Domestic Norms In Film

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Domesticity is the creation of boundaries to confine people within ideals that are considered to be the norm. This ideal can often be seen in Hollywood films that portray the concepts of domesticity. Through the use of Silvia Federici’s “Caliban and the Witch,” Samuel Delany’s “Times Square Red, Times Square Blue,” and Donna Haraway’s “Manifesto for Cyborgs” to examine the scene where Ariel trades her voice for legs in the film The Little Mermaid. In order for there to be an ideal society that follows under domestic norms, there must be a creation of lines that determine what is the norm and what is not. By looking at how witches and gay men have been shunned from society, we see that those who are deemed different can no longer be domesticated. …show more content…

Women were seeked out as witches if they were different but this also “deepened the divisions between women and men, teaching men to fear the power of women” (p. 165). This division between women and men can be seen through The Little Mermaid with it being the division between human and mermaid. In the scene where Ariel goes to Ursula because she decides she wants to be human, this is a scene of Ariel accepting that she is different and that in order for her to be welcomed by the other humans, she must also be like them. Instead of it being men fearing the power of women, it is humans fearing anything that is different from them. Not only is it the fear from humans, we can also see that Ariel is not confident that she would be able to introduce herself to the Prince if she wasn’t a human like him. Before Ariel makes her decision she contemplates on the fact that she would no longer see her family anymore and in the end that’s not enough for her to decide not to become a human. From this we can see that her urge to be a human and to be accepted by this man transcends anything …show more content…

It was a space where they could go if it was necessary for them however when Times Square was reconstructed, this left many gay men in a situation of not having a place where they were accepted. At the end of the essay, Delany says, “What kind of leaps am I going to have to make now between the acceptable and the unacceptable, between the legal, and the illegal, to continue having a satisfactory sex life?” (p. 108) Now the happiness of people also had to rely on the fact of if what they were doing was considered to be acceptable behavior in the eyes of others. By looking at Ariel, we see that Ariel is a mermaid, which is as strange through the eyes of a human. The way she looks is unacceptable to the humans, and this is something that the mermaids already know which is why she has to make the decision to change into a human. The leap that Ariel makes in order to try to achieve her happiness is to exchange her voice for legs, in order to be more human like so she could be accepted. It is interesting because it is illegal for these gay men to engage in sexual activity if it can be deemed as prostitution however in the case for Ariel, she is actually persuaded to use her body. Ariel wonders what she is going to do if she doesn’t have her voice and Ursula’s response to that is to use her face and body language. We can

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