Letting Go of Our Heroic Image of Ursula from 'The Little Mermaid'
Ursula, the sea witch, the many-tentacled monster of the seven seas, has always been the villain in Disney's retelling of The Little Mermaid. She is the magical creature our mermaid heroine Ariel bargains with to be able to walk on land. The ever-crafty and manipulative Ursula demands our protagonist's voice (and a three-day time limit). She unfairly sets Ariel up to fail, all so the sea witch can enact revenge on the girl's father, King Triton.
Surprisingly, there was a period when some (though certainly not a majority of people) championed the idea that she was a hero. As KT Hawbaker writes in Bustle: "I no longer hide from the villain — and in fact, I've come to think that Ursula is actually the hero of The Little Mermaid" or "…anti-hero," as she clarifies one sentence later. "[She] isn't exactly the villain of the story we were led to believe," argues someone on Tumblr. "She tries. She gives Ariel options. She wants what we all want: to be heard, to be acknowledged, and to be taken seriously."
And yet, while Ursula is working against King Triton's patriarchal monarchy — not a good government, in my opinion — it seems a bit of a stretch that she is a figure worthy of admiration. She is, after all, a shark, a saleswoman who tries to trick Ariel into servitude. We surely shouldn't see her as anything less than a villain, and yet, clearly, other people disagree — some for perfectly valid reasons.
Many viewers' identification with Ursula reveals a fascinating tension with “villain-worship,” as not all reasons for her admiration are created equal. Some love the monster Ursula because they see something of themselves in her ostracized figure, while others want to rule the world.
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