the little mermaid: a thought on the flight home

It might be a mistake to watch The Little Mermaid on my flight home. Probably it is because I was eating fillet of cod. Or probably because I have just attended a workshop talking about media and gender.

Okay, first thing first. I am aware that the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, the very movie I watched, was an adaptation from a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. And Disney is famous for its happy ending cartoons. Given that fact, I should initially expect that there will be some alterations in the story. And they were there, indeed.

Originally, the mermaid in Andersen's story dies because she fails to meets the terms and conditions set by the sea-witch. The little mermaid supposed to win the prince's heart and marry him in order to be a human for the rest of her life. However, being mute (as her voice became the tool of trade with the witch), she did not manage to convince the prince that she was the one who saved him from a shipwreck. Instead, the prince thought that it was some other princess from some other neighbouring country, whom he ended up married to. The mermaid's sisters fell pity to her, and said that the only way for her to escape from being the sea-witch's slave is to kill her prince charming before sunrise. But she loved him too much, and the rest is history. More or less, everything is about this unfortunate little mermaid and her unrequited love, with several lines from insignificant supportive character to spice up the main dish.

In the movie, every conflict was solved. The sea-witch is dead – thanks to the help of the prince, regardless he is a human being with limited strength to survive the mighty sea. The little mermaid is later a human being, got married to the prince and lives happily ever after. The king, which never been told in the original story but described as a stern father in the movie, gave his bless to the little mermaid. There was no "other princess", but instead the disguised sea-witch who bewitched the prince to marry her. There were even songs performed by a musically skilful crab.

But then I did question several things. I remember to read somewhere about how Disney and its idea of happy ending can be somehow disturbing. When the Beast regains his formerly handsome face, for example I wonder why it is found necessary. Remember, it was the Beast with whom Belle fallen in love with, even though I am quite sure she did not mind to have such bonus: the fairy tale image "prince charming" to "live happily ever after" with. Therefore, I was glad to watch Shrek II and Fiona rejected Shrek's offer to have a physical beauty divine. Instead, she wants to stay being an ogre, "with the ogre I married".

Anyway, the disturbing alteration I found was about why should the little mermaid who morphed into human being and not vice versa. I mean, why does she need to do any more sacrifice? She saved the prince's life already, lost her voice risked her life on an agreement with a sea-witch, even her King father had his throne given to the sea-witch in order to save his daughter from being her slave. The King's advisor also risked his life being hunted by the prince's cook, who was obsessed to cook stuffed crabs. Well, the prince did some things that ended up with the death of the sea-witch, true, but why didn't it occur in his mind that, "Okay, she loves me so very much and has done so much for me as well, I think I can do her a little favour to live happily ever after by her side as a merman."?
Plus, the little mermaid herself was not an ordinary mermaid – she was a princess under the sea, so the prince would not really experience a lowering status. Well, probably he wants to keep his throne on the land, instead of marrying a Princess (with little possibility to be a Queen because she is the youngest). That consideration sounds very much like the villain in Princess Diaries 2 (another movie by Disney, fyi) said to his nephew, "Everything is planned to have you as a King, not to marry a Queen!"

I also perceived the alteration as an effort to mild the prince's lack of contribution to the mermaid's happiness. Compared to how the original story simply said that the prince treated the mermaid as nice as treating his own sister, the Disney movie showed that he did some sort of heroic act to exterminate the sea-witch. And then, oh well, the man saved the day, and what missing was only the cliché line, "Oh, my hero!".
Recalling a previous discussion about "real men" and "real women" in my workshop, I remember someone from the workshop "Life is a Role Play" (they visited us to share a guest lecturer who talked about Star Trek in gender perspective) said about "men are supposed to be the protector". Well, that simply fits the picture perfect – men are there to protect, and women to be protected. But it is not simply about who is stronger therefore (s)he is the one who should protect another, because remember, the mermaid saved the prince at the first place. If it was not because she loved him madly at the first sight, he would be there under the sea with the remains of his ship. I assume that the Disney version is trying to make a "fair trade" in terms of sacrifice done by the main characters, but yet again, the mermaid remained sacrificing more. Living on the land as a human being means no more contact with her underwater family and friends. At least that is what I can assume, because the King said to his advisor something about how he will miss his daughter very much, before he put a spell on her and made her a human.

Another thing is about the sea-witch. I always wonder why it has to be a witch: a wicked female villain with magical power and obsession to rule the world (or in this case, the sea). One thing I like about Harry Potter series is that it puts a wizard instead of a witch as the antagonist – at least to give refreshment on how it is not always women who can be evil and put a spell on the main characters. The visualisation of the sea-witch was also altered; in the original story she was a mermaid (apparently there is no such word as "merwoman"), yet in the movie she has eight tentacles instead of fin. Nevertheless, the sea-witch was described living in a dark abyss with her sea-snake assistants, showing that she is somewhat a lonely woman with no partner to share life or make love to; and being exiled, to some extent, create the evilness. Well, I have no problem on the loneliness issue, for that also happens to Lord Voldemort. But let me emphasize this: we need more evil wizards. Not all witches are evil (like Ursula); some can be very motherly (like Molly Weasley), very clumsy (like Nymphadora Tonks), or even very clever (like Hermione Granger).

That is about it. I write no conclusion – at least for such rambling.


[PM]

June3:MorizTV interview & Gender Walk

First,let's welcome our guest for today,Stephanie Napp and Tobias Ruch from MorizTV!
They were joining our workshop for an interview, both from us & to us!


We prepared some questions using the 4-R(Representation,Resources,Reasons,Rights) Organization Analysis model for Stephanie, to kick off the interview between us!

It's interesting to find the Greifswald University student TV team consists of 15 females and 5 males.Jobs are divided by a principle of "Do whatever you like!" They try to be objective while reporting,but a more female-like perspective is hard to avoid according to the team structure. Most you can see from the way they portray the people and the stories.
Almost all of them join the team because of the interests in reporting or moving pictures. It's also interesting to find that more males are joining for the written part and more females are interested in the moving pictures. The reasons remain unknown.

For about seven minutes we finished up all the questions for Staphanie,thanked her for the information for study,and went on with our workshop about gender and media studies.

June 1st: Gender issues in Star Trek!

First of all, let's welcome all participants/instructors from the other workshop to join us! First time to have so many people in our workshop venue,exciting!


Next, welcome our beautiful enthusiastic guest for the lecture about STAR TREK:Annette Brauer!
She's a Trekkie and she teaches Native American Studies, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Greifswald.


First, a Symbolic Interaction Model was introduced:


Ideas meanings-Symbol codes-Ideas meanings.


As a way we will see how ideas meanings are conveyed by symbol codes in the movie STAR TREK.


Statistic studies in the movie:
Only 1(+3) female characters in the movie while there were 13 male parts?!
Only 1 female in the production crew?!
"What's going on there?!"


We were watching the movie clips along the lecture, to see how women were portrayed through the story.

We had a closer look at the female characters in the movie:

1)Kirk's Mother: Winona Kirk -by the scenes of Kirk's birth


2)Spock's Mother: Amanda Greyson -by the scenes of the mother touchs her logic-only(no emotions) son


3)Uhura-emotional and sympathetic


4)Gaula-sexy and objectification


6)Enterprise (the spaceship!It's regarded as a female character due to its obedient characteristics)






Then we came to discuss about a new term:The Male Gaze.


"Stereotyping and objectification of women on screen comes about through the way cinema is structured around..."


Meaning in a movie made most by male producers, the ways they portrayed women were more from a male perspertive. That's an entertainment for male only, at they get the control.


Later after going through all the female characters and loads of observations, we had a discussion about the women roles in the movie and reflection to the society.

We admited that nowadays women are more frequently regarded as "objects" in this male dominat society, while only few women are involved in the techonology & production areas.
But we don't think women are weak at these certain parts, as we still have our best female director in Oscar Awards 2009 and we see more women are also doing good in sports and else professions.

It was a fruitful day with in-depth discussions and critical thinking!



Reported by Terri (Hong Kong,China)

Monday, 31st “Gender + Media Analysis”

Monday, 31st “Gender + Media Analysis”
· Changing the room. We moved to the new working place.
· Refection day 1+2 → Statement. We discussed first two days, determined what we have learned during these days, and then created a statement of these days.
· Media. We discussed what media was and how gender was represented in media. We watched some commercials.
· Gender representation. We discussed why it was so difficult to understand and defined what gender means. How male-female genders are represented in the pop-culture.
· Media analysis. We analyzed gender representation in the Welcome party concert, the first edition of GrIStuF newspaper and posters of 550th Anniversary of Greifswald University.
· Methodology of gender analysis in social systems. We listened to a lecture about 4 R-Model of Gender Analysis.

Saturday, 29th “Gender, media and us”

Saturday, 29th “Gender, media and us”
· Introduction sex and gender. We discussed differences between female and male sex and gender, determined biological and cultural features of each gender.
· Other hyrarquies. We defined our inborn and acquired (dis)advantages.
· Producing media. We discussed making of blog and had small photo session for blog.
· Strange dancing. We learned a dance of four exercises for cheering up.

Friday, 28th “You and us”

Friday, 28th “You and us”
· Participants. We introduced ourselves
· Group + space. Playing the game, we located ourselves according to geographical positions of our home-countries and afterwards estimated our role in media consumption/ production. Also we expressed our interest in the media focusing on gender issues.
· Expectations, needs and wishes. We discussed our expectations from the workshops and work out the main aims of the seminars.
· Experts. We did some teambuilding exercises. There were formed three groups. Each group developed and presented a project of Production Company.
· Producing media. We decided to create a blog. It should represent our group and the workshops.