Over-analyzing Disney Movies: The Little Mermaid--Why Eric is White.

I have recently noticed a trend of just purely over-analyzing Disney movies.  In this category, I also include the fascination with photoshopping Disney characters to swap genders, races, or eras, as well as making princesses have "realistic" body shapes (which is something I could write a whole other post about, and it wouldn't be pretty.  Spoiler alert:  I find it to be one of the most unempowering trends of recent years).  However, I sometimes wonder at how much people are reading into Disney movies. 

Today, I'm going to over-analyze their over-analysis.

I recently read that the fact that Eric is a white prince is a representation of how we white-wash racial expectations for our children.  I'm not even sure what that sentence means.  It seems to have a lot of buzz words.  But I'm going to show you today, using evidence from the film, why Prince Eric is, in fact, the correct color. (I will, however, say that Eric is the only Disney prince who legitimately waits for CLEAR consent before making a physical move, and he doesn't have any manly internal dilemma about having been saved, he just appreciates it...basically he is the man). 

So, where does this objection even come from?  Well, in "Poor Unfortunate Souls," Ursula invokes the "winds of the Caspian Sea."  Of course, there is a chance that Ursula is invoking the winds of the Caspian Sea, and they are not actually IN the Caspian Sea, but seeing as the sea creatures do not seem to be able to travel from body of water to body of water (they can't be on land, and Ursula is too big to go through rivers, I should think), how would she know about the Caspian Sea?  Obvious objections:  How does Sebastian have a Caribbean accent?  Some of the sea creatures don't fit.

Further evidence:  in the village, a lot of the architecture has Middle Eastern influences:  onion domes, pointed windows, etc. A fair bit of this could be argued to be recycled animation from Aladdin, but it's still in there, and it's still evidence.  

Some say that as Hans Christian Andersen was Danish, the story takes place in Denmark.  I find this to be very unlikely, as the sea creatures are quite obviously tropical in nature.  If you read the story, there are is a lot of evidence that not even Hans Christian Andersen pictured it as taking place in Denmark, as the prince is described with dark eyes (not very Danish), black hair (not very Danish), and orange trees and sandy beaches make appearances.

Furthermore, throughout the movie, the sailors invoke a lot of sea mythology, but they never invoke any Nordic sea myths (such as sea serpents, ghost ships, Nordic superstitions), nor Celtic sea myths. In fact, the main mythologies they invoke are Greek (though most European sailors believed in those) Possible objection:  Yes, but their sea shanties are very Western European in musical pattern.  This is true, but this actually reinforces my end point, and I will get back to it. 

The Caspian Sea is bordered by Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.  We are assuming that Eric hails from one of these countries, or at least has very strong diplomatic ties with them, as he seems to be quite well established in whatever seaside village they are in.  So, many people say that Eric should be Persian--and thus, dark colored. 

However, there is one country on that list that is notably NOT populated by "brown people."  Russia.  I will present my evidence today that Eric is actually Russian...and thus, should be white.

Evidence 1:  Eric is a Prince.

In Disney over-analysis style, people have often wondered where Eric's parents are.  It would seem that they are dead, as Grimsby seems to be his guardian of sorts, but never makes mention of "your father will be disappointed" or anything when trying to control Eric.  Besides, even Ariel's sea-family can make it to the wedding, but Eric's land-family doesn't?  So, it follows that Eric's parents are dead.

However, if his parents are dead, why then is Eric only a Prince? 

In most of the world, Prince is a "transitionary" title, if you will.  However, in Russia (at least pre-Revolution), Prince is in of itself a title.  The reason why has to do with the Kievan Rus and a long story of Russia's history, but the point is, Prince is a ruling title.  It's an end-game, and a very powerful end-game title at that. 

Sure, some have argued that Eric is still only a Prince because he is too young.  While it is true that some young kings had "regents," Eric is old enough to be getting married--old enough that Grimsby is giving him crap about not being married--but not old enough to have an actual coronation? That doesn't make sense.  Besides, even when the kings were young and had regents, they usually crowned them to make the succession signed, sealed and delivered anyways.  It's easier to cut off someone getting crowned than to depose a legitimately crowned king.

So, Eric, is a Prince.  A Russian title.

Evidence 2: Strong French Influences

 Some people have argued that The Little Mermaid is off the coast of France because of marked French influences.  Baguettes, French cook, berets, etc.

However, the technology and fashion of The Little Mermaid would lead us to believe that it takes place in the 1850s or so.  It just so happens that Russia was going through a HUGE love affair with France at that time.  So much so that a lot of Russian words are French borrow words, and the ruling classes spoke French almost exclusively.  Several of the late 19th Century Czars hardly spoke Russian at all.  Czarevitch Alexei was notorious and a little bit hated for the fact that he insisted on using Russian, where the rest of the royal family used French almost exclusively. 

It doesn't really make sense for a them to be French (see our Caspian Sea/tropical marine animals, and the fact that France wasn't really in a Prince-having mood in the 1850s), but it does make sense for them to be French influenced.  None of our other Caspian Sea candidates were obsessed with France.

Evidence 3: He's named Eric

Yes, Eric is not a Russian name.  But remember the French love affair? A huge part of that is that in the 19th Century, Russia was desperately trying to be seen as actually European, as many of their co-Europeans kind of saw them as a pseudo-European.  European when convenient, Middle Eastern when convenient, Asian when convenient.  They REALLY wanted to be Europeans.  So, using non-Russian names became somewhat common to a certain degree.  They still had Russian names, but they used the non-Russian forms in casual conversation (notice in Anna Karenina how Ekaterina is routinely referred to as Katherine or Kitty just as much as she's referred to as Ekaterina or Katya). 

It was also common at that time to marry outside of Russia to try and form solidly European blood relationships.  Russia, geographically, has long had a close-but-not-close relationship with Scandinavian countries.  The Royal family was known to seek marriages to Germanic and Scandinavian countries with a passion.  Denmark and German-City-States were always up there on their list of potential mates (Denmark more so than Norway, Sweden and Finland, because they also had complicated "are you really European-ness." 

After marrying into those countries, the brides would bring with them the names of their countries. 

So, my theory is that Eric is the product of one of those marriages.

Evidence 4: Western-esque Sailors

So this one may sound like a stretch, but it's actually true.  Hear me out. 

The majority of sea-faring cultures  (outside of the Ancient World) have been Western European.  Sure, other countries have sailed, but none as prolifically as Western Europe.  In Western Europe, there came to be a fantasy of young men to go and make their fortunes on the sea.  Those who were especially adventurous would go make their fortunes on the sea in Russia (think Frankenstein).  So, even though Russia had its own navy, a lot of their ships were populated by Western sailors.  This would explain why the sailors are singing Western-tuned sea shanties, and dancing to Western-Europe hornpipes.

Conclusion:

Eric should be white.  He is a Russian Prince, from a Russian father and a Germanic/Scandinavian mother.  The bigger question should be why is ARIEL white? 

But here's the biggest thing:  it doesn't matter.  Eric is white because that's how he was conceived by the concept artists.  And the point of The Little Mermaid isn't race.  In fact, the fact that we even care is evidence that race is a much bigger problem than we care to admit.  If race weren't actually an issue, no one would think twice about Eric's skin color, anymore than they think about the fact that he has a crooked smile (which he does).  It's kind of the same concept as Joss Whedon's ingenious response to a reporter's asking him why he creates strong female characters.  Joss Whedon face-palmed and then replied, "Because you're still asking me that question."

Let's not over-analyze a kid's movie, guys.  If we do, we're going to be forced to consider the repercussions of the fact that Beauty and the Beast takes place in the 1760s/1770s in France, and now Belle is an aristocrat leading right into the end of the 1700s of France, which didn't go well for aristocrats.  And we can see that the people of her village are very susceptible to mob-mentality as it is!