Hari Nef has some serious opinions about The Little Mermaid. Essentially, she thinks Ariel is pretty damn basic.
In a New Yorker profile of the Transparent actress and model, who also happens to be trans, she deems Ariel the "most boring Disney princess ever." Nef's reason for this decree? Well, it's simple.
"She literally gives up her voice for a vagina," Nef said, putting a new enlightened spin on the Disney classic.
Whether you agree with Nef or not, this isn't really an unfair assessment. Ariel does make a deal with Ursula to trade her voice for legs and the opportunity to fall in love with Prince Eric. It's to be assumed that those new legs of Ariel's definitely come with a vagina.
It's safe to say that no one would call Nef boring, however. The model turned actress got Hollywood's attention playing Gittel on Transparent, a trans ancestor of Maura Pfefferman (played by Jeffrey Tambor).
In fact, Transparent creator Jill Soloway calls Nef, who was the first openly transgender woman to get a worldwide modeling contract, her It Girl.
“I remember marveling at how she fills a frame — her face and her posture, but also how her energy naturally engaged every subject and object within that frame," Soloway, who met Nef through her sister, told The New Yorker. "I think this is something that maybe Warhol felt for Sedgwick, Demy for Deneuve, Allen for Keaton. I found my ‘it’ girl.”
Despite being declared an It Girl, Nef, who returns to Transparent for season 3, doesn't want people to think of her success as a total victory for trans people everywhere.
Nef, a trans advocate, told the magazine that a few pop culture moments don't negate the anti-trans laws like North Carolina's bathroom bill or the staggering numbers of trans-phobic hate crimes.
“There isn’t a transmoment,” she said. “There were zero, and now there are 10 to 15. That’s not a moment. If anyone’s having a moment, it’s white cis men.”
“It’s just a presence where there was an absence," she added. "We deserve so much more.”
Season 3 of Transparent starts streaming on Amazon September 23.
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