Little Mermaid Stereotypes

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Fairy tales have been around for over a thousand years. They have morals meant to teach children lessons, such as: be kind and generous in spite of being surrounded by cruel behavior, be cautious whom to trust, actions speak louder than words, and many more. However, they also teach children false ideas about love, gender roles and good versus evil. This can be detrimental to their self-confidence and self-worth: especially for girls. Women in fairy tales are portrayed as dainty and helpless. They tend to fall in love at first sight. “Damsel in Distress” is a well-known term indicating a woman is in trouble and in need of rescuing, typically by a prince. Sirenetta, from The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, is very reliant on the prince for happiness, whereas in Coral by Rosalba Bujanda-Suárez, Tamara Figueroa, and Anya Jimenez, Coral provides her own happiness.
Fairy tales have standardized roles for each gender. For women, they are to be beautiful, gentle, and domestically skilled. For men, they are to be strong, dominant, and charming. These precisely constructed roles are far from realistic and create certain …show more content…
Strength is defined as being courageous, confident, assertive, and trustworthy, which are typical males’ roles. Beauty is defined as being fair, tall, thin, and blond, which are typical European features. The villain of the story is almost always grotesque, which implies that being evil correlates to being ugly, contrary to the hero of the story, who is almost always attractive. In The Little Mermaid, since Sirenetta no longer has her voice, the Prince falls in love with her solely because of her looks. This conveys the message that looks are more important than words. Rather, when Coral flirts with Sofía, they actually talk and get to know each other. Sirenetta waits for the Prince to bring her out of her misery, instead of being independent and saving

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