Films and Feelings

     There's been a mermaid on the horizon ever since it became clear sometime in the last decade that Disney did intend to give all of their signature titles the live-action treatment--we've had a long time to prepare for this. (For reference, this July will mark four years since Halle Bailey's casting as Ariel made headlines.)       Arguing whether this or any of the live-action remakes "live up" to their animated predecessor is always going to be a losing battle. Even ignoring the nostalgic element, it's impossible for them to earn the same degree of admiration because the terrain in which these animated films rose to legend has long eroded. This is especially the case for The Little Mermaid . Where this remake is riding off a years long commercial high for the Walt Disney Company, the Disney that made The Little Mermaid in 1989 was twenty years past its cultural goodwill. Putting out an animated fairy-tale musical was not a sure thing, yet its success sen

  I had an experience one summer at a church youth camp that I reflect on quite a bit. We were participating in a “Family Feud” style game between companies, and the question was on favorite Disney movies as voted on by participants in our camp. (No one asked for my input on this question. Yes, this still burns me.) I think the top spot was either for Tangled or The Lion King , but what struck me was that when someone proposed the answer of “The Little Mermaid,” the score revealed that not a single participant had listed it as their favorite Disney film.               On the one hand, this doesn’t really surprise me. In all my years of Disney fandom, I’ve observed that The Little Mermaid occupies this this very particular space in pop culture: The Little Mermaid is in a lot of people’s top 5s, but very few people identify it as their absolute favorite Disney film. This film’s immediate successors in the Disney lineup (usually The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast ) are the most li