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inky-black · 1 year

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Ig: @wardatattoo

Wrocław, Poland

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wishingicouldfly · 1 year

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Harry Styles is a Mermaid

Disclaimer: I am sure I’m not the first to report and share these links and images. I thought people would find this interesting, so I’m sharing my foray down this rabbit hole. I’d welcome any additional links or thoughts related to Mermaids and the LGBTQ community.

If you know anyone that should be credited for pictures here, let me know. None of them belong to me.

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In November 2014, Harry Styles had the image of a mermaid tattooed on his left forearm. The bare-chested siren joined multitudes of other nautical themed tattoos that litter his body.

A few days after the new tat appeared, he responded to a question at a meet and greet.

“I am a Mermaid,” he said.

I started the research on this post when I saw the gif with his quote about being a mermaid. Rest below the cut.

Harry Styles’ Mermaid Tattoo — The Real Reason Behind His New Ink – Hollywood Life

I’m not going to tell you why he said he’s a mermaid. I don’t know what it means to him. I have no idea. Maybe he simply likes mermaids. Maybe he feels like it matches the themes of his and Louis’ other nautical tattoos. I can't pretend to know.

“Mermaid” as a theme, though, has a decades long association with the LGBTQ community. And I think that’s interesting in light of the imagery that Harry himself has shared and seems to connect to.

Like, that time he wore a shirt with a famous line from The Little Mermaid.

Or in 2019, when he dressed as Ariel for a Saturday Night Live photoshoot.

Did Harry Styles REALLY say 'I am a mermaid'? Truth behind viral photo and his Ariel look for 'SNL' | MEAWW

Or his his whole video for Music for a Sushi Restaurant:

youtube

I’ve seen the Little Mermaid probably dozens of times. My child and I watched it a lot when she was growing up. And while I always knew it was an allegory for being different, I didn’t think about the deeper meaning as it relates to the LGBTQ community until more recently.

According to this article from the Smithsonian,

The central story of The Little Mermaid is, of course, 16-year-old Ariel’s identity crisis. She feels constrained by her patriarchal mer-society and senses she doesn’t belong. She yearns for another world, apart from her own, where she can be free from the limits of her rigid culture and conservative family. Her body is under the water, but her heart and mind are on land with people. She leads a double life. She is, essentially, “in the closet” (as symbolized by her “cavern”—or closet—of human artifacts, where the character-building song “Part of Your World” takes place).

Source: 'The Little Mermaid' Was Way More Subversive Than You Realized | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/little-mermaid-was-way-more-subversive-you-realized-180973464/

The Disney version was written by writer-producer-lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken.

The character of Ursula, though, is the real LGBTQ icon. “Conceived by Ashman, Ursula is based on the famous cross-dressing performer Divine, who was associated with the openly gay filmmaker John Waters. As scholar Laura Sells explained in a 1995 anthology of essays, Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” song is essentially a drag show instructing the naive mermaid on how to attract Prince Eric (who is conspicuously uninterested in Ariel and most content at sea with his all-male crew and manservant Grimsby). “In Ursula’s drag scene,” Sells wrote, “Ariel learns that gender is performance; Ursula doesn’t simply symbolize woman, she performs woman.” (same source as above).

A gay man in 1980s America, Ashman had personal experience with the culture wars over “family values” and gay rights. The “Reagan Revolution” marked the arrival of the long-brewing marriage of the Republican Party with conservative Christians and included a platform that was unfriendly to gay rights, to say the least. President Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic that swept the nation (refusing to appropriate any federal funds for research or treatment), and Republicans in general claimed the “gay plague” was God’s punishment for homosexuality. Ashman saw the film as an opportunity to advance a social message through the medium of “family entertainment.” The last thing Americans would expect from Disney was a critique of patriarchy, but sure enough, Ashman’s The Little Mermaid is a gutsy film about gender and identity—a far cry from the staid Disney catalog. (same source).

Anyone who was around in 2015 knows about RBB/SBB. But if you didn’t, the Rainbow Bears (RBB/SBB, largely assumed to be created and curated by Harry and Louis) mentioned Divine on December 1, 2015. Just after they posted about her, Harry tweeted a lyric that alluded to Divine. See below.

Credit to @SkepticalLarrie

There’s a whole other rabbit hole you can go down about John Waters (openly gay film director) and Divine and Pink Flamingos (Pink Flamingos: A Queer Beginner’s Guide to Family, Style and Not Giving a Sh*t | by Joe Corr | Medium. https://mandysweats.medium.com/pink-flamingos-a-queer-beginners-guide-to-family-style-and-not-giving-a-sh-t-fa9aa3e6c96f

Here’s another article that talks about The Little Mermaid being important to the LGBT community.

How The Little Mermaid Found A Place In The Hearts Of LGBTQ Fans | HuffPost UK Entertainment (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

There was a lot of speculation about Harry being potentially cast as Prince Eric in a live action version of the Little Mermaid. I’m not sure how serious those rumors were, but I can imagine based on all of this research, that he might have found the Prince wasn’t the character he related to most.

Harry Styles fans upset over 'Little Mermaid' reports | CNN https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/entertainment/harry-styles-little-mermaid-trnd/index.html

To go even further down the rabbit hole, go all the way back to the original story. The Hans Christian Anderson version has a tragic ending, that doesn’t end with the mermaid happily ever with the prince. There is some speculation that the story was an allegory for an unrequited love that Anderson had toward a straight acquaintance.

The Little Mermaid Is Really About Unrequited Gay Love | by Tamara Mitrofanova | Lessons from History | Medium

I also want to point out that Mermaids is a UK based charity organization, that “supports transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children and young people until their 20th birthday, as well as their families and professionals involved in their care.” About Mermaids - Mermaids (mermaidsuk.org.uk) https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/about-us/

All of this could be coincident to the true purpose behind what Harry’s tattoo means to him. We will likely never know its exact meaning to him.

But as time passes, and we see Harry waving various LGBTQ flags and hinting at being in the community himself, I think it might bear remembering that he said he WAS a mermaid. And I think that’s beautiful, Harry.