Living the mermaid life
Mermaids walk among us. Which is odd, since they don’t have legs. Ali Weinstein’s charming documentary follows a variety of humans who are living the mermaid lifestyle, in settings as diverse as Sacramento’s mermaid- themed Dive Bar and Florida’s Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, where mer- formers sometimes undertake 35-metre deep dives.
“It is the most whimsical job,” says one of the Dive Bar employees. But as Weinstein finds out, many mer- people use their enthusiasm to help them deal with abuse, heartache and loss in their lives. “I feel safe; I feel invincible” is a common refrain from those who don the tail.
Almost worth her own documentary is Julz, who was born a human male but transitioned to a woman, and sometimes to a mermaid as well. The film doesn’t overplay why a transgender person might also relate to the mer- body transformation, but Julz sums it up nicely when she notes that when it comes to mermaids, “Tail down, they’re all the same.”
The doc runs a brief 76 minutes, meaning t here was certainly time to add something about the history of mermaids; instead, we get little more than a taste of ancient Russian folklore. But there is a fun aside with Thom Shouse, who worked on Daryl Hannah’s tail for the 1984 film Splash; he continues to work in the narrow but important tail- making industry, and has even coined a term for the reactions of mermaid aficionados when they first put on fins; a “mer- gasm.” ∂∂∂