No dead mermaids: Netflix MerPeople a thrilling look into the secret world of professional mermaids

Juliette Sivertsen is Stuff’s Travel Editor and a certified mermaid.

COMMENT: The first rule of mermaid school – no dead mermaids.

It’s a fitting name for the premier episode of Netflix’s new doco mini-series, MerPeople, an inside look into the alluring and misunderstood world of real life professional mermaids, and the dangers of the activity.

As a certified mermaid – yep, you read that correctly – I was always going to be reeled into any new series featuring some of my favourite merfolk who I follow on social media. I anticipated a reasonable amount of Dance Moms-esque drama and was curious to know how they were going to portray this unique world. Would it focus on eccentric personalities? Or more on the artistry?

If you think MerPeople is for children – think again. While it showcases a diverse cast of mer-people who entertain crowds and kids for a living, it’s quick to reveal both the dream and the drama.

“Mermaiding, at its core, is a danger art,” the voiceover tells us in the trailer. No sooner is the audience introduced to the opening sequence of magical underwater artistry, the harsh reality of this mystical activity begins. Mermaids and mermen fresh out of a performing aquarium, screaming in pain due to chlorine in their eyes. Eye infections are an occupational hazard as a mermaid. High drama.

Every time I’ve ever written about mermaiding on Stuff, readers are quick to point out how dangerous it is to swim with your legs confined into a giant stocking. Perhaps that is why MerPeople makes no bones about the dangers involved. The show highlights health and safety risks such as chronic ear and sinus infections, hypothermia, the physical strength required, as well as the gruelling training regimes of breath hold work while swimming underwater with dumbbells, all while trying to create a form of art.

“The reality of mermaiding is it’s physically very demanding,” explains Mermaid Alba from the Circus Siren Pod. “You’re weighed down by the tail and the water, unable to breathe, you are blind underwater, you are deaf underwater, and your job is to make it look easy and magical.”

With health and safety warnings out of the way, we then get into the heart of the show – the warm-the-cockles stories of real people who have overcome difficulties and personal hurdles through becoming a mermaid diver. They all have mermaid names and personas – but who are they and how did they become underwater artists?

We’ve got Mermaid Sparkles, who grew up with a dad in prison and found an escape underwater. Then there’s the story of one of my personal favourites, merman Eric Ducharme, known as The MerTailor to his 241k Instagram followers, who learnt to overcome tourettes through mermaid diving and now has an incredible business making luxury mermaid tails. We also hear from Mermaid Che Monique, who founded the Society of Fat Mermaids to create body inclusive spaces and reclaim the word ‘fat’. The underlying message is clear, mermaiding is for everyone.

MerPeople goes some way to try to showcase the serious side of mermaids and portray them as professional circus artists rather than outlandish characters. While there certainly is a corny side – ‘’Shello!” is the official mermaid greeting – there’s the roller coaster of gruelling audition processes for those who want to make a career out of it, and the personal anecdotes from mermaids past and present.

My favourite is a throwback to the 1960s and a nostalgic look back at the Weeki Wachee Mermaids of Florida, before hearing from the now much greyer and older mermaids themselves.

“It was the most magical time of my life,” says Arlene Brooks, as we see her drive around in a golf buggy through what appears to be her retirement village. “I would do anything to go back and be in that fairytale.” It’s hard not to be captivated by the utter joy of a clearly magical time of her life. It’s enough to make me want to quit my job and swim off to mermaid school and find a new career in an aquarium.

The imagery moves from beautiful slow motion underwater videography of elegant limbs and tails rolling and twisting, then to the terrifying reality such as crowds of screaming children crying for a mermaid at their birthday party. The beauty and the agony, the fantasy and the reality.

Mermaid lore is nearly as old as time itself and transcends across cultures and ages. The release of MerPeople is likely no coincidence – on Thursday, the new Little Mermaid movie drops, featuring Halle Bailey as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

And, with dive agency PADI continuing to push its mermaid certifications to encourage more people to connect with the ocean, mermaids look set to be rooted in modern society as much as they are in folklore. One could say it is…mer-mazing.