Why The Little Mermaid Remake Made Ursula's Makeup Imperfect On Purpose

It's a well-known piece of trivia that Ursula the Sea Witch (Pat Carroll), the villain in the 1989 film version of "The Little Mermaid," was designed after famed drag queen Divine. This fact was shared on the film's DVD commentary track. Divine, a.k.a. Harris Glenn Milstead, appeared in most of John Waters' movies up until his death in 1988, usually playing outsize, outrageous villains and filth-mongers. In the 1972 film "Pink Flamingos," Divine played Babs Johnson, the current title-holder of Filthiest Person Alive. A word of advice: don't run "The Little Mermaid" and "Pink Flamingos" as a double feature for the kids. The latter might upset them.

Divine's makeup in "Pink Flamingos" was a work of art. Divine wanted his eye makeup to be so large and ostentatious that he literally shaved his hairline back, creating a larger forehead "canvas" on which he could work. Divine's eye makeup consisted of large, angled black eyebrows, undergirded with a field of white and eyelids that sparkled blue. This, in addition to enormous black spike-like shapes, jutting harshly out to the sides. The Babs Johnson makeup is a marvel to behold.

The animated Ursula didn't have an eyeshadow pattern that stretched to quite the same extreme, but the color scheme and general shaping were about the same. In animated form, the makeup looked more natural.

In 2023, director Rob Marshall remade the 1989 version of "The Little Mermaid," with Melissa McCarthy playing Ursula in live-action. The new film's makeup designer Peter Swords King recently talked to Allure Magazine about adapting Divine back into live-action, and how asymmetry was an important makeup choice for the Ursula character.

Peter Swords King started by saying that he wanted his version of Ursula to skew away from the drag queen aesthetic that initially inspired the animated Ursula. He explained:

"Although inspired by drag queens, I didn't want her to look like a drag queen. [...] I wanted it to still be Melissa, and I think she liked the fact that it was still her, so we could see it was her."

King also addressed some backlash to his designs that he encountered on social media. When the first previews and posters of Ursula were first released to the public, many fans noticed that her eyebrows were imperfect. This was unusual for Disney, whose productions are usually scrubbed squeaky clean and polished to be ultra-slick. King went on record saying that the asymmetry of Ursula's eyebrows was an intentional design choice. After all, wouldn't Ursula the Sea Witch be applying her own makeup? She's a half-octopus outcast. She likely doesn't have "a makeup guy." In King's words: 

"If you look at her eyebrows, they're not perfectly identical. [...] No one's eyebrows are perfectly identical unless they're plucked or threaded to an inch. I don't like super-manicured eyebrows. It starts looking a bit forced. [...] We thought it would be funny if her makeup was bad and that she'd done it herself. We tried to smudge the lips and it didn't work because it was just too bad. So the only thing I did was raise her eyebrows slightly differently."

The look gave Melissa McCarthy a "cocked eyebrow" look that added to the sassy nature of the character.

Peter Swords King also pointed out the practical considerations when applying gigantic makeup. If he wanted to make the eyebrows as large and garish as Divine, it would have taken hours. (It seems that no one can recreate the makeup that Divine created on the fly in the early 1970s.) King noted: 

"If I'd been doing a drag look, it would have been three hours — nearly an hour on the eyebrows alone."

It seems Melissa McCarthy's entire makeup job only took about 90 minutes. The general vibe King wanted to go for was a boozed-up 1950 soap opera maven with "a cigarette in one hand and a martini glass in the other." One might note that the live-action Ursula seems to be wearing a cocktail dress. Sadly, the dictates of modern Disney would not have allowed for such contraband props. The drinking and smoking scenes from Disney films were halted quite a number of years ago. 

The Allure article also pointed out that King wanted a conceivably natural look for his undersea witch, so the purple skin of Ursula's animated counterpart had to be toned down considerably. Expensive blushes from Tom Ford, MAC, and other high-end makeup manufacturers were used instead of the purple pancake of a generation ago. This means that McCarthy was given the star treatment. This was a far cry from the Ursula makeup kits one might see at your local Spirit Halloween store.