I do love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, yes even the sequels. Main attraction was of course Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom however the action comedy does have a certain cheesy “cant help but watch it again and again” sort of motion to it! Anyway, I love them, even the 4th movie in the collection, which does not star the damsel in distress Elizabeth Swan and dashing Will Turner.
So automatically I see the film is on Tv and put it on while I’m surfing the internet, giggling away to myself at the cheesy bits that we all so dearly love to hate but yet can’t! Bearing in mind i have seen this film at least 5 times before if not more, I was suprised and shocked by one bit in the film in particular. (Spoiler Alert) So the basic storyline of the film is that Jack Sparrow gets fooled into joining Blackbeard’s crew by a former lover, Angelica, who is also the daughter of Blackbeard. So they want to go the Fountain of Youth and drink from it (something to do with Blackbeard eternal soul) in which they believe Captain Jack Sparrow knows some of the details to do with the ritual so that the water works and gives black beard more years. One item in the ritual is a tear from a mermaid, who are not anything like the ones in the “Little Mermaid” (which i happen to love), there evil basically and like to seduce sailors who sing and then eat them from what i understand. So to back track, earlier on in the film Angelica saves this Missionary who then unintentionally helps capture this mermaid, he saves her several times throughout the movie. Shes stuck in a glass coffin while they travel across the island to the fountain and she cant breathe so breaks open the lid so she can breathe, then again when the coffin breaks he carries her because she cant walk because she’s never had legs before. ok so basically there is sexual tension and they both like each other and as Blackbeard puts it they “fancy” each other. The Missionary gets all protective over the mermaid and gets angry with Blackbeard when he calls the mermaid it and Phillip shouts that she has a name and then proceeds to give her a name.
This is the bit that annoyed me the way that he gives her a name, like she hasn’t got a name, and if she hasn’t, like she cant be asked before you assume she hasn’t got a name? The way that the man assigns her a name annoyed me! My feminist side was angered! I then realised that this was just another thing that showed the patriarchal ideals in movie making, whether this be the historical understanding of the time or the movie making industry. I also didnt understand how she could be this “monster” and still then be delegated a name by a man to which she should have been more powerful against,if the other mermaids are anything to go by. Another example would be the way that she is represented as hard by not giving up the tear even though they “kill” Phillip, and then on his miraculous return from the dead she cries which in my opinion such a stereotypical way of the media showing how weak and emotional women are, if these mermaids are evil then why try to feminize them? Why not use a mermaid scale or tooth? A tear has a feminine connotation. They use the mermaid as way of creating a romance story which means they use the way that the mermaid has been created in a more humanistic and feminine way to do this.
I’m not completely unaware of the fact that they use men as an object of attraction, the main reason I watch it is because Johnny Depp is in it! The way that this mermaid is depicted could have been portrayed completely different and could have been just as successful in my opinion that is what really annoyed me! I’m still a massive fan and I know its not the only movie to have such stereotypical representations of women or patriarchal ideas, but it did annoy me!
I still have a soft spot for rum, pirate hats, open seas and unopened treasures! Film number 5 comes out in 2016, I will still be going to see it 😀
Pieces of My Mind 