Split the Ice Apart - Frozen

I already talked quite a bit about Disney's Frozen (2013) in my Response to Stefan Molyneux's The Truth About Frozen but I feel this movie deserves some more elaboration outside the context of weird YouTube pseulosophers (if that's not a word, I'm claiming it) over-analyzing things they clearly don't understand just to ruin it for their daughters. As such, here are some of my thoughts on Disney's Frozen, primarily I'd like to dig into the cliche of True Love's Kiss around which the final act is centered.

There will be spoilers for Frozen (and some for older Disney animated movies).

Split The Ice Apart
Disney's Frozen

The story is about two sisters: princesses Anna and Elsa of Arendelle, the latter of whom was born with ice powers. After accidentally blasting her sister with ice, Elsa gets isolated until she learns how to properly control her powers and Anna's memories of Elsa's powers are wiped. Unfortunately Elsa's isolation and anxiety only causes her growing powers to become even more uncontrollable as she grows up. Then during her coronation as Queen of Arendelle, in front of her entire kingdom, she loses control and in her panic she accidentally freezes the entire kingdom, after which she exiles herself. Anna then takes it upon herself to go into the mountains to find her sister, repair the relationship that was broken for 13 years and find a way to unfreeze their kingdom.

First of all, I love the movie. I don't think it quite deserves its spot as the highest-grossing animated film of all time but I still think it's a great movie (although number 2 on the highest-grossing list is Minions so at least Frozen prevented worse). My main issues are that Anna, although a very fun character, lacks the appeal to make her iconic on the level of a Disney Princess as well as a number of questionable story decisions that were likely the result of having to rewrite the movie without Elsa in the villain role. There's also the trolls and especially Olaf that feel like they were added primarily to sell toys to kids (only for it to be the Elsa dolls that were consistently sold out). While it is certainly a good movie, I don't think it quite reaches the level of quality of the princess movies preceding it.

True Love's Kiss, The Cliche That Wasn't One

During the final act an accidental ice blast to Anna's heart is causing her to slowly freeze to death from the inside. Advice from the wise troll leader Pabbie reveals that an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart. Immediately another troll jumps in and assumes that it must be a true love's kiss, causing Kristoff to storm Anna back to Arendelle so she can get a kiss from Prince Hans. Ultimately Hans proves to be a deceptive manipulator who sees this situation as an opportunity to claim Arendelle for himself by letting Anna die and then ordering the execution of the 'traitor' Queen Elsa. The real act of true love then comes in the form of Anna sacrificing herself to protect her sister Elsa from Hans' sword. 

My problem with this entire scenario is that it feels incredibly forced and tries to subvert a cliche that isn't a cliche at all, at least not in the Disney Animated Canon. It's one thing to play on audience expectations, but the fact that they obviously twist Pabbie's words to force a scenario that the movie prior to this moment has already beaten down as Anna being incredibly naive just makes it a mess. Furthermore the trolls were just a minute ago trying to get their Kristoff hitched with a girl who was already engaged, evidently just for the sake of him getting hitched, but suddenly they start having overly romantic notions about true love? Why doesn't Pabbie interject to clarify his own advice anyway? He's right there! (To be fair Anna's condition suddenly worsens significantly while they're talking so urgency became a factor, but still)

It is the expectation that the troll's assumption is also the audience's assumption that, I feel, dates the movie horribly. It's an overly transparent attempt at subverting and thus falls flat. The thing with the True Love's Kiss cliche is ... that it really hasn't been a thing in ages at all. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), a princess under a sleeping curse is awoken when the prince she's in love with finally finds her and kisses her. However even there the curse specifies that it is Love's First Kiss, not True Love's Kiss, which is already a significantly lower barrier. A similar situation happens 21 years later in Sleeping Beauty (1959), where it is indeed specified that the kiss must be true love's kiss. And then ... what? In just a few years time we've had several Disney properties, such as Once Upon a Time (2011), Maleficent (2014) and Frozen (2013), struggling at subverting the cliche when the subversion itself is now a better represented cliche.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Let's run down the traditional Disney Princess movies where, according to expectation, the cliche could show up. At the start of the Disney Renaissance with The Little Mermaid (1989) the concept of a true love's kiss is already being more subtly subverted. Ariel requiring a true love's kiss from prince Eric is explicitly an unreasonable demand from the sea witch Ursula, with which she intends to trap Ariel as leverage over King Triton. In the end that kiss never happens. The Beast's curse in Beauty and the Beast (1991) is lifted because he and Belle simply got to know each other and fell in love; no kissing required (my personal interpretation is that by accepting his own death, he had truly set Belle free and thus proved he understood how to love. Also for your accusations of Stockholm syndrome, please go [here]). 

Princess and the Frog (2009) once again plays around with it, in that prince Naveen just requires a kiss from a princess as an unreasonable constraint by Doctor Facilier. When he kisses Tiana early in the movie, ostensibly his true love by the end of it, instead she is turned into a frog for not meeting the requirements. Then in Tangled/Rapunzel (2010) there is once again no magic kissing, instead the solution comes from residual healing magic still inside Rapunzel healing Flynn's wounds through her tears (okay that sounds weird out of context).
Cinderella (1950), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), Mulan (1998) had no curses requiring kisses. In the periphery of these movies (the unofficial Disney Princesses), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Lion King (1994), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997) or Tarzan (1999) didn't have magic true love's kisses either.

So that puts the grand total of straight-up True Love's Kiss movies at ... two, if we're being generous. The last movie of which, and the only one that really qualifies at all, having been released well over 50 years ago. This is like "The Butler Did It" of modern fairy tales: It's only a cliche because people mistake it for being more prevalent than it really is. Disney movies have been subverting the cliche for 30 years and have done it way more subtly and effectively than Frozen did. Reverting all that and attempting to forcefully subvert a cliche that was barely relevant in the first place dates the story and makes it awkward to take seriously.

Queen Elsa, Unwilling Villain

During the early stages of the movie's production it was always the intention to make Elsa the actual villain of the movie. That changed when the crew started to really feel for her and realized that up until her transformation into the Snow Queen, she hadn't done anything wrong. Rewrites to accommodate Good Elsa is probably why certain plot elements from the second half feel so messy, but I feel the changes to Elsa herself do make her into a more compelling character than she would likely otherwise be. Throughout the entire movie there's still an undercurrent of the intention to make her a villain, but the fact that she then doesn't end up as one is actually touching.

The name 'Elsa' does not sound villainous like how 'Maleficent' sounds like a synonym for- or a misspelling of 'malevolent' (which is also why it was stupid to base an entire movie on how Maleficent wasn't just a tragic villain, but an actual hero who just had a really bad day that one time). Still, Elsa's name has a certain synesthetic sharpness to it (See The Bouba/Kiki Effect). This already differentiates her from the other Disney princesses, most of whom have names with more rolling r or l sounds. Consider the most similar name among the princesses: Ella, Cinderella's birth name in the live action adaption. 'Ella' rolls. 'Elsa' feels like there's a sudden stop in the middle. As such her name alone already makes her sound somewhat harsh.

The first 30 minutes of the movie leading up to Let It Go sets up the perfect environment for Elsa to eventually snap and put her into an anti-villainous role. Let It Go itself is the breaking point where she finally lets go of her good girl persona and embraces pure selfishness. However it is quickly revealed that the song was just Elsa lying to herself in a moment of ecstatic relief that she finally got to express herself through her powers. She wasn't actually descending into villainy at all. Despite having all the mental baggage to justify it, Elsa never crosses the line. The only time she ever comes close to crossing the line is in self defense against people who are actively attempting to kill her.

In the end it is what makes Elsa so engaging: it would be perfectly understandable for her to have gone evil, but her strong moral center prevents her from crossing that barrier. She is one of the most powerful heroes Disney has ever created, yet she evokes sympathy by also visibly suffering from anxiety and depression over what her powers have put her through and what they could potentially do to others. In that sense you could say she's an even more emotionally-charged version of the Genie from Aladdin, who despite his phenomenal, cosmic powers only wanted to be free (itty-bitty living space).

It also makes Elsa a foil for Rapunzel. Both characters have incredible powers, but they differ in that Rapunzel has beneficial healing magic that requires effort to bring out while Elsa has (until she learns control) destructive ice powers that she's unable to restrain. They were both locked away and have significant anxieties regarding their powers, but Rapunzel was taught to be scared of people who would abuse her gift by an abusive adoptive mother while Elsa is afraid to hurt her loving family. In personality Rapunzel is outgoing while Elsa is restrained, which translates into Rapunzel wanting to escape her tower but being afraid to go while Elsa voluntarily exiles herself into her ice palace. Both characters are primarily imprisoned by their anxieties and insecurities. Frozen and Tangled are thus exercises in how a character archetype (the classic Disney Princess) would grow if you add a specific power into their development.

Crossover Theories

Movies in the Disney Animated Canon tend to have very little overlap between each other. Still many of the movies have cameos or references that can reasonably link some of them together, although often just as a joke (there being a Beast toy in the Sultan's collection probably doesn't mean Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast are related). For example, there's a scene in The Hunchback of Notre Dame where Belle is visible in a shot of Paris. Since both movies are set in France, there's the possibility that Belle and her father lived in Paris until they had to flee Frollo burning Paris in his search for Esmeralda, ending up in the little town near Beast's castle.

Belle in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

Possible the most obvious example of crossovers happens in the episode Hercules and the Arabian Night of Disney's Hercules: The Animated Series (1998). Jafar, having been defeated and killed in The Return of Jafar (1994), ends up in the Underworld and meets up with Hades. First they make a bet that they can get rid of their rival's arch enemy, which they both fail to do. Ultimately they devise a plan where they attempt to get rid of their respective hero problems by setting Hercules up to fight Aladdin, revealing that at least the adult section of the Hercules (1997) movie takes place long after Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) has already concluded.

For Frozen there's a fan theory that it is linked with both Tangled (2010) and The Little Mermaid (1989). Linked with Tangled because Rapunzel and Flynn Rider have an actual cameo when the gates are opened near the start of the movie and with The Little Mermaid because the ship Ariel investigates at the start of her movie might be the sunken ship of the king and queen of Arendelle. Arendelle is Norwegian-inspired while Eric's castle would be on the shores of Disney's equivalent of Denmark, so there's definitely some geographic proximity to back that argument (I've also heard an extension where it is theorized the king and queen survived the sinking and ended up becoming Tarzan's parents, but that sounds a bit too far out there).

Top: Frozen (2013)
Bottom: The Little Mermaid (1989)

So if we're to link it all up, Rapunzel and Elsa would be roughly the same age, with Rapunzel likely being older depending on how long after her eighteenth birthday she and Flynn got married. Tangled would take place first with the Rapunzel's marriage (which Anna and Elsa's parents were allegedly on their way to) being the indirect cause of Elsa's parents being lost at sea, setting up the events of Frozen three years later. Then an indeterminate amount of time later the royal family's sunken ship gets looted by an inquisitive mermaid at the start of The Little Mermaid.

I mean it's not exactly some great insight since it's just a fan theory but it is kind of cool I can watch three of my favorite Disney Princess movies as sort of a pseudo-trilogy. I would call it Disney's Scandinavia Trilogy except Tangled's Corona being in either Germany or Poland might make that a bit of a geographic stretch.

WE WILL NOT SPEAK OF THIS
HELP ME

The Sassette Principle

A long time ago I posted this image on my blog and Twitter as a response to what I feel is the rampant misuse of the Smurfette Principle:

It has come up a few times again in the past few days so for the sake of clarity I should probably expand on it by explaining properly what I mean with it.

The Sassette Principle
An Addendum to the Smurfette Principle

Katha Pollitt, a feminist poet, essayist and critic who apparently fell asleep during a showing of The Little Mermaid(1), coined the term Smurfette Principle in 1991 in an essay for the New York Times. She defines it as follows:

"Contemporary shows are either essentially all-male, like "Garfield", or are organized on what I call the Smurfette principle: a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined." (2)

Further, here is how Tvtropes.org defines the Smurfette Principle.

"For any series not aimed solely at females, odds are high that only one female will be in the regular cast." (3)

There is certainly validity to the observation that shows not typically for female audiences tend to include very few female characters to contrast with the male ones. That by itself is not in question, thus the Smurfette Principle isn't necessarily an incorrect observation.

My issue however is that far too often this observation is used to generate outrage over an often false description of the particular setting or circumstances we are applying it to. In the context of the Smurfette Principle, its namesake Smurfette is naturally regularly brought up because "she's the only female in a town of 100 smurfs". The obvious inference people are supposed to take away is that the writer(s) of the Smurfs went through the trouble of defining 100 characters with only 1 of the little blue creatures being female and with her primary characteristic being the girl. Sounds pretty bad, right?

Well, the problems with that statement are the following:

1. There aren't actually 100 Smurf characters despite over 50 years worth of stories, comics, cartoons and movies.
2. Smurfette is often elevated to being the second-in-command after Papa Smurf rather than just being "the girl". Her importance is greater than that of most other smurfs.
3. There are more female characters who are not smurfs.
4. There are more female smurfs introduced other than just Smurfette, such as Grandma Smurf, Clockwork Smurfette and Sassette (and most recently in The Smurfs 2 movie, Vexy Smurf).

None of these things refute the premise that in Smurf media there are a minority of female characters to a majority of male characters. What it does show however is that the severity of this disparity is often unrealistically overstated to make the problem seem much more severe than it in actuality is. Going by male and female character lists on the Smurfs wikia (male) (female), for the moment not taking into consideration the creators and voice actors on said lists (making this a bit sloppy), the ratio becomes closer to 1 female for every 3-4 males instead of the extremely hyperbolic 1 female for every 100 males.

So it all boils down to how honest the piece is represented. Is the person commenting on this phenomenon actually representing the media as it is, or are they sweeping characters or events under the carpet to artificially inflate how dire the supposed problem with representation is?

This doesn't apply solely to the Smurfette Principle either, for example you could easily alter it to fit complaints about damsels in distress: is the critic actually representing a particular character the way she is presented, or are they reducing her entire role down to that moment she served as a damsel in distress and are they representing her accurately during that time?

I feel this is an issue in media criticism that is important to bring up.  It is so rare to actually be presented counterpoints or data that doesn't fit the speaker's specific narrative within the context of their criticism. A lot of critics arguing for better representation in media like to present their problems as if we essentially need to start from nothing, because the current media landscape is so outrageously offensive it would be a mercy to just tear the whole thing down.

Here's an example you won't see when media critics
complain how female characters are always big-breasted
and scantily clad. This character in question is
technically fully naked.

That is not a reasonable position to get behind when we have come to a conclusion based on a multitude of fallacies, one-sided arguments and false representations. This ignores a lot of awesome characters we already have (heck, sometimes even people when the achievements of women in game dev are being ignored). We have a ways to go in a lot of areas, but the goal should be inclusivety for all, not getting rid of everything someone personally doesn't like. That's not being inclusive or progressive at all, that's just kicking out the established hierarchy and redecorating the throne room for a different team (which of course sounds like an awesome deal for the people taking over).

In short: the Sassette Principle is not a refutation of the Smurfette Principle, we are unfortunately still in a situation where writers could stand to insert more female characters in their art (or other minority characters for that matter). However the Sassette Principle is a comment on overstating the problem when presenting things like the Smurfette Principle (which unfortunately started in the very article that coined it).

Or, the Smurfette Principle, wrongly applied, ignores the existence of Sassettes. 

The Burden of Default

As a further comment on the arguments of Hers; The Smurfette Principle, I would also like to add nuance to the following idea:

"Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys." (2)

There is another side to the coin here that goes unexplored in the article, namely that in a situation in which a pure Smurfette Principle is in play, a girl doesn't have to be anything other than a girl whereas a male character does need a defining trait to matter at all. The downside of being default is that you need other characteristics that lift you out of that state of defaultness. So the male characters in the Smurfs really need to be individuals to be at all noteworthy. After all, why would anyone care about you if you are just default? You aren't valuable since they already have plenty of you!

I would not dare state strongly what effect this has (if any at all) without studies to back it up, but if we're to assume the messages it instills I'd like to present the idea that a straight-up Smurfette Principle could also leave young girls with a sense of entitlement simply for being girls and young boys with feeling lesser valued for just being boys (If this statement is offensive to you, consider that it still makes the case that we need more female representation).

The Smurfs - The Smurflings (2013 reprint)

Notes & Sources

1) Somehow the author of the article notes that Ursula's words, despite villainous, are proven correct, even though I have no clue where she gets this idea as the reverse of the situation plays out since Prince Eric is obviously looking for a girl with a voice (which could metaphorically be considered as him valuing a woman for her thoughts rather than her looks). I go further into this in Out of the Sea. 

2) Katha Pollitt, Hers; The Smurfette Principle (1991)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

3) Tvtropes.org, The Smurfette Principle
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSmurfettePrinciple

Images from:
- Peyo's The Smurfs: The Smurflings (2013 reprint)
- The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (2011)

Out of the Sea - The Little Mermaid

Ariel is one of those Disney Princesses who simply can't catch a break. She's too modern for all of the "problematic" stuff to be written off as a sign of the times like Snow White, Cinderella or Aurora from their respective movies (all from before the 1960's), but on a cursory glance she is not seen as in control  or as positive compared to later princesses (when people aren't complaining about those anyway). If you have followed me for a while you hopefully know by now that I don't consider minimizing the awesomeness of our already existing female characters to be a positive attitude. 

I believe that the culture of negativity surrounding these characters is at least in part responsible for the lack of massive expansion of female protagonists in current media. After all, nobody wants to be seen as a horrible sexist, so artists might hesitate to create female characters at all out of fear of being labeled a misogynist (within the context of our current topic, imagine trying to create this beautiful movie with an inspiring female protagonist, only to have people on the Internet dismiss your movie because they insist one of the songs is about promoting rape*), furthermore, if you tell people enough times that women are always damsels in distress, even when you are actually doing it to criticize the concept, you run the risk of actually perpetuating in people's minds the notion that women are damsels in distress by further normalizing it. So instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater by exclusively focusing on the bad, I'd rather we look at awesome existing ladies, and build from there. So today I will be looking at the Disney classic "The Little Mermaid" and provide a largely positive voice for it. Obviously there will be some spoilers for The Little Mermaid.

Out of the Sea
Disney's The Little Mermaid

Ariel as a Heroic Character

When we first meet Ariel, she forgot about- and accidentally skipped an important concert in order to explore a scary shipwreck (if you are a fan of tying together Disney movies, you can pretend it's the sunken ship which carried the king and queen of Frozen's Arendelle, even though it looks somewhat different) in search of human trinkets. Her friend Flounder is clearly scared, providing a huge contrast with Ariel's look of confidence and excitement. Before she opens her mouth, she already establishes herself as an adventurer who is not overly concerned with her father's rules.

Ariel is a dreamer and a rebel. She takes full charge of her destiny, even if she doesn't always think the entire thing through before jumping at the call. She wants to explore new horizons and learn new things (even though her mentor of all things human is hilariously incompetent). She sets goals, empowers herself to pursue them through her dreams and she boldly sets out to achieve them, even if she isn't entirely sure how to do it. Her setbacks are temporary and only embolden her drive. Yet, her impulsive drive is also a cautionary tale as in her anger against her father she made a foolish deal with the sea witch. Still, through her own skills and the help of her friends she manages to overcome all challenges set before her.

Here's a typical scene which exemplifies Ariel's thought process. Ariel learns Eric has been deceived by Ursula into marrying 'Vanessa'. Before anyone else suggests any possible plan of action, Ariel has already jumped into the ocean intending to swim after them. Only after she made her own plans clear (although solely by action as she is mute in this particular scene), her friends jump into action too to help her. Sebastian drops barrels into the ocean to give Ariel something to hang onto and Flounder helps carry her to the ship. She gets help, but Ariel is the one driving the action.  

Ariel is the embodiment of "follow your dreams", not in the sense that she just sits around all day losing herself in daydreams (there's some of that too), but in a proactive way. She acts as if the background noise of her life are tapes from motivational speakers. She doesn't talk herself out of chasing her dreams. She doesn't sit around waiting for other people to give her permission. She's not scared of the negative consequences of her actions, she'll deal with those if and when they come up, because she knows she can deal with them.

Ariel's Character Flaws and Criticism

Overly criticizing Ariel for sending the wrong message with her impulsive behavior is also not entirely productive. It does clearly cause Ariel hardship through her deal with the sea witch, and this is clear to everyone watching the movie. So why is this aspect of her character only talked about from a strict "monkey see, monkey do" perspective? Role models aren't there just so we can emulate their behavior regardless of outcome, we can also learn from their mistakes. In this case: don't make binding contracts with fast-talking, obviously evil sea hags (insert charlatan of choice) who present you a poisoned gift while you are angry.

Also, isn't the opposite scenario exactly what The Legend of Zelda franchise gets criticized for? Often major criticism is leveled against the stories of video games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) because princess Zelda, being the physical manifestation of wisdom, is a schemer who works against the villain from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike rather than being a female knight (her weapon of choice in the franchise being the bow and arrow plays into that personality by having her at a distance even when in active combat). For not actively handling a sword however, critics reduce her to being a "damsel in distress" and what they actually claim to want is a role model for little girls like a female Link (the playable protagonist of The Legend of Zelda, in case you are unaware) who embodies courage and who jumps at the call of adventure, even though he also acts without thinking (except here the negative consequences of his impulsive behavior are rarely enforced, he's even less of a cautionary tale). So why would a female Link be ideal when similar characteristics are vilified in Ariel? Ariel may not handle a sword, but she certainly has Link's spirit and courage.

By the by, when talking about literally being a hero fighting bad guys, I would prefer my daughter (or son) to take lessons from princess Zelda rather than Link. When, say, in a hostage situation I'd rather she calculate the risk and decide not to act for her own safety and make it out alive rather than her jumping in to be the hero. 

Still, Ariel's impulsive drive as well as her "getting saved" by the prince she loves (more on that later) gets her unfairly labeled as weak. She's hated (or at best extremely cautiously loved) because she's seen as a negative influence on young girls. Instead of looking at a girl who will shift Heaven and Earth if it means accomplishing her goals and dreams, they only see a weak princess archetype who only finds value in getting married to a man.
I personally do think that in these movies they could have stood to show a little passage of time between the final conflict and the marriage to better establish that these people did get to know each other better, but are we otherwise honestly going to vilify a girl for falling in love? Especially for a character who since had a prequel movie and a television show running for 3 seasons (31 episodes) clearly establishing that no, finding a husband was not the most important goal in this girl's mind. It was just one of the events in her life. Are all her actions and motives perfectly rational and positive? Of course not, but characters in fiction are not supposed to be perfect. Their flaws help make them distinctive and help drive the plot, that's what makes them characters rather than perfect little Mary Sues.

"When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character."

- G.K. Chesterton

Recently Frozen (2013) tried to poke fut at how absurd it would be for two characters to instantly decide to get married the day they first met, as one of the partners could possibly not be who they claim they are. However The Little Mermaid also made fun of that situation with Ursula expecting a foolish concept as love at first sight to fail while setting the rules for her contract with Ariel. She just underestimated Ariel's drive in getting Eric's attention and it happened to work out for them in the end. Not entirely by chance, mind you, Ariel had observed Eric being heroic when he put himself in danger to save his dog Max. She had clearly seen him as a good person  (and rescuing him afterwards might be an example of the Florence Nightingale Effect in action). If anything Eric was the unreasonable one by being instantly smitten with a girl who in his current state of consciousness could have been an illusion. He probably also should have had a bigger freak-out when he learned the two women fighting over him were actually mythical creatures.

Some people (such as Katha Pollitt, who coined The Smurfette Principle) make the claim that the film also endorses that, in order to get a man, a woman has to shut up. Ariel gives up her voice as payment for legs because, according to Ursula, body language is much more important. Is it? It being "advice" given by the clearly evil sea witch who already revealed her diabolical plan to the viewer and who still keeps on mumbling to her pets how she's going to screw Ariel over should give you a hint on how helpful her advice is. Ariel being unable to talk is the entire reason why Eric is uninterested in her and why it takes a ridiculously romantic setting to have him even consider kissing her. Yes, it's rather allegorical as Eric is specifically searching for the singing girl who saved his life, and Ariel being mute rules her out as a candidate, but the idea is there. Eric doesn't want just any girl using her "body language", Ariel is clearly pretty enough, but he values the girl having a voice.

Saving the Princess and the Buddy Dynamic

A lot is made of Eric saving Ariel in the final battle against Ursula and how this (again) makes Ariel out to be a weak character. Not only does this ignore the fact that Ariel saves Eric earlier three times (1: saving Eric from the sinking ship, 2: showing up with her animal friends to stop Vanessa/Ursula from marrying Eric and 3: making Ursula shoot Flotsam and Jetsam instead of Eric). Even during the final conflict, Ariel is primarily concerned with Eric's safety rather than her own. Furthermore it wasn't like Ursula had locked Ariel up in a tower and now Eric had to storm the castle to save her, no, Ariel had angered Ursula by killing Flotsam and Jetsam. Ariel has Ursula's attention as she was actively aiming to kill her, which allowed Eric an opening to put an end to Ursula. Eric did not win Ariel by triumphing over the monster, she was an active participant. Not to mention this was basically the first time in the entire movie Eric had any idea what was going on in the first place. Classifying the ordeal as a "prince saving the girl" is overly simplistic and an unjust rejection of Ariel as a heroic character in her own right.

H.P. Lovecraft presents:
Call of Cthursula!

Instead of this being a case of "the hero rescues the girl", I consider this one of the earliest examples of a sort of buddy dynamic (still trying to find a proper name for it, as "buddy" usually refers to two characters of the same sex) which in recent years has become very prevalent in Disney Princess films, where it's actually the male and female protagonist working together towards their goals. It's simply not about who rescues who anymore or which character is more powerful in the relation. Thinking of it that way presents the characters in the relationship as opposing parties rather than as the team they so obviously are.
What is important is that we have two people who have each other's back coming together through adversity. Ariel and Eric are both unique people who bring their respective abilities and knowledge to the table. They aren't just a couple, they are partners (and a true missed opportunity is that DisneyToon sequel movies and series based on Disney classics rarely play up this aspect).

Aladdin (1992)

Consider the following: in Aladdin (which came out in 1992, a mere 3 years after The Little Mermaid) a lot of the conflict is driven by Aladdin rejecting the help of princess Jasmine by not being honest with her out of fear she would reject him. He grows as a character once he learns to accept his own value, rather than the facade he constructed to impress others. When Aladdin and Jasmine work together (Jasmine is incredibly good at picking up on Aladdin's schemes and playing along with them), they managed to outsmart the violent shopkeeper and even Jafar. (For another non-princess movie with a similar setup released around the same time, consider Bernard and Bianca in The Rescuers Down Under (1990))

Ariel losing her voice when she gets on land is an important factor in all of this as it plays with the concept. Had she been able to speak, the conflict would have been instantly resolved as Eric would have recognized her as the girl who saved her and became infatuated with. Instead however, because of Eric's doubts about her being that girl, the two of them actually have the opportunity to get to know each other as people. Ursula makes the relationship between Ariel and Eric more powerful as she prevents them from instantly having their happily ever after. It was just rather foolish of Ariel to jump into it with a contract that had no chance of being cancelled and would mean her becoming enslaved by Ursula if it failed.
In this aspect, Aladdin's lies are essentially his movie's counterpart to Ariel losing her voice. They are both story elements that prevent both the male and female hero from working together and solving the conflict more efficiently, but they grow from the hardship that resulted because of it.

For Tangled (2010) Disney finally decided to actually market a princess movie in which this dynamic is made very clear from the start. A part of this was done by removing Rapunzel's name, the actual title of the fairy tale, from the movie in certain areas (my DVD & Blu-Ray boxes still call it "Rapunzel") to put the male and female hero on even more equal footing. Although because we live in an environment where female characters are instinctively valued less than their male counterparts, the writers also almost reduced Flynn Rider's role to comic relief to make Rapunzel an even more resourceful character. It actually works out for this movie so that's not a negative point against it, mind you, just an observation on how hard it is to create a positive female character in the eyes of critics, and Rapunzel still doesn't get the credit she deserves.  

Conclusion

If there's anything I want you to take away from all of this, it's the following: in a lot of situations it is very good to be critical of what's going on around you, of what people tell you, even your own thought processes, etc, etc. However there is absolutely nothing wrong with in your downtime just parking yourself in front of a movie or video game without constantly worrying about how what you see affects you (especially negatively). Having fun or having your heart warmed may not seem like the most intellectual of pursuits, but it might just make you a better, more caring person. Too much negativity poisons you too.

And to all my artist friends out there, even if I don't know you and will never meet you: don't let fear of negative criticism or the negative voices who find fault in everything prevent you from creating the art you want to create.

Screw your negativity, Ariel is awesome!

Links & References

Images from:
Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989)
Disney's Aladdin (1992)
Disney's Tangled (2010) Film Poster


* No, I'm not going to debunk that stupid "Kiss the Girl is about rape"-thing. It's bullshit alarmist quote mining on the level of playing music backwards for bad messages.