Illusgaytion by Rob Wilson
Reporting by Sam Bolen

Off-season Coney Island boasts a run-down chic vibe perfect for chaste walks that end as tussles on the sand. Mere steps from Nathan’s Hotdogs and The Cyclone, all manner of man’s folly washes ashore. This spring, one longtime reader happened upon that treasure we’ve all hoped might one day drift our way: a message in a bottle. Finding the content difficult to parse, they brought it to The InQueery, where our crack team of cunning linguists deciphered what has become widely known as “An Open Letter from the Mermaids to the Queer Community.”

“We’re lucky their letter found its way to us,” said our chief philologist Tripp Silver. “They’ve been holding their breath on these issues for too long.”

Find our full transcription below:

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DEAR QUEERS:

We know your Pride month approaches. Four poppers-soaked weeks of Madonna remixes and rainbow pinnies will culminate in your diva and drag icons hoisted atop glittering flatbed trucks to creep down your main…oh what IS the word…street. However, despite queering the folklore of every human culture since time immemorial, we won’t be there.

We are the Merfolk DBA the Mermaids. After decades relegated to forgettable cameos and dead-eyed Disney-fication, we are asking, nay, demanding that you make us part of your world.

We are the Original Gay Icon. Every culture that ever set eyes on the ocean has obsessed over us. Our likeness graces everything from ship figureheads to posters for shitty Hulu shows. Fleet week? We invented stalking sailors. Your fave Hansie Andersen wrote her little story after getting SPURNED BY A STR8 BOI. Remember, it didn’t always end with an animated erection at a seaside wedding, but with a sadness so immense that our girl dissolves into cold foam. Speaking of cold foam: Unclench that coffee claw. See that Starbucks bitch? MERMAID.

Don’t even try to sell us your endless remakes of The Little Mermaid as representation. The title is infantilizing and the animation is reductive. What kind of name is Ariel for a fish, anyway?

It’s time you get serious about fins on film. Can you name the last truly good mermaid movie? Rotten Tomatoes shows pages of unreviewed, unstreamable Mermaid films. (The Lure supposedly has full-frontal cloaca? If only we had a Criterion log-in). No 40th-anniversary screenings of Splash can make up for our cavalcade of embarrassing cameos: the silent bimbos snogging Robin Williams, the silent fuckfish of Robert Pattinson’s nightmares, the screaming hags trapped in a magic pond by the only British homosexual who understands them. Any of you Disney Adults have an Emma Roberts in Aquamarine lewk at the ready? We’ve seen your Hinge profiles: We know The Thirteenth Year made you gay.

In a deeply fishy move, the film you actually titled MERMAIDS comes with a cruel catch…IT’S NOT ABOUT MERMAIDS. The audacity of giving us Cher AND Winona AND Baby Christina Ricci with only ONE scene of Cher in a Mermaid COSTUME! It’s erasure. It’s a queer bait and switch. It’s honestly…camp perfection? Seriously, Cher is serving exclusively foods on a stick. Want to come down and watch it?

Don’t even get us started on your musical tributes.  We gave you the myth of the siren and you gave us…Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” video? A lesser Lady Gaga alter ego pelted with eggs? A ska song…by Train…with a music video about (if only we could forget the word)…football? No wonder we’ve been singing, each to each. Chappell Roan had our attention until we learned she’s living with “roommates.” Yawn. At least Florence Welch is doing the work, but her “Mermaids” got buried on the deluxe edition of Dance Fever. How do you sleep knowing the best you’ll ever do is Ethel Merman?

As reparation, we could drain you with some FinDom scheme, but your money gets soggy and crypto is boiling our home. Instead, we ask only for what we’ve granted many a hapless human: three wishes.

1. Mermaids on Display

We want creative control over The Mermaid Parade. No more Burning Man for BFAs. The entire parade must be REAL merfolk and must be rerouted from the boardwalk to the water. You can watch from shore. (btw, If you’d like us at your other parade you must provide slip-on legs, free of charge. We will not be swimming up the Hudson. Yucko.)

2. Mermaids on Screen

Some of us are adults and want to see real stories. Consider:

MERMAYOR: Mermaid runs for Mayor of a seaside town and wins, against all odds.

MERMAID IN MANHATTAN: the J.Lo movie, except she cleans the East River.

MER OF EASTTOWN: We’ve seen what Kate Winslet can do in the ocean. We want we want moooooore!

3. Mermaids on Repeat

We want our Siren Song granted Padam Padam status for all of Pride. We promise once you hear it you won’t want to listen to anything else ever again—literally!

(Also, okay this is more than three, but do you have a Blu-ray copy of Mermaids (1984)? Streaming is, ironically, pretty tough down here.)

We’re counting on you, Queers. Don’t do us dirty like you’ve done the ocean. Speaking up for underrepresented folk who want to be in more than one movie franchise is simple. It won’t cost much. Just your voice.

We remain undersea, under siege, & undersigned,

The Belittled Mermaids

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We at The InQueery are Prufrocked. The mermaids are singing to us and we are listening. Talks are already underway to expand our Aqueerium to include a Mermaid Spa, where the queer community can volunteer and cater to Merfolk, offering them the diva worship they deserve.

Our Conclusion: It’s time we tip the scales of justice.

Queer Rating: Cher yelling, “Snap out of it!” but this time she’s slapping us.