I rented Disney’s Tangled the other day. I wanted to see how Rapunzel compared to some of the other Disney princesses. Would she be a feisty adventurer like Ariel, a perpetual victim like Cinderella, or another Princess “I am legitimately angry to be treated as a prize to be won rather than a human being, and will completley undermine my point by acting as though my life is as hard as a starving man living on the street!” Jasmine?
I couldn’t tell. From the trailer, it seemed as though the movie wasn’t even about Rapunzel. It looked to be a movie about a charming rogue of a thief who happened to fall into the clutches of a lot of blonde hair that happened to have a girl attached to it: Link.
Also noteworthy? The original movie was titled Rapunzel, but apparently Disney changed it to Tangled because they thought a movie with a girl’s name in the title would alienate boys. (As we know, boys and men are a criminally underserved audience who have no movies catered to them ever.)
The trailer combined with the title change did not give me high hopes for this film. I have issues with many of the Disney princesses, but at least most of them get to be in the titles of their own damn movies (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas).
Then I watched the movie and was pleasantly surprised.
The charming rogue of a thief, Flynn Rider, is a prominent character in the movie, as the trailer suggests. He has Character Development and a Journey and everything. But the movie is still primarily about Rapunzel – Rapunzel’s struggle to find a balance between following her dreams and being a dutiful daughter, Rapunzel learning how to survive in a world after living in captivity for eighteen years, Rapunzel conquering her fears of the unknown, Rapunzel learning how to bargain and haggle into getting what she wants.
Rapunzel as written is a brave, resourceful, caring young woman who longs to experience life to its fullest. Mother Gothel views her as nothing but a piece of hair with healing powers that happens to have a girl attached to it – which is exactly how Rapunzel was characterized in the movie trailer. In the actual movie, Rapunzel is so much more than that.
Of course, a love story has to develop between Rapunzel and Flynn (whose real name is Eugene), but I found their developing romance very refreshing for a Disney movie. In every other Disney movie with a love story, the male lead has a “Wow, she’s hot” moment where he’s thunderstruck by the princess’s beauty. When Rapunzel and Flynn first meet, Flynn is too annoyed about being captured to even notice Rapunzel’s beauty (even though she is, of course, beautiful). He doesn’t fall in love with her because she’s pretty. He falls in love with her after they spend time together and he gets to know her as the gutsy, quick-thinking, kind, spirited person she is.
I also love that Rapunzel and Flynn take turns saving each other’s lives. I’m a complete sucker for romantic movies where both halves of the couple get to rescue each other.
Tangled is a sweet, enjoyable movie about an admirable young woman and the man who learns to love her and appreciate her for exactly who she is. It’s a real shame that the Disney marketers felt the need to promote the movie as a story about a cocky asshole because they thought boys wouldn’t see it otherwise.
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Just saw Tangled as well. Can’t really argue with you on that.
On the other hand, though:
That sounds good from the outside. Might not hold up, though.
Not if you think about it, anyway….
Actually, I have thought about it, and I still disagree: http://funnyfeminist.com/2010/12/29/the-little-mermaid-a-surprisingly-feminist-text/.
I can’t take any criticism seriously that ignores a key plot point of the movie. Ariel wanted to be a human BEFORE she ever laid eyes on Eric. BEFORE!
I do enjoy much of what the Nostalgia Chick does, though, even when I disagree with her. The ending of that bit was especially funny.
The movie was extra-cute. And Rapunzel is one of the most enjoyable characters of Disney ever. She looked and acted quite realistically… apart of, you know, several meters of hair.
P.S. The short hairdo at the end of the movie? Squee!
I loved the short hair, too. Flynn/Eugene could make quite a career as a stylist! He gives her a cute short haircut with one quick swipe of a mirror shard.
I just rented the movie. There were scenes in the trailer that wern’t in the movie. Like where she throws him out of the window still tied to the chair.
I thought the title was cute.
As a man, I agree with you about Flynn not starting out as a heavy breather. I also like the part that he was willing to give up his life rather than let her be enslaved.
The quality of the animation was very good.
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After seeing “Tangled” for the second time, I decided to add it to my animation collection.
As I said in my earlier post, I thought the animation was great.
There were some interesting contrasting cultural ideas in some of the scenes. In some cultures cutting a woman’s hair is considered punishment or a badge of dishonor. But, when Eugene cuts Rapunzel’s hair it becomes an act of liberation, even though he believes he’s signing his own death-warrant by doing-so. There is also a metaphor about how power can enslave the person who possesses it.
I also liked the scene in the village book store. It presented her as a young woman with a hungry mind.
On the negative side I did notice a few countinty errors.
I loved the movie as well and I think it’s one of Disney’s best. It had all the things a really really good Disney movie does (strong heroine who takes control of her own life and has a dream/goal that doesn’t consist entirely of getting a man, which she achieves using her own strengths, maybe also with the help of some friends. Also, the romance was almost incidental to the main point of the movie, which I love and I also love guy saves girl, girl saves guy right back).
There’s one little thing that bugs me though, more and more since I first thought of it. That would be Repunzal’s line while Eugene was dying in her arms. “You were mine” (In response to his “You were my new dream”, which in itself I loved and think may be one of the most perfect declarations of love, especially given what he’d just done for her, and the way he had been characterised at the beginning). I know he was dying in her arms, after he’d just sacrificed his life for her life/happiness, and maybe I’m heartless to wish she hadn’t said it. I just wish they could have given her a line that expressed her love for him, without ignoring the fact that she had some pretty heavy things going on in her life before he showed up again, and that I really think given those things her new dream would have been something along the lines of escaping Gothel and finding her family. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the movie was brilliant and this is a case of one tiny thing really really bugging me because I perceive it as the one thing that is standing between this movie and perfection, in terms of how they portrayed the love story part anyway. This is totally just all my view, and I also see how sweet the line is.
I love romance more than anything else (though you wouldn’t know it from this comment) but I am getting to the point where I wish Disney movies could change it up and do more movies where the romance part was completely incidental to the unrelated main plot (like Mulan – I think that movie did an excellent job of this). Only because there are plenty of movies and stories just or mainly about romance out there, and I think romance can be even more fulfilling and powerful when it is portrayed as a natural part of a person’s life that develops in the background to other more epic stuff rather than an epic world-shattering even that is the main/sole point of a person’s life/journey.
No, I’m with you about that line. I cringed at it a little, too. And I think that has to do more with the larger cultural context than the movie itself.
Looking at the larger cultural context, how many times have we seen stories where women sacrificed their lives for romance, or put romance above every other thing in their lives? Far, far too many times.
In the context of the movie itself, it’s really not a problem that Rapunzel tells him “you were mine.” Because we know it’s not entirely true. It’s just a way she expresses her love for him before he dies, and it fits the moment. If we didn’t have the larger cultural context in the back of our minds, I doubt it would have bothered us at all, you know?
It’s the same reason that I’m annoyed by the final narration, where he mentions that after asking and asking and asking to be married, “I finally said yes,” but she teases him, and he corrects her that [i]he[/i] was the one who actually proposed marriage. In the context of the movie itself, it makes sense that Eugene would be the one to propose marriage. He wants a new chapter in his life and he loves her, so he’s ready to settle down and be with her. Rapunzel, on the other hand, has JUST gained independence and JUST been reunited with her real family, so of course she wants a little more time to be with them and discover herself before she gets married. In the larger cultural context, though, men are always the ones who are expected to do the proposing, so it’s annoying from that perspective.
I agree with your entire last paragraph (and I liked Mulan for the same reason you did). Romantic comedy is probably my favorite genre when it’s done well and my least favorite when it’s done poorly. Have you seen Going the Distance? I really liked it as a rom-com because even though the romance was at the center of the story, you got the sense that the two characters had rich and fulfilling lives independent of each other.
Yes, it’s because of the larger cultural context that we can’t fully enjoy an otherwise touching moment. That sucks. With the ending narration though, I know that men are traditionally expected to propose and movies which subvert the norm in things like this are great but I didn’t find the fact that he asked her as annoying as the line I mentioned mostly because if she had asked him repeatedly and he had said no each time like he said, that would have been pretty jerky of him, and because of what you mentioned about it making more sense for him to propose because of where she was in her life.
I haven’t seen Going the Distance but I’ve been meaning to. Love Actually is my favourite romantic comedy, I could go on for days about how real and touching that movie is.