Right now, mermaids are having a serious moment.
There's a brand new Little Mermaid film about to hit Netflix this month, and two more are
on the way: a Universal version based on the original Hans Christian Andersen story, and
a live action Disney remake with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Sign me up!
And, that's not even including the gender-swapped Splash remake with Channing Tatum that's currently
in development.
In the world of books, Louise O'Neill wrote a feminist Little Mermaid retelling this year,
and copies of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock have been flying off the shelves.
And you can read all those books and watch all those movies while snuggled in a mermaid
blanket, that wraps your feet together into a tail.
Like I said, mermaids are having a moment.
But it's not just a recent obsession.
The mermaid statues across London, from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square to this one here
in Regent's Park, date all the way back to 1896.
So why are we so obsessed with mermaids?
Definitely the most famous mermaid story has to be The Little Mermaid.
In Hans Christian Andersen's story, unlike in the Disney remake, the Little Mermaid isn't
just searching for a prince.
She's searching for a soul, which in this story is something that only humans can have.
Or, mermaids can get one by marrying a human.
But in the original story, it doesn't work out so happily.
The prince is a bit of a jerk, strings her along for a while, and ends up marrying someone
else.
And unfortunately for our mermaid, the deal that she struck with the sea witch, is that
if she didn't get him to marry her, she would die.
So her sisters come up with one last plan.
If she murders the prince instead, then she'll be saved, and she can go back to being a mermaid.
Yeah, it gets pretty dark.
But does she do it?
You're going to have to read the original story to find that out.
So The Little Mermaid is a pretty dark and tragic story.
But if you fast forward to present day, mermaids are much more likely to be associated with
brightly coloured make up, long flowing hair, and Starbucks drinks than tragedies about
unrequited love.
So why are mermaids now so fun, when they have such a tragic history in popular culture?
These statues aren't giving me any answers.
So instead I'm going to ask some of my fellow mermaid-loving booktubers.
So I'm here today with two of my fellow booktubers, Angelica Cofer and Emma Tobias.
Why do you guys think that mermaids are so popular right now?
EMMA T: Fantasy.
EMMA O: Yeah.
EMMA T: It's quite fantastical to have a fish human.
EMMA O: Is fantasy bigger now than it has been in the past?
EMMA T: I feel like dark fantasy is.
EMMA O: People want the creepy stories.
The state of the world is quite frightening at the moment.
So it's like you want this kind of dark fantasy that reflects it, but then we also want it
to have some hope!
EMMA T: A little bit of a happy ending.
EMMA O: Things will get better!
ANGELICA: It could possibly be something to do with nostalgia.
EMMA O: Yeah.
That's a really good point.
Like the people who are now making content are the people that grew up with The Little
Mermaid, the Disney one at least.
ANGELICA: I think as well we can't not talk about Harry Potter.
It kind of helped with like fan culture and nerd-dom.
I think mermaids kind of like maybe were an offshoot of that as well.
EMMA T: Yeah.
There was this period where I feel like there was so much stuff I saw online, of people
taking mermaid classes and like doing that, and it had the pillow things where you could
put your feet in and have like–
EMMA O: Yeah, those are really popular right now, aren't they?
People have those blankets that make you into a mermaid.
ANGELICA: I really liked The Little Mermaid 2.
EMMA T: Oh same!
That was so good.
ANGELICA: I think her name is Melody.
And she's obsessed with the sea and she wants to return to the sea.
That was almost like for the audience of The Little Mermaid.
Like young little girls wanting to be mermaids.
EMMA O: It's funny that the Disney film, the happy ending is that she's turned from a mermaid
into a human.
But we're already humans!
It would be much more exciting if Eric was turned into a merman, and they all swam away
together.
EMMA T: Yeah that would be awesome.
EMMA O: That would be cool.
EMMA T: I like that she's the one who goes after Eric.
I think that's cool.
Because not a lot of Disney princesses that happens.
EMMA O: But she does have to do it silently.
EMMA T: Silently, which is not great.
There's a really great episode of Garfunkel and Oates, where they "Little Mermaid" two
guys.
Where they're dating these guys and they don't speak.
And then see how long it takes for the guys to notice that they haven't been speaking.
It's so funny.
EMMA O: Have either of you read the original story, the Hans Christian Andersen story?
ANGELICA: Yeah, it's really sad.
EMMA O: It's really sad!
So I didn't know until really recently, I looked it up, that Hans Christian Andersen
wrote The Little Mermaid inspired by his own experience of unrequited love with a man named
Edvard, which obviously at the time was not something that was accepted.
And that kind of put it into a whole new perspective for me.
Because I before wouldn't have thought The Little Mermaid was very feminist and thought
it was about these passive women, but actually if you instead see the little mermaid as a
kind of symbol of otherness, that's a really interesting kind of spin on it.
Which leads on to the fact that the mermaid today is often seen as a queer symbol, a queer
icon.
Specifically, there's an article I read by Janet Mock which was about the mermaid as
a trans icon, kind of representing the beauty of girls whose bodies are different, and who
feel disconnected from their bodies possibly.
And just more generally, the mermaid can be just a queer icon in general.
It's a celebration of otherness, and of different types of bodies, and different types of love.
ANGELICA: Gay pride and stuff is very colourful, with lots of like sparkles and stuff like
that.
So the imagery is tied into mermaids, like with mermaid hair and stuff like that.
And like having the flag, I can see how it would like cross over.
And it would be easy to take on the mermaid as like a good way to explore that, and have
fun with it.
EMMA O: And it's sort of, as well as beauty in difference, it's also power in difference.
The mermaid's actually a very powerful creature, who can do things that other humans can't
do.
Like swim deeper than humans can, and faster than humans can.
So it's kind of celebrating this amazing strength in people who are seen as different.
Mermaids can't wear jumpsuits.
EMMA T: No!
EMMA O: It's so sad.
ANGELICA: I didn't get this memo.
EMMA O: What about sirens, in like mythology?
ANGELICA: Oooh yeah.
I think it's cool because it's kind of this intersection of the mermaid with the witch.
Witches are often associated with like seduction or negative aspects of femalehood.
So I like the siren because she's like subversive and powerful in her own right.
And she does use her voice, whereas Ariel loses her voice.
EMMA O: Originally, mermaids kind of came into popular belief because of people seeing
sea-creatures and thinking it was a mermaid, right?
ANGELICA: Exactly.
EMMA O: So like, their actual genuine history is some probably dangerous sea creature, because
I don't– things that live in the sea are terrifying to me.
So they've been kind of tamed and feminised and turned into these passive beautiful beings,
but actually it's like "Well that's what you think, but actually we're scary sea monsters!"
Whatever the reason, mermaids don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
I for one am excited to watch each and every one of those Little Mermaid remakes, and will
keep on celebrating the mermaid as an icon of feminism and queerness and magic alike.
But I will also keep returning to Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful original, as well as
all the other wonderful fairytales included in our Best Fairytales collection.
So do give this video a thumbs up if you're excited for the Little Mermaid movies coming
up, and leave a comment below with your theories for why mermaids are still so popular.
And you're definitely going to want to hit that subscribe button, because next week on
Book Break, we are talking about the YA release of the year, Children of Blood and Bone.
And we'll have the author Tomi herself on this channel.
So hit subscribe so you don't miss out on that, and I'll see you next time!