Fear and Loathing Under The Sea--A Guest Post

Terrifying right?

When I tell people that I’m afraid of the Little Mermaid, I’m met with the typical type of derision you’d expect. Usually, it’s skepticism, thinking that I’m making it up, or overstating my actual fear. Sometimes, it’s mocking, with the “I wasn’t even that much of a baby when I was baby” type comments. Worse, it’s the trying to force me to watch it, or singing the songs at me, so that I get to relive the trauma that was watching the movie for me as a child.

You see, the movie came out while I was still quite young, only 7. Which is an age that is old enough to understand the full effect of what Ursula was threatening Ariel with, but young enough to not fully understand that it was all just make believe. I was in the in-between, magic was real, but so was evil.

I was also fully indoctrinated into a church that believed the devil was a real and powerful force in the world. Now this church wasn’t hell-fire and brimstone by any means, but it’s the creation of duality which makes Christ sacrifice have meaning, without learning about evil, how can you understand good? But that’s a tangent I don’t want to walk down. At 7, I knew about the devil. I knew that he wanted to trick you, to make you his for eternity. 

Enter Ursula: Up until her entrance into the movie, there were some tense scenes, but none that were truly terrifying. Ursula comes in with all the answers to Ariel’s problems, but if you renege on your side of the bargain (and this is the part that was pee-your-pants scary for me) she took your soul and withered it up and added it to her collection to be used by her at a later date. 

I remember watching the movie with friends at a slumber party and then lying in my sleeping bag trying to will the monster away. The image of a tiny, shriveled, imprisoned, worm-like, former-mermaid would not leave my mind. My dreams were filled with soundless screams and terrified eyes. Ursula would enter, feeding off their misery, and I would wake in a sweat.

But I was too embarrassed to admit that a children’s movie gave me nightmares. I was old enough and young enough, that being called a baby was an insult that actually meant something. While in my 3rd grade class on a rainy day, we watched “Little Mermaid” and I pretended to use the bathroom during all the exceptionally scary parts. Pretending to need to pee was less embarrassing than crying during the “Poor Unfortunate Souls” song.

As an adult, I haven’t revisited the movie. A part of me is still afraid, another part of me feels a residual shame I felt at being afraid.

Even more Terrifying.

(Holly is a 30 year old, wanderlusting, child free, singleton, who enjoys spending her time making coffee, teaching writing, flirting, biking, hiking, and general frivolity.)