Some songs in the upcoming The Little Mermaid remake may sound a little different for fans of the original animated film.
That’s because songs like “Kiss the Girl” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” went through some lyrical revisions before making the final cut.
Composer Alan Menken, who wrote the music for the 1989 film and worked on the remake, explained that the updated lyrics reflect a more modern Disney princess.
“There are some lyric changes in ‘Kiss the Girl’ because people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that [Prince Eric] would, in any way, force himself on [Ariel],” he told Vanity Fair.
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He continued, “We have some revisions in ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ regarding lines that might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn, even though Ursula is clearly manipulating Ariel to give up her voice.”
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It was all a part of modernizing the film, which star Halle Bailey has said “changed its perspective of just [Ariel] wanting to leave the ocean for a boy.”
“It’s way bigger than that. It’s about herself, her purpose, her freedom, her life and what she wants,” she told Variety.
As for how Jodi Benson, The Little Mermaid‘s original Ariel, feels about all of the changes, she says she’s totally on board.
“We’re talking about starting our [voiceover] sessions in ’86,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s 2023, so we have to grow, we have to learn, we have to be aware of our surroundings.”
Jodi added that “we’ve got to be aware of our growth as humans and what’s important now and what maybe isn’t as important.”
“Things change. We’ve got to roll with that…But you’ve got to have growth. It’s very important to stay relevant with where we are, what’s going on around us. We need to be aware,” she said.
Jodi shared that she believes that director Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca “have done a beautiful job of doing that” while “still paying tribute and honor to our original film.”
“So the adjustments and the fine-tuning that they needed to do, it was a must, but it was done in a beautiful way, and I’m very, very thrilled with it,” Jodi concluded.
You can read all that Jodi had to share here.
