Semiotic Blog Post: Peter Pan's Mermaids

For this, I'll be focusing on the scene where the audience finally sees Wendy's beloved mermaids. Our first views are of them lounging around, brushing their hair and vainly checking and rechecking their reflections in the mirrors and the water.

Syntagmatics
Though I'm not going to actually change the picture the way I'd like to to demonstrate this, the nature of the dark haired mermaid's horn is rather phallic and, if not that, seems to denote she might be consuming some sort of alcohol, as all the mermaids seem just a bit tipsy and airheaded. Beyond that, we aren't even sure what it is until later, when we see another mermaid with a harp who wasn't drawn in before.

Instead, and in keeping with our discussion this week, we'll show T-Pain in a suit and top hat, looking mock-classy and in control. Adding him where the other mermaid was more than demonstrates the point above. Adding T-Pain in makes this look like he's in charge of some sort of aquatic-themed whorehouse, and is assuring the audience of the quality of the girls he's selling.

Paradigmatics
To go deeper into it, and show that they aren't hostile only to Wendy, though Disney shows us this seemingly to make it seem as though the mermaids are jealous of the casual attention she gets from Peter, I went to the text and found how the mermaids are described there. In the book, they are described as being quite lovely, but still fond of purposely splashing and keeping just out of Wendy's reach, but that they also treat everyone but Peter Pan the same way.

So what does this say about society related to the book and movie? One could conjecture that the mermaids are meant to fill the role of "those girls your mother warned you about", the elusive, pretty girls who haven't got a real thought in their head and care only for their appearance and supposed social status.
On the other hand, we could go with the above interpretation, that the mermaids are meant to represent whores. We're told that at the turn of the moon, the mermaids become something more akin to sirens, shrieking and wailing horrifically. The views on such women, if that is what Walt Disney was alluding to, still portrays them to be something somewhat elusive, but also tainted and horrible.

What we're shown here is that, though Peter himself might be oblivious to it, Neverland is not the innocent paradise it's made out to be. The mermaids are whorish and murderous -  replying "We were only trying to drown her!" in reply to Peter's questioning of their intentions - and, as we see later, there are many other thinly veiled references to the corruption of our own world.