The Little Mermaid live action text was modified with permission

T-minus five minutes before Fox News and his ilk start whining about how wakefulness has infected Disney once again (which they hate anyway for taking on Ron DeSantis’ don’t-say-gay bigoattempt). This time, Big Woke has buried his claws The little mermaid-special the lyrics of two of his best known songs, “Kiss the Girl” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls”. How will we continue as a culture???

In a recent interview with vanity fair regarding the upcoming endlessly controversial Live action remake of The little mermaidComposer Alan Menken revealed some important lyrical changes:

There are some lyrical changes in “Kiss the Girl” because people were very sensitive to that idea [Prince Eric] would definitely force himself to do so [Ariel]. We have some edits in Poor Unfortunate Souls regarding lines that might somehow make young girls feel like they shouldn’t speak out of turn, although Ursula is clearly manipulating Ariel into giving up her voice.

It’s true that the (apparently Jamaican) crab Sebastian and co. Prince Eric chant the following words, which, strictly speaking, if you overlook the context, are creepy:

yes you want them

Check them out, you know you do

She may want you too, there is a way to ask her

It doesn’t take a word, not a single word

Go ahead and kiss the girl

Yes, that’s not consistent with the way we see approval today, namely :TOne way to ask someone if they would like to be kissed is Ask her if she wants to be kissed, which needs a few words. But! Remember that the plot leaves no question of Ariel’s approval. She huffs and pants through the scene as Eric dodges her. In fact, her entire mission is to be kissed, as this will defeat Ursula’s curse and allow her to remain human permanently. If anything, the fact that Disney is once again telling a story where a woman’s only goal is to get a man’s kiss (and literally have to give up her voice to do it). the opportunity to do so) is the bigger problem. Sebastian speaks to Eric on a rather toxic level, assuming it’s his language, but they’re just cogs in a misogynist machine. hate the game not the player! Replacing some text without major changes is just playing with band-aids.

The targeted text “Poor Unfortunate Souls” likely appears in this verse:

The men up there don’t like a lot of gossip

They think a girl gossiping is boring!

But on land it’s much better if women don’t say a word

And finally, dear, what is idle chatter for?

Come on, they’re not that impressed with conversations

True gentlemen avoid it when they can

But they fall in love and pass out and cringe

To a lady who has retired

It is she who keeps her mouth shut who gets a man

Of course, Ariel’s frustration at getting Eric to kiss her belies those claims, but again, there seems to be a lot of paranoia about what might be taken out of context.

What are these live-action remakes for, updating elements of these stories that have passed unchecked in less enlightened times? The redundancy of making beat-for-beat recreations of still popular animated classics actually means we need these changes so that the burps served do not have the exact same taste. The reissue of The Lion King, for example, undressed a punch. The original lyrics of “Hakuna Matata” were:

Pumbaa: And I was down

Timon: How did you feel?

Pumbaa: Every time I…

Timon: Hello! Pumbaa! Not in front of the children!

But in the 2019 CGI remake, they let it all out:

Pumbaa: And I was down. Every time I farted… will you stop me?

Timon: No, I’m not. You disgust me!

See? Sometimes these changes are for the better. That’s called progress!