https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.071
Reimagining the Deep: Aquatic Archetypes, Hybrid Identities, and Oceanic Ethics in Contemporary Cinema and Beyond
ANN MARY ANIL
Post-Graduate student
St Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Irinjalakuda, Thrissur, Kerala
Abstract: For millennia, the ocean has functioned as a vast repository for the human unconscious, manifesting in maritime mythologies that oscillate between awe and terror. This study investigates the contemporary evolution of these narratives through the interdisciplinary lens of the “Blue Humanities”. This framework shifts critical attention from land-centric perspectives to the ocean as an active cultural and historical agent. By analyzing films like The Little Mermaid (2023), Luca (2021), and The Shape of Water (2017), this study explores how modern cinema transforms traditional aquatic archetypes, such as sirens and sea monsters, into symbols of hybrid identity, liminality, and social belonging. The study also employs a qualitative close-reading methodology to demonstrate that these films subvert historical tropes; rather than representing external dangers to be conquered, aquatic hybrids now embody the “inter-corporeal” nature of water, blurring boundaries between human and non-human realms. Furthermore, it also connects these fictional representations to real-life maritime legacies, including indigenous seafaring cultures and modern marine conservation efforts. It argues that Ariel’s collection of artifacts and the biological exploitation of the “Amphibian Man” mirror contemporary anxieties regarding marine debris and the ethical implications of the Anthropocene. Ultimately, this study concludes that maritime mythology is shifting from a “fear of the deep” to a “fear for the deep,” advocating for a “fluid ecology” in environmental ethics that recognizes the ocean as a shared, lived-in space essential to human identity.
Keywords: Blue Humanities, Maritime Mythology, Aquatic Archetypes, Hybridity, Oceanic Ethics
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