40 Culturally Relevant Mermaids

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Well, friends, it’s happened: the Lady Gaga fans have declared war on the Katy Perry fans. (Apparently, these are not the same people.) The beef? Only a few weeks after Gaga appeared as Yuyi the Mermaid on French TV and news spread that the character would featured in her next music video, Katy Perry tweeted a photo of herself dressed as Ariel. So the mermaid feud is on (minus, it would seem, the interest of either pop star). Now, here at Flavorpill, we’re big fans of our finned friends and will take all the pop-culture mermaids we can get. In fact, we’ve collected 40 of our favorites after the jump.

Darryl Hannah in Splash

John William Waterhouse, A Mermaid (1901)

Ann Blyth in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid

Shel Silverstein’s “The Mermaid” (covered, above, by Bobby Bare)

Project Runway winner Christian Siriano as a mermaid

Bette Midler as a mermaid

Cher, Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci in Mermaids

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid

Disney’s The Little Mermaid

Hipster Ariel

Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue

Mermaid Man, Spongebob Squarepants

Osamu Tezuka’s “Mermaid”

Mississippi Mermaid

Annette Kellerman

Esther Williams, aka “America’s Mermaid”

XTC’s “Mermaid Smiled”

Petunia, The Adventures of Pete & Pete

Donna Martin as a mermaid, Beverly Hills, 90210

Coney Island’s beloved Bambi the Mermaid

Luna’s “Mermaid Eyes”

Frank L. Baum’s The Sea Fairies

French mid-century comic-book heroine Arabelle, “the last mermaid”

Jaime Pressly as a mermaid on Charmed

The singing, dancing mermaids of Weeki Wachee

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair

Joanna Newsom’s “Colleen”

Ponyo

P.T. Barnum’s “Fiji Mermaid”

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Phosphorescent’s “The Mermaid Parade”

The O.C.‘s Mermaid Inn

Sade’s “No Ordinary Love” music video

Gemma Ward as Tamara, Queen of the Mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Starbucks mermaid

Billy Bragg and Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue

Flight of the Conchords’ “Mermaids”

The Fisherman and the Siren by Frederic Leighton (1856-58)

“Mermaid Love” by Man or Astro-Man?