Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid Is Really About Gay Love

[Behind the Aegis]

There's been much buzz about the latest trailer for Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey, specifically surrounding the differences between it and the cartoon version. However, Disney's animated movie is itself an adaptation and actually has several of its own differences compared to the original story. "The Little Mermaid" was originally written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen in the 1830s. While it shares several similarities to the Disney cartoon, the original story was much darker and had a very different ending than Disney's version.

In Andersen's story, the mermaid still falls in love with a human prince and barters her voice for legs, but it comes with a much more painful price -- every step she takes is full of pain and feels like knives stabbing her. If she doesn't get the prince to return her feelings and fall in love with her, she must die a mermaid's death and turn into sea foam. She accepts this trade even though she ultimately receives an unhappy ending, with the prince marrying a princess from a neighboring kingdom. The mermaid's sisters do offer her an alternative and inform her that if she kills the prince, she can become a mermaid again and return to the sea and her family, but she loves the prince too much to hurt him and throws herself into the water, turning into sea foam.

There's been much speculation about the meaning behind the story, but one particular take on it seems to have been widely accepted as truth. This interpretation claims that "The Little Mermaid" is actually a queer allegory and was a love letter written by Andersen to his close friend, Edvard Collin, who he was in love with. Andersen had written several letters and poems to Collin throughout their friendship, and much of his writing declared deep romantic feelings for the other man, expressing that his feelings were like those of a woman's. Andersen was rejected, however, and "The Little Mermaid" was written the same year that Collin announced his engagement to a woman.

Looking deeper into the story, the metaphor becomes quite clear. The mermaid has a strong curiosity for the human world from the beginning of the story, even before meeting the prince. She wants to feel the sun and dance like the humans do, feeling very connected to their world and uncomfortable in her own. She goes so far as to make a deal with the Sea Witch to change the parts of herself she doesn't like in order to make herself fit in more with them and try to win the prince's affections. Clearly, the mermaid is a stand-in for Andersen himself, while the prince is a stand-in for Collin.

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Interesting. Of course, now, people are shitting themselves because in a new version the mermaid is Black. Wait for 20 years when Disney finally gets around to having an openly gay protagonist, and watch the sparks fly.