastical happily ever after, an ever living legacy where she’s not miserable for all eternity. I think it’s something truly beautiful because now she lives in the hearts of hundreds of girls and boys all over the world.
This is really beautiful and moving…But I can’t help but think the reason she doesn’t have a soul is cause she’s a ginger…
callanswall 