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Divine drag queen and ursula4/25/2024 ![]() It's not just her appearance that was influenced by Divine, but her personality and diction too. The original design was slightly different: for example, she had a shark tail in place of her tentacles, but with a few tweaks she would become the Ursula we know today. When the animator, Rob Minkoff, came up with a sketch that looked a lot like Divine, Ashman was inspired. When Ashman joined the production team for The Little Mermaid, the team had already begun working on sketches for Ursula. Related: The Little Mermaid: What Happened to Ariel’s Mom? As another gay man from Baltimore, Ashman was connected to Divine culturally, understanding his crude humor and exaggerated exploration of womanhood and beauty. He worked as a producer and songwriter on The Little Mermaid. Also from Baltimore, Ashman was the playwright responsible for Little Shop of Horrors Disney hired him off the back of its theatrical success. So, how did a counter-cultural figure like Divine end up inspiring even a small part of a Disney movie when most of which uphold the status quo? The link between Divine and Disney, it seems, is a man named Howard Ashman. Related: The Little Mermaid: Changes We Want to See These two early works provide a great example of the absurdity and breadth of Waters and Divine's collaborations. ![]() The latter is an assortment of seemingly random clips with a soundtrack made of radio adverts, music, and press conferences. The former follows a nanny who kidnaps girls and makes them model in front of an audience in which one member, Divine, imagines she is Jackie Kennedy reliving the JFK assassination. He told NPR that the intention behind his appearance was to be "the exact opposite of what normally would be beautiful." Waters and Divine's first collaborations were the short films Eat Your Makeup and Roman Candles. Divine's sharp and unmistakable makeup look was created by the artist Van Smith, another frequent collaborator with John Waters. ![]() He would exaggerate the size of his forehead by shaving his hairline further back, which also made room for larger eye makeup. These early projects were key in the development of Divine's iconic image. ![]()
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