Tangled
Tangled
Hmm.
Let's process, shall we?
Tangled starts slowly, with a not all that well conceived voiceover. Voiceovers have worked well for Disney in the past, especially in their fairy tale depictions - think Beauty and the Beast, The Emperor's New Groove. This time it feels tired, and not all that - what's the word I'm looking for? - Magical. And then the film gives us a rather blah singing and cleaning number from Rapunzel and the magic is just not there and I'm thinking about fleeing the film when a nice bandit shows up and then the film starts to get amusing and really rather good, with a couple of high points - a bit where thugs start singing about their dreams, and a really lovely moment where hundreds of animated lanterns sail up into the sky, and a rather nice relationship between the leads. I understand that at least one of my readers had some issues with the villain - who didn't quite seem, I'm not sure, subtle enough for me, but, whatever, but up until the last five minutes, I was quite prepared to tell everyone, ok, well, it starts slowly, but give it about ten minutes until the singing and cleaning bit is over, and this is a fun little film, if you are willing to totally ignore the big gaping plot hole of how a searching army can possibly miss an entire valley with a tower apparently less than a day away even if said valley and tower are "concealed" with a tunnel entrance covered in leaves. Didn't any of them look at a map and say, hmm, there seems to be a big hole here, let's climb over the mountain concealing the tunnel and take a look given that we're kinda searching for the heir of the throne here? And, well, a few other plot holes pop up here and there. But I digress. As said, fun little film.
Until the last five minutes.
Rapunzel is an object of desire - financial and otherwise - because of her magical, mystical hair, which glows when she sings to it and can cure all wounds and give people eternal youth. She can also use it as a rope, a weapon, and a general all around Useful Implement. Even when not glowing, it's gorgeous. If she cuts off a piece, however, that hair just becomes brown, ordinary hair, with no magic at all, as she carefully explains to Flynn/Eugene, her romantic interest.
Rapunzel understands - perhaps better than most, given that her supposed mother has been beating this concept into her for years - that her hair makes her a target, and makes her unsafe. She knows her hair is the main reason she's been locked in a tower, unable to go anywhere and with only a small if terribly cute chameleon for a friend.
And yet.
And yet she loves her hair. And yet, she is able to recognize that it isn't her hair that trapped her in the tower - it was the greed of her supposed mother, Gothel. When she realizes this, she isn't angry at her hair; she's angry - and rightfully so - at the woman who has kept her imprisoned, away from her parents all of these years, not to mention all of the emotional manipulation and abuse and nearly successful attempt to separate her from her new boyfriend.
But, to repeat, she's not angry at her hair. She's never angry at her hair. She knows she needs to keep its magical powers a secret (although I'm not sure that swinging over a waterfall with your hair in full view of several soldiers, your new friend, and a horse, is really the best way to accomplish that.) She knows that the strangeness of her hair might make people fear or dislike her. Yet, when she wants to tell her new friend a secret, this is the first thing she chooses to tell him - and the pride in her voice is clear. And the rest of the film shows her using her hair with delight and joy -- it's what makes her cool and magical.
In the last few minutes of the film, Gothel stabs Flynn/Eugene in the stomach. Rapunzel looks at the situation, and chooses - repeat, chooses - to offer to spend the rest of her life with Gothel, unquestioningly, and allow Gothel to continually use the powers of her hair to remain eternally young and beautiful, if Gothel allows her to save Flynn/Eugene with her hair. Flynn/Eugene shouts out that this is a bad idea, and it is - sacrificing the rest of your life, not to mention keeping your real parents miserable, just to save Flynn/Eugene?
But it's still her choice. As she tells Flynn/Eugene, everything is going to be all right - and perhaps it will be. Gothel is not, after all, threatening the rest of the kingdom or the world, as in many other Disney films, and the dynamic between her and Rapunzel has greatly changed: Rapunzel knows full well that she is actually a princess, actually has another home, and that Gothel is not to be trusted. Those elements alone finally give Rapunzel a bit of leverage in the relationship. Not enough, I suspect: their relationship is, at its core, abusive and brutal, and Flynn/Eugene is absolutely right to want her out of it.
But that doesn't make me like what he does next any more.
(It's also very possible that Rapunzel is lying through her teeth during the entire bargaining process: sure, the film has told us that she always keeps her promises, but that was before she found out that the woman who she's always called mother was actually her kidnapper. Rapunzel hasn't hesitated to deceive Gothel earlier in the film, and I figured that Rapunzel was going to make the bargain, save Flynn/Eugene and THEN tell Gothel to go rot in hell, or, um, the Disney equivalent, although of course that bit of deception would not be Approved Disney Stuff.)
Gothel agrees. Rapunzel rushes over to Flynn/Eugene and kneels by him. He repeats again that she shouldn't do this; she tells him that it will be all right and not to worry about it -
And he reaches up with a knife and cuts off her hair.
Several mild problems with this, including, given how long it can take to whack off all of someone's normal hair, I would think that magic hair would take longer, and that the film had earlier said that just the cut off hair turned brown and ordinary; the hair still on her head stayed bright gold, and since the entire process leaves Rapunzel with a bob cut, the hair still on her head should be still be magical, but, moving on.
The biggest problem is that he ignores her choice, and he, and he alone, makes the choice to deprive Rapunzel of her magic.
It's not his hair.
She never once, in the entire film, states that she hates or resents her hair or that she wants to lose it.
And he makes the choice for her, without discussion.
Coming at the end of a film that has depicted a young, completely sheltered girl finally getting to leave her tower and, for the first time, make her own decisions, this left me...well, uncomfortable may be too mild a word.
Now, I suppose it's only fair to note that Flynn/Eugene is being all self-sacrificing here - no hair, no magical healing, although, well, Rapunzel cries over him (her choice) and apparently she has just enough golden magic left after the haircut that she can heal him with a tear, so, yay, and then he says something cute about brunettes and they bounce off to her parents and everybody's happy and lanterns are going off, so, you know, again, yay. And maybe, just maybe, if I could believe that she lost her magic because she chose to heal him with that broken song and that little tear, I might feel better. But that's not what we see: what we see is that once her hair is cut, its magic is gone. (And as I noted, this entirely contradicts what we saw earlier in the film, suggesting some later storyboarding changes.)
So I'm left not feeling very good at all. Although I still liked the little chameleon.
Hmm.
Let's process, shall we?
Tangled starts slowly, with a not all that well conceived voiceover. Voiceovers have worked well for Disney in the past, especially in their fairy tale depictions - think Beauty and the Beast, The Emperor's New Groove. This time it feels tired, and not all that - what's the word I'm looking for? - Magical. And then the film gives us a rather blah singing and cleaning number from Rapunzel and the magic is just not there and I'm thinking about fleeing the film when a nice bandit shows up and then the film starts to get amusing and really rather good, with a couple of high points - a bit where thugs start singing about their dreams, and a really lovely moment where hundreds of animated lanterns sail up into the sky, and a rather nice relationship between the leads. I understand that at least one of my readers had some issues with the villain - who didn't quite seem, I'm not sure, subtle enough for me, but, whatever, but up until the last five minutes, I was quite prepared to tell everyone, ok, well, it starts slowly, but give it about ten minutes until the singing and cleaning bit is over, and this is a fun little film, if you are willing to totally ignore the big gaping plot hole of how a searching army can possibly miss an entire valley with a tower apparently less than a day away even if said valley and tower are "concealed" with a tunnel entrance covered in leaves. Didn't any of them look at a map and say, hmm, there seems to be a big hole here, let's climb over the mountain concealing the tunnel and take a look given that we're kinda searching for the heir of the throne here? And, well, a few other plot holes pop up here and there. But I digress. As said, fun little film.
Until the last five minutes.
Rapunzel is an object of desire - financial and otherwise - because of her magical, mystical hair, which glows when she sings to it and can cure all wounds and give people eternal youth. She can also use it as a rope, a weapon, and a general all around Useful Implement. Even when not glowing, it's gorgeous. If she cuts off a piece, however, that hair just becomes brown, ordinary hair, with no magic at all, as she carefully explains to Flynn/Eugene, her romantic interest.
Rapunzel understands - perhaps better than most, given that her supposed mother has been beating this concept into her for years - that her hair makes her a target, and makes her unsafe. She knows her hair is the main reason she's been locked in a tower, unable to go anywhere and with only a small if terribly cute chameleon for a friend.
And yet.
And yet she loves her hair. And yet, she is able to recognize that it isn't her hair that trapped her in the tower - it was the greed of her supposed mother, Gothel. When she realizes this, she isn't angry at her hair; she's angry - and rightfully so - at the woman who has kept her imprisoned, away from her parents all of these years, not to mention all of the emotional manipulation and abuse and nearly successful attempt to separate her from her new boyfriend.
But, to repeat, she's not angry at her hair. She's never angry at her hair. She knows she needs to keep its magical powers a secret (although I'm not sure that swinging over a waterfall with your hair in full view of several soldiers, your new friend, and a horse, is really the best way to accomplish that.) She knows that the strangeness of her hair might make people fear or dislike her. Yet, when she wants to tell her new friend a secret, this is the first thing she chooses to tell him - and the pride in her voice is clear. And the rest of the film shows her using her hair with delight and joy -- it's what makes her cool and magical.
In the last few minutes of the film, Gothel stabs Flynn/Eugene in the stomach. Rapunzel looks at the situation, and chooses - repeat, chooses - to offer to spend the rest of her life with Gothel, unquestioningly, and allow Gothel to continually use the powers of her hair to remain eternally young and beautiful, if Gothel allows her to save Flynn/Eugene with her hair. Flynn/Eugene shouts out that this is a bad idea, and it is - sacrificing the rest of your life, not to mention keeping your real parents miserable, just to save Flynn/Eugene?
But it's still her choice. As she tells Flynn/Eugene, everything is going to be all right - and perhaps it will be. Gothel is not, after all, threatening the rest of the kingdom or the world, as in many other Disney films, and the dynamic between her and Rapunzel has greatly changed: Rapunzel knows full well that she is actually a princess, actually has another home, and that Gothel is not to be trusted. Those elements alone finally give Rapunzel a bit of leverage in the relationship. Not enough, I suspect: their relationship is, at its core, abusive and brutal, and Flynn/Eugene is absolutely right to want her out of it.
But that doesn't make me like what he does next any more.
(It's also very possible that Rapunzel is lying through her teeth during the entire bargaining process: sure, the film has told us that she always keeps her promises, but that was before she found out that the woman who she's always called mother was actually her kidnapper. Rapunzel hasn't hesitated to deceive Gothel earlier in the film, and I figured that Rapunzel was going to make the bargain, save Flynn/Eugene and THEN tell Gothel to go rot in hell, or, um, the Disney equivalent, although of course that bit of deception would not be Approved Disney Stuff.)
Gothel agrees. Rapunzel rushes over to Flynn/Eugene and kneels by him. He repeats again that she shouldn't do this; she tells him that it will be all right and not to worry about it -
And he reaches up with a knife and cuts off her hair.
Several mild problems with this, including, given how long it can take to whack off all of someone's normal hair, I would think that magic hair would take longer, and that the film had earlier said that just the cut off hair turned brown and ordinary; the hair still on her head stayed bright gold, and since the entire process leaves Rapunzel with a bob cut, the hair still on her head should be still be magical, but, moving on.
The biggest problem is that he ignores her choice, and he, and he alone, makes the choice to deprive Rapunzel of her magic.
It's not his hair.
She never once, in the entire film, states that she hates or resents her hair or that she wants to lose it.
And he makes the choice for her, without discussion.
Coming at the end of a film that has depicted a young, completely sheltered girl finally getting to leave her tower and, for the first time, make her own decisions, this left me...well, uncomfortable may be too mild a word.
Now, I suppose it's only fair to note that Flynn/Eugene is being all self-sacrificing here - no hair, no magical healing, although, well, Rapunzel cries over him (her choice) and apparently she has just enough golden magic left after the haircut that she can heal him with a tear, so, yay, and then he says something cute about brunettes and they bounce off to her parents and everybody's happy and lanterns are going off, so, you know, again, yay. And maybe, just maybe, if I could believe that she lost her magic because she chose to heal him with that broken song and that little tear, I might feel better. But that's not what we see: what we see is that once her hair is cut, its magic is gone. (And as I noted, this entirely contradicts what we saw earlier in the film, suggesting some later storyboarding changes.)
So I'm left not feeling very good at all. Although I still liked the little chameleon.