Scaled for Success

Description

Emerging from the confluence of Greco-Roman mythology and regional folklore, the mermaid has been an enduring motif in Western culture since the medieval period. It has also been disseminated more widely, initially through Western trade and colonisation and, more recently, through the increasing globalisation of media products and outlets.

Scaled for Success offers the first detailed overview of the mermaids dispersal outside Europe. Complementing previous studies of the interrelationship between the mermaid and Mami Wata spirit in West Africa, this volume addresses the mermaids presence in a range of Middle Eastern, Asian, Australian, Latin American and North American contexts. Individual chapters identify the manner in which the mermaid has been variously syncretised and/or resignified in contexts as diverse as Indian public statuary, Thai cinema and Coney Islands annual Mermaid Parade.

Rather than lingering as a relic of a bygone age, the mermaid emerges as a versatile, dynamic and, above all, polyvalent figure. Her prominence exemplifies the manner in which contemporary media-lore has extended the currency of established folkloric figures in new and often surprising ways. Analysing aspects of religious symbolism, visual art, literature and contemporary popular culture, this copiously illustrated volume profiles an intriguing and highly diverse phenomenon.

Philip Hayward is editor of the journal Shima and holds adjunct professor positions at the University of Technology Sydney and at Southern Cross University. His previous volume, Making a Splash: Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20th and 21st Century Audiovisual Media, was published by John Libbey Publishing/Indiana University Press in 2017.

Sujets

• Video
• Art
• Digital
• Film
• Cinéma
• Cinema

Informations

• Publié par: John Libbey Publishing
• Date de parution: 26 juillet 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780861969517
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

SCALED FOR SUCCESS
Dedicated to Alison and to our year in Fairlight .
Front cover image - model: Isis Blue Fire; photographer: Daria Marienko.
SCALED FOR SUCCESS
The Internationalisation of the Mermaid
Principally authored and edited by Philip Hayward
with
Persephone Braham
Nettrice R. Gaskins
Sarah Keith
Sung-Ae Lee
Lisa Milner
Manal Shalaby
Pan Wang
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Scaled for Success
The Internationalisation of the Mermaid
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 0 86196 732 2 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0 86196 948 7 (ebook-MOBI)
ISBN: 0 86196 951 7 (ebook-EPUB)
ISBN: 0 86196 952 4 (ebook-EPDF)
Published by
John Libbey Publishing Ltd , 205 Crescent Road, East Barnet, Herts EN4 8SB, United Kingdom e-mail: [e-mail] ; web site: www.johnlibbey.com
Distributed Worldwide by
Indiana University Press , Herman B Wells Library-350, 1320 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. www.iupress.indiana.edu
2018 Copyright John Libbey Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Unauthorised duplication contravenes applicable laws.
Printed and bound in the United States of America..
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Philip Hayward
Chapter 1
The Middle Eastern Mermaid: Between Myth and Religion
Manal Shalaby
Chapter 2
Matsya Fabulism: Hindu mythologies, Mermaids and syncretism in India and Thailand
Philip Hayward
Chapter 3
Japan: The Mermaidisation of the Ningyo
Philip Hayward
Chapter 4
Legend of the Blue Sea : Mermaids in South Korean folklore and popular culture
Sarah Keith and Sung-Ae Lee
Chapter 5
From Dugongs to Sinetrons : Syncretic Mermaids in Indonesian Culture
Philip Hayward
Chapter 6
Changelings, Conformity and Difference: Dysebel and the Sirena in Filipino Popular Culture
Philip Hayward
Chapter 7
Millennial M ir ny : Mermaids in 21 st Century Chinese Culture
Philip Hayward and Pan Wang
Chapter 8
Song of the Sirenas : Mermaids in Latin America and the Caribbean
Persephone Braham
Chapter 9
Swimming Ashore: Mermaids in Australian public culture
Philip Hayward
Chapter 10
Mama Wata Remixed: The Mermaid in Contemporary African-American Culture
Nettrice R. Gaskins
Chapter 11
Shoreline Revels: Perversity, Polyvalence and Exhibitionism at Coney Island s Mermaid Parade
Philip Hayward and Lisa Milner
Bibliography
Chronological catalogue of audiovisual productions featuring mermaids and mermen referenced in the volume
Index
Acknowledgements
T hanks to John Libbey for giving the go-ahead for this volume hot on the heels of its predecessor - Making a Splash: Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20 th and 21 st Century Audiovisual Media - published in April 2017. Thanks also to Adam Grydeh j for organising the Mermaids, Maritime Folklore and Modernity conference in Copenhagen in October 2017, which connected me to some of the authors who have contributed to this volume.
I am grateful to the State Library of New South Wales and the University of Technology Sydney library for their efficiency and to the staff of Manly and Waverley public library local history sections for their positive and proactive support. Thanks to Alison Rahn for various assistances, to Hannah Murphy for diligent proofing, to Lucy Guenot for the front cover design and to Isis Blue Fire for permission to reproduce her mermaid cosplay image on the cover.
My parents - Ruth and Roy - were, as ever, intrigued by and enthusiastic about my latest publication project. I trust they find it of interest.
Note : Every effort has been made to identify the original sources and obtain necessary permissions to reproduce photographic material used in this volume. Any inquiries on matters related to this should be addressed to the author.
Figure 1
Introduction
The Mermaid Abroad
Philip Hayward
August 2014 - Nkandla, South Africa. Following sustained criticism for misappropriating 246 million rand to improve his private residence, President Jacob Zuma s reputation was further tarnished by reports that he had used witchcraft against his opponents during the Apartheid era. 1 Another, even more sensational, story appeared soon after. Combining the opulence theme of the former and the supernatural theme of the latter, a report alleged that he had kept two mermaids in his private swimming pool in order to use their magical power to his advantage (Nchee 2014). The story was accompanied by a photo purporting to depict the corpses of the mermaids in question, supposedly found after a fire at his residence ( Figure 1 , above). While there are some folkloric accounts of mermaid-like creatures in South Africa, 2 the figures in the photo were more akin to Western examples of the species and, more precisely, to a number of recent cinematic representations of them. This was unsurprising, given that the photo actually showed two mermaids made as props for the Hollywood film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall, 2011). 3 While the accusation that Zuma had used mermaid power was greeted with considerable scepticism in South Africa, it illustrates the extent to which contemporary cinema and television have established the mermaid as a figure that can be inserted into various national discourses and contexts. 4 As this Introduction - and the volume as a whole - demonstrates, the nature of such insertions is multifaceted and its outcomes are varied .
* * *
O ver the last two centuries the mermaid has become increasingly standardised in Western culture, with a form that comprises the upper half of a (usually young and attractive) female human and the lower half of a fish. This volume analyses the introduction of this figure (and, to markedly a lesser extent, her male counterpart, the merman) into a range of non-European cultures and the various patterns of diffusion, syncretisation and/or innovation that have occurred. Individual chapters contextualise these processes with regard to local traditions that existed prior to the introduction of Western mermaids that have been variously complementary to and/or overlaid by the new figure. Reflecting this, individual chapters address:
Transnational cultural spaces , such as India and Thailand (which are considered together as a result of the influence of Hindu mythology upon their cultures), the Middle East (with its shared Islamic heritage) and the Hispanic cultural sphere of Latin America.
Individual countries , such as Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and The Philippines.
Subsets of national cultures - in the form of two chapters addressing aspects of United States (US) culture - the nature of mermaid/Mami Wata imagery in contemporary African American culture and the development of Coney Island s mermaid parades. 5
The temporal bases of the case studies vary from those that encompass extended historical periods, through to more specifically contemporary ones (such as Coney Island s mermaid parades, which commenced in 1983). This variety facilitates discussion of processes of adoption, syncretisation and/or innovation that both precede and include the advent of 20 th Century audiovisual mass media and their global reach.
The case studies presented in this volume reflect the highly specific brief that I gave to contributing authors. It should be acknowledged from the outset that inflexible taxonomies of mythical, folkloric and/or media-loric entities are in themselves problematic, 6 let alone taxonomies that attempt to compare figures from different cultural contexts. In this regard, this volume s focus on mermaid-themed imagery has required that its authors approach their material through this lens. In various cases, this has led to what might (in another instance) be considered as somewhat arbitrary extractions of particular aspects of complex mythological/folkloric systems. To that end, such issues are flagged as clearly as possible when they arise.
This project was conceived in tandem with that of my previous publication, Making a Splash (2017a), in which I identified that cinema, television and online video have provided a major platform for the representations of mermaids in Western culture. In the Introduction to that volume I made the case that a particular set of psychoanalytic paradigms are particularly illuminating for the understanding and analysis of mermaids (and mermen) in Western cultures, the symbolic charge they carry and the polyvalence they exhibit. This focus arose from and was apparent within a wide range of the material surveyed in the earlier volume, much of which addressed aspects of sexuality and sexual perception. Before proceeding, it is useful to return to and summarise these aspects.
In Cultural Studies at least, polyvalency refers to the potential for multiple associations and combinations of elements to accrue to a text and/or a cultural entity. There is also a complementary aspect that has been articulated in postcolonial discourse with regard to the multiple identities and identity affiliations available to human subjects in different (and often overlapping) contexts. Mermaids (and mermen) may be considered to be polyvalent in a number of ways, all of which are premised on the symbolic aspect of their physical forms. Often mischaracterised as hybrids, mermaids (and mermen) are anything but coherent entities resulting from the blending of heterogeneous elements. In physical terms they conjoin two pre-existent entities (i.e. humans and fish) around a transitional midpoint and re