The Disney Sequel Marathon: “The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning” (2008)
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Animation, Movies, Disney, Film, Culture

I went into The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning expecting to be disappointed, as I had been with The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. After all, if the sequel had failed to delight me, what chance did this prequel, which didn’t even feature Ursula, have to do so? To my surprise, however, this prequel — set at some indeterminate time before the original film — was surprisingly enjoyable. Because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and because its essential conflict is so simple, it creates a low bar that is very easy for it to clear.

For those who haven’t seen it, the summary is pretty simple. King Triton, bereft at the untimely death of his wife, bans music from the kingdom of Atlantica, and so his daughters, including Ariel, grow up without it. Unbeknownst to him, however, his righthand crab Sebastian is the lead singer at an underground music club. Sebastian’s enemy, the scheming Marina, uses this as a pretext to have him him imprisoned but, fortunately, Ariel is successful at both freeing him and returning music to Atlantica.

Clearly, the stakes for this film are remarkably low. Marina doesn’t scheme to take over the kingdom, and the idea that music has been banned from Triton’s kingdom seems, at first blush, to be rather trite. However, it’s precisely these low stakes that allow the film to meet, and even sometimes to exceed, the cynical expectations that many adult viewers no doubt bring to it. Thankfully, it avoids the sort of cutesy slapstick that was such an irritating component of Return to the Sea, though obviously Sebastian is still very much a figure of fun (thankfully they gave him a lot more to do in this film than they did in the sequel). And, for my part, I actually quite enjoyed the squabbling among Ariel and her sisters; if they don’t have the depth of some Disney characters (there are too many of them for that), their little spats are well-written enough that it makes up for it.

I was prepared to hate the character of Marina Del Ray, the villain of the piece, even if she was voiced by the divine Sally Field. I mean, how could anyone hope to compete with the likes of the great Ursula? However, given how much of a campy disaster Morgana (Ursula’s sister) was in the sequel, Marina seemed like a breath of fresh air. Field is clearly having a high old time in the role, and the animators made the wise choice to have her look like some sort of unholy amalgam of Madame Medusa from The Rescuers and Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove. She’s more a figure of fun than of menace, but it’s worth pointing out that, as the film nears its climax and she begins to fear that Sebastian and Ariel might thwart her efforts to continue reigning as Triton’s right hand, she does send a deadly and ravenous clutch of electric eels in pursuit of them, with every intention of killing them. Even in a film as light-hearted as this one, that’s pretty dark. She also has a pretty great sidekick, the soft-spoken manatee Benjamin, who serves as something of a conscience (and a manicurist).

The animation is surprisingly crisp and clear, and it seems as if the animators spent a bit more time on making sure that the backgrounds had at least a little bit of the depth and subtlety of the original film. Ariel continues to shine as the film’s protagonist, and Jodi Benson retains the angelic voice that she’s had from the beginning. Somehow, she still manages to capture Ariel’s rebellious spirit with every vocal inflection.

Now, to be sure, this film fudges the established Little Mermaid mythology. I’m a little unclear about where, exactly, it fits in the timeline vis-à-vis the Saturday morning cartoon series. Presumably, however, given the changes to Flounder’s character — this rebellious and rather carefree fish is a far cry from the coward he would become in both the series and the film — it’s set before both. I also missed hearing Kenneth Mars’ signature bluster as King Triton though, since he was very ill with cancer at the time, his absence was expected. However, it has to be said that Jim Cummings, whatever his talents as a voice artist, simply can’t replicate his predecessor, and so it’s probably just as well that Triton’s dialogue is pretty truncated.

I also want to go on record as saying that that, to my great surprise, I found a core of philosophy to this film. As my fellow humanities folks know, the great philosopher Michel Foucault once theorized that, when societies attempt to repress something — he was talking in particular about sexuality — such efforts ultimately result in the proliferation of that which is supposedly being repressed. Watching this film, it occurred to me that its narrative is a perfect illustration of this very idea. After all, though Triton puts all of the institutions of the state to work in banning music in all of its forms, those who want to sing, including his own confidante Sebastian, merely find new avenues for doing so. Indeed, the scenes at the crab’s secret nightclub are some of the brightest and best-animated in the entire film, a moment of utopian euphoria in Triton’s now-joyless kingdom.

To push reading just a bit further, I would even go so far as to suggest that, in some important ways, Sebastian’s storyline is a queer one. Forced to hide his true self — full of passion and performance and music — he retreats to the safety of his nightclub, where all of those who feel similarly ostracized can find a home. When Ariel first infiltrates it, there’s a fear that they will be seen and recognized, a very real fear in the days when gay clubs were similarly secret and illegal. In a later scene, when Triton’s swordfish soldiers arrest everyone, it almost looked like a scene from Stonewall. The return of music to Atlantica, with all of its live-giving potency is, then, an eruption of the powerful queer impulse. Though this argument might seem a bit far-fetched to some, given Disney’s well-known queer valences, I think such a reading is sustainable.

All in all, I quite enjoyed Ariel’s Beginning, far more than I thought I would. It’s a good reminder that even the humblest and most seemingly debased of cultural texts can sometimes contain unexpected depth and complexity.