Is Ariel and the Beast's Story's An Allegory for Transgender

[clearspira]

If you apply Death of the Author then certainly. Were they intended as such? There is no evidence of that at all.

The Little Mermaid really when it comes down to it is a story about belonging and ''the grass is greener on the other side.'' Ariel is a rebellious teenager in love who doesn't feel like she has a place in her home and culture - which is a feeling that most of us have experienced at some point. Really when you look at it, she only ended up being right because human that she fell in love with was a Disney Prince. Most other 17th century men would have had her barefoot and pregnant whilst trying to dodge a bout of plague. King Triton had every reason to fear his daughter going off with people who - lets remind ourselves here - routinely eat his people.

Beast is an asshole - but he's an asshole who is just waiting for the right woman to come along and fix him. Deeply unfortunate message there but not an uncommon one.

[Mabus]

No. One is a story about a girl willing to hurt her body to be with a man, the other is about a man paying for his arrogance until a girl can save him.
Not seeing any trans allegory there. Not even with an electron microscope.

[Al-1701]

Debates about the allegories of the Little Mermaid have been spurred by theories regarding Anderson's sexuality, so it's not death of the author. If anything, ignoring the possibilities would be death of the author.

And I've always hated the merfolk taking the high ground over humans fishing the seas. Let's be honest, they would be apex predators and their hatred of humanity is based on humans can exploit their oceans while the merfolk can't reciprocate with the land. "CURSE YOU TECHNOLOGY!"

[clearspira]

It occurs to me that there is an amusing irony talking about gender when it comes to the merfolk given their lack of genitalia. If it wasn't for the boobs and long hair then you literally could not tell them apart.

Were the legs actually the biggest surprise when Ariel became a human or was it the fact that she went from ''laying eggs'' to ''carrying a child for nine months''. These are the questions that waste my coffee break, my friends.

[Frustration]

'Allegory' is a very specific category with very strict requirements. I don't see that those requirements are met. So no, neither the Disney version of "The Little Mermaid" nor "Beauty and the Beast" are allegories for anything.

Are they *symbolically representative* of transsexual issues? I... really, really don't see it. Ariel doesn't have a profound longing to be human, she has a fascination with an alien world, and she falls in love with a being from that world. If he had become a merperson, instead of her becoming human, the story would have worked nearly as well - there are no indications that Ariel feels her shape is a violation of her identity, etc. etc. etc. The Beast is taken away from his normal human form as a punishment until he becomes a decent person, and ultimately hopes to return to his original form; his identity doesn't match his physical shape because an intervention changed him. If anything, it's the exact opposite of the transsexual narrative.

[Beastro]

Beauty and the Beast is the opposite of transgendered allegory. It's about as straight as straight can be.

I'll leave this here to explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h25umO0PTx0

It's worth noting that thematic elements of Beauty and the Beast go back to the Epic of Gilgamesh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamhat

Shamhat plays the integral role in Tablet I, of taming the wild man Enkidu, who was created by the gods as the rival to the mighty Gilgamesh. Shamhat was a sacred temple prostitute or harimtu.[2] She was asked to use her attractiveness to tempt Enkidu from the wild, and his 'wildness', civilizing him through continued sacred love-making. She was brought to a water source where Enkidu had been spotted and exposed herself to Enkidu. He enjoyed Shamhat for "six days and seven nights" (a fragment found in 2015 and read in 2018, disclosed that they had two weeks of sexual intercourse, with a break spent in discussion about Enkidu's future life in Uruk[3]).

Unfortunately for Enkidu, after this long sexual workshop in civility, his former companions, the wild animals, turned away from him in fright, at the watering hole where they congregated. Shamhat persuades him to follow her and join the civilized world in the city of Uruk, where Gilgamesh is king, rejecting his former life in the wild with the wild animals of the hills. Henceforth, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become the best of friends and undergo many adventures (starting with the Cedar Forest and the encounter with Humbaba).

When Enkidu is dying, he expresses his anger at Shamhat for making him civilized, blaming her for bringing him to the new world of experiences that has led to his death. He curses her to become an outcast. The god Shamash reminds Enkidu that Shamhat fed and clothed him. Enkidu relents and blesses her, saying that all men will desire her and offer her gifts of jewels.

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that the original Little Mermaid has LGBTIA+ themes in regards to living as your real self and what not that stemmed from the life of the original creator. Can't remember the exact details but it's not surprising that the theme continues in adaptations, or that those themes have, do and will continue to be put into creative works.

On that same vein pretty sure "Stockholm Syndrome" is historically a bunch of BS.

Psychologically the term is "trauma bonding" and comes from the release of oxytocin (which is a stress hormone, it's why a scary movie is a good date movie to pick, you get a bond with your date through the fear) from suffering abuse that then forms attachment bonds to the last person you'd expect to form a bond with.

Such a thing has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast, which is seeing it through a skewed, literalist lens and not the symbolic archetypal framework from which it was fashioned.

The Beast is taken away from his normal human form as a punishment until he becomes a decent person, and ultimately hopes to return to his original form; his identity doesn't match his physical shape because an intervention changed him. If anything, it's the exact opposite of the transsexual narrative.

Precisely!

People are focusing too much upon the change of form due to the current craze of desiring transcendence of inner feeling over external reality. The Secret Sacred Self that is who someone "really" is must be freed from a flawed material reality that won't conform with their self-concept. That he changes into something that isn't a man is what people are obsessing about, not the rest of it, and not certainly the symbolism because it is antithetical to transcendence (The Beast is humbled and brought back to being a man rather than being more than that and what he inwardly desires to be, whatever people may think that is).

[clearspira]

Rumour is that the Disney portrayal of Ursula was based on a drag queen. I'm not saying that its the same thing or anything but it is interesting.

Anyway, given how Ursula probably could change your sex as well as your race, I just kind of think they could have made a better analogy than this if that is what they are going with. I know, different era, but it just seems badly done to me is all.

[McAvoy]

Rumour is that the Disney portrayal of Ursula was based on a drag queen. I'm not saying that its the same thing or anything but it is interesting.

Anyway, given how Ursula probably could change your sex as well as your race, I just kind of think they could have made a better analogy than this if that is what they are going with. I know, different era, but it just seems badly done to me is all.

No rumor. She was based on Queen Divine.

[McAvoy]

So... What about the Beast's workers/employees/the help?

They all got changed into china and furniture. How does that work out in this allegory?

[Frustration]

Simple. It's not an allegory at all.