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Mermaids x chiobus

When a mermaid school launched in Singapore, it seemed the subculture would stay small and quirky. Instead, merfolk seem to have found a home on our shores. Last month, we got our first national mermaid pageant. And this month, you could watch mermaids swim alongside manatees for Halloween— a good-natured, PG rendition of the classic seaman’s fantasy.

Traditionally, mermaids have tended to signal a kind of sensual danger. Half shapely nymph and half primal beast, they seemed purpose-built to lure our ancestors astray. Think of the creatures who circle Ulysses the Victorian era painting, tempting him to abandon ship. Or of the mermaids carvings that adorned churches in medieval times, as visual reminders of sin.

But in this age of child-friendly, Disneyfied fairytales, I would say that mermaids mean something else to us— something that more deftly explains their appeal here in Singapore. They have become, in a word,

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To explain this, we have to dive into the surprising world of Cute Studies. The field has its own weird pantheon of thinkers— from scholars of modern literature to Kumamon fans, to up-and-coming experts in cognitive psychology.

Across the board, though, everyone agrees on one thing: that cuteness is all about weakness— “an eroticization of powerlessness”. [1] Small dogs, toddlers, and Hello Kitty MacDonalds toys seem cute to us, precisely because they are so helpless. Small and soft, they’re vulnerable to our well-meaning bursts of violence. Think of the urge you might feel to squash a fat Gudetama plushie, or pinch your baby cousin’s cheek.

This cuteness/weakness link is so innate that it’s even built into language. Once upon a time, in 11th century Japan, ‘kawaii’ was a term that described something pitiable. Its French equivalent, ‘mignon’, gave rise to our English word for a weak and downtrodden flunkey, ‘minion’.[2]

Unsurprisingly, the link also surfaces in feminine stereotypes. Instagram, for instance, is pretty much the domain of cute girl-next-door types, whose sex appeal extends from an intricate latticework of physical weakness and symbolic domination.

We’re talking about that girl who climbs to the top of the insta-queen pecking order by angling her body in every photo so that she appears tinier, bijou, prettier-than-thou. Princess of the likes.

Or that girl who flaunts her power over her boyfriend by posting photos of him spoon-feeding her brunch/ carrying heavy shit for her/ dutifully blow-drying her hair post-shower, as she sprawls on the bed playing Candy Crush on her iPhone (“baby helped me cuz i was so tired today... i’m such a lucky girl”). [4]

The point is that weakness has become a kind of power drill in the toolkit of Girly Dominion. Weakness makes us cute, and cuteness helps us to win. At her most powerful, the SG Girl (TM) is a vulnerable creature, lovely in her need to be protected.

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Back to the mermaids.

What is a mermaid to us exactly? Under the smiling eye of Walt Disney, they've gone from the scaly-scary creatures of old to fresh citizens of the kawaii kingdom. Think of how much Ariel resembles an infant, with her manga-doll eyes and oversized head. Or of how cutely/ helplessly she stumbles on land, foal-legged and voiceless.

Her story lays out the narrative arc that we see all the time on Insta: a strong girl (/fish) plays with the appearance of being cute and weak in pursuit of bigger prizes. Like social currency, or upward mobility. Prince Eric. The kingdom/power/glory.

A mermaid is - in many ways - exactly like your average social media chiobu. And maybe that's the art of mermaiding has become such a hit here, à la The Singapore Mermaid School. Watching the mermaids and manatees perform for Halloween, I see a blend of cute that we are already familiar with: softness on the outside, core muscles underneath.

Who wouldn't want a heart of steel wrapped up in all that pretty pastel?

Art and words by Tjoa Shze Hui

[1] Sianne Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories

[4] Crystal Abidin hits the nail on the head: ‘Agentic Cute (^.^): Pastiching East Asian Cute in Influencer Commerce’, in the East Asian Journal of Pop Culture

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