Bella Hartley Said Gay Rights!

Mermaids became a target demographic for kids, in the same way dinosaurs became kid stuff after Jurassic Park was released.

30 years later, the market got oversaturated. Hollywood ran out of ways to turn the story around while still keeping it original. In the 2010s you saw a form of that in horror mermaids - often slimey, evil, or monstrous. But that didn't really catch on. The truth is, as simple of a concept as it is, H2O just add water is still as long lasting because of how mundane it is; the idea of integrating mermaid elements into a regular story of regular modern humans, and making them the main characters, rather than some alienated being from down below is a lot easier to resonate with, and provides a very fresh spin on it. I think Hollywood is afraid of these sort of stories cause they're worried mermaids come across as childish. Adding a mermaid character to a mature or teen+ show (like supernatural, teen wolf, or vampire diaries) would lack the edge they wanted for their audience to have. Similarly, vampires took over the cool supernatural in the 2010s (Twilight).

Aquaman is not a mermaid, I'll give them the fact that some of the atlanteans are mermaids, by the definition of having tails & breathing underwater, but I would not consider that a mermaid movie

Peter Pan & it's many remakes & adaptations also features mermaids, but it's also not about them, they're one of many inhabitants on Neverland & hardly the center of the story

While researching this, I also found an Irish film called Ondine! This is not a mermaid movie! Spoiler alert, the little girl thinks Ondine is a selkie & this turns out to not be true, do not go into this movie expecting a mermaid or selkie

There are a number of mermaid movies predating the Disney animated film, including atleast 2 that predate talking pictures, the story & sfx are obviously lacking in these due to the limitations of the era

Compare this to vampire movies! There are legitimately more adaptations of Bram Stokers Dracula listed on Wikipedia than movies so much as featuring a mermaid

1) a lot of the mermaid media you'll find AFTER the 1989 release of Disney's film are aimed for kids. Most of these are separate adaptations of TLM tiring to capitalise off of Disney's success. You'll see mostly cartoons/animated projects, or some lower-budget/independent films like Scales (don't watch that one lmao it sucks).

This, is in contrast to the films that came before Disney's. Biggest and most culturally significant examples are Miranda (1948) and Splash (1984). Both of these films were targeted for adult audiences and showed the mermaid character similar to Mako Mermaids or Aquamarine: an outsider to human society whose innocence and otherworldly charm makes her stand out and makes the male lead fall for her. They usually were also an allegory to the changing views of women in society, pushing for more independent women who are free-spirited, independent and strong minded.

At the end of the day, Disney's The Little Mermaid continued that storyline very well. I think the issue was that because it was an animated movie aimed for a broader audience, people simplified it to mean mermaids=childish, and therefore most media following 1989 is purely for kids. Mainstream adult or even teen studios lost interest in adult-oriented mermaids (which is a shame).

2) the second point I'd like to make is that not every mermaid film features a "mermaid". Sometimes the mermaids are a symbol rather than real mermaids. Sometimes they're alternative water spirits that can be interpreted as mermaids (ondines, water nymphs, sirens, etc) and therefore are not always portrayed with tails, but instead as water ghostly ladies. Most of the time it's due to the budget of the project, being either small or completely independent, and unable to afford SFX or CGI. Other times they'd use cheap tails and hide it in the dark, or not show the tail altogether. Regardless, it's common in the horror or mystery supernatural films.

Mermaids became a target demographic for kids, in the same way dinosaurs became kid stuff after Jurassic Park was released.

30 years later, the market got oversaturated. Hollywood ran out of ways to turn the story around while still keeping it original. In the 2010s you saw a form of that in horror mermaids - often slimey, evil, or monstrous. But that didn't really catch on. The truth is, as simple of a concept as it is, H2O just add water is still as long lasting because of how mundane it is; the idea of integrating mermaid elements into a regular story of regular modern humans, and making them the main characters, rather than some alienated being from down below is a lot easier to resonate with, and provides a very fresh spin on it. I think Hollywood is afraid of these sort of stories cause they're worried mermaids come across as childish. Adding a mermaid character to a mature or teen+ show (like supernatural, teen wolf, or vampire diaries) would lack the edge they wanted for their audience to have. Similarly, vampires took over the cool supernatural in the 2010s (Twilight).

I FINALLY FINISHED MY WILL X ZANE EDIT!!!

Almost reminds me of another water serpentine figure with ambiguous amounts of sentience... Was Charlotte powerful enough as a mermaid to create her very own S3 water tentacles? Oh the neurons in my brain are bubbling

Maybe Charlotte subconsciously made/invoked it. On both occasions it's made of water from the moon pool, so maybe this is a defense mechanism or something like that?

In S3 the water tentacle is alive on its own, to draw the girls to the moon pool and show them the threat that was coming, so they could protect the moon pool/source of mermaid power.