For centuries, mermaids and mermen have been around to remind us there could be unknown or "parallel worlds" just beneath our ocean’s salty waters or the most dangerous storms raging wild waves. Since the 20th century's early decades, as human imagination grew wings and planes became a reality, aliens and ufos from outer space have replaced the "underwater imaginary societies" and other latter legendary beings, as embodiments of the unknown or the uncharted/mystery trails. Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast (1938) marked a significant turn point in this process of change.
From symbols of perdition and sin, representatives of unexplored worlds, mermaids have been firstly transformed and reduced into old-fashioned, slippery and somewhat exotic, “deviated” sexual symbols. Nowadays they are assumed as icons by sexuality movements and love diversity activists. Since the Babilonians' mermaid arose from the sea to teach the men the arts and sciences, since the times when Chinese and Japanese legends on sea-dragons and dragon-wives prevailed (some sort of mermaids' distant cousins...) or the martyrdom of Ulysses (tied, waxing his sailors' ears) was described, a lot has changed. But somewhere along the way the sexual liberation and Cousteau’s Calypso intervened, to transform the obstacle of a dangerous temptation into an envied award and a single mermaids' classical characteristic (their physical beauty/sexy voice) into the core trophy for liberation (or liberation itself) and a goal to achieve.
No comments:
Post a Comment