Because Claire is behaving very out-of-character by dancing and singing down the hall.
Hello? She's a _Disney_ princess. They're always singing.
Yeah, Jeph may not own up to it, but the truth is revealed in one of the guest strips.
She is, specifically, Ariel, whose trans status is barely subtext:
I. Meet our protagonist. She is a young CAFAB (Coercively Assigned Fish At Birth) with culturally inappropriate toys, hobbies, and love interests.
II. Her tradition-bound parental figure is prejudiced and unsupportive of her species-identity.
III. Her friends try to placate her with tales of fish privilege.
IV. Unpersuaded, and despairing of finding acceptance in her dysfunctional home environment, she seeks out back-alley medical services from a sketchy provider. Gets the looks, but not the voice.
V. Interlude. A chef tries to eat Sebastian. This scene has nothing to do with gender anything, but do note that this character is voiced by René Auberjonois, who played the shape-shifting, putatively genderless yet inexplicably consistently male-identified Constable Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Also it is a fun musical number.
VI. Deep Stealth, Day 1: Mastery of subtle mannerisms is an important aspect of passing.
VII. Deep Stealth, Day 2: Without a full suite of vocal skills, seduction can prove complicated.
VIII. Deep Stealth, Day 3: OUTED!
IX. DRAMA ENSUES
X. Dad repents of his intolerance, pays for bottom surgery, voice lessons, and a lavish heteronormative wedding. The happy couple sail off into a GIANT PRIDE RAINBOW. And they all lived happily ever after!
Upon rewatching this as an adult, my first thought was to be much less upset that they gave the story a happy ending, but my second was
how did cis people make this? And then I read Wikipedia's article on
Hans Christian Andersen:
[Andersen] wrote to Edvard Collin: "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery." Collin, who preferred women, wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering."
And it occurred to me that well, maybe they didn't.
“I know what you want,” said the sea witch; “it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish’s tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul.” And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about. “You are but just in time,” said the witch; “for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you.”
“Yes, I will,” said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortal soul.
“But think again,” said the witch; “for when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father’s palace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”
“I will do it,” said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.
“But I must be paid also,” said the witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”
“But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what is left for me?”
“Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man’s heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught.”
“It shall be,” said the little mermaid.
Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught.
“Cleanliness is a good thing,” said she, scouring the vessel with snakes, which she had tied together in a large knot; then she pricked herself in the breast, and let the black blood drop into it. The steam that rose formed itself into such horrible shapes that no one could look at them without fear. Every moment the witch threw something else into the vessel, and when it began to boil, the sound was like the weeping of a crocodile. When at last the magic draught was ready, it looked like the clearest water. “There it is for you,” said the witch. Then she cut off the mermaid’s tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. “If the polypi should seize hold of you as you return through the wood,” said the witch, “throw over them a few drops of the potion, and their fingers will be torn into a thousand pieces.” But the little mermaid had no occasion to do this, for the polypi sprang back in terror when they caught sight of the glittering draught, which shone in her hand like a twinkling star.
So she passed quickly through the wood and the marsh, and between the rushing whirlpools. She saw that in her father’s palace the torches in the ballroom were extinguished, and all within asleep; but she did not venture to go in to them, for now she was dumb and going to leave them forever, she felt as if her heart would break. She stole into the garden, took a flower from the flower-beds of each of her sisters, kissed her hand a thousand times towards the palace, and then rose up through the dark blue waters. The sun had not risen when she came in sight of the prince’s palace, and approached the beautiful marble steps, but the moon shone clear and bright. Then the little mermaid drank the magic draught, and it seemed as if a two-edged sword went through her delicate body: she fell into a swoon, and lay like one dead. When the sun arose and shone over the sea, she recovered, and felt a sharp pain; but just before her stood the handsome young prince. He fixed his coal-black eyes upon her so earnestly that she cast down her own, and then became aware that her fish’s tail was gone, and that she had as pretty a pair of white legs and tiny feet as any little maiden could have.
Yours in exegesis,
April
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Topic: WCDT: 2826-2830 (03 - 07 November 2014) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread (Read 61138 times)