Tangled
It seems that I have managed to turn my sleep cycle around, so that now I sleep for most of the day, which means that I can't sleep at night. Awesome. -.-
Last night when I couldn't sleep, I watched Tangled. I'd seen it several times before, but the more often I watch it, the more I love it. It's simply a movie that really works.
And now it's again 3am and I can't seem to be able to sleep. So I've decided to do something semi-productive and write down some thoughts on this lovely, lovely film.
(Spoilers to follow. Duh.)
...in which I mostly have good things to say. Which, as much as I love Disney, is kind of weird for a movie from that company. 0.0
Let's look at the Grimm's tale "Rapunzel". A witch takes a baby girl from her parents as revenge for the rapunzels they stole from her garden (whatever those are). The witch calls the child Rapunzel, and raises her as her own. When Rapunzel turns twelve years old, the witch starts keeping her locked up in a tower, where the only way inside is by climbing the girl's hair. Then some prince comes along and, being the first man Rapunzel ever sets eyes on, she falls in love with him. Rapunzel gives her lover away to the witch because she's stupid. The witch gets angry and chases Rapunzel away. When the prince finds her gone, he tries to commit suicide, but only gets blinded. He wanders through the country for a while until he finds Rapunzel, who has given birth to twins, and regains his sight from pure joy or something and they live happily ever after.
As far as fairy tales go, the sexism could be far worse (compare it, for example, with tales like "Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow White", in which the message is that a beautiful, catatonic teenager is the perfect woman). Still, Rapunzel doesn't do much to gain her happy ending and even manages to almost ruin it because she can't keep her mouth shut. She doesn't even leave her tower until Mother Gothel kicks her out. Then there's also the fact that the witch doesn't lock Rapunzel up in the tower until just before the onset of puberty and then, after finding out about her dalliance with the prince, she cuts her hair off, which I think is meant to symbolize castration, and it seems like she's trying to protect her from her own sexuality. I could try to analyze that further, but that's not what we're here for.
In Tangled, Rapunzel has a dream. Her dream is to see the floating lanterns in person. It's a humble dream, to be sure, but what do you expect from someone who's spent her whole life locked in a tower? Unlike her fairy tale counterpart, she doesn't wait around for that dream to come true by itself; she actively goes to pursue it. When she realizes that she won't get support from her surrogate mother, she takes a great risk by going behind her back. She leaves the protective bubble of her tower and goes out into the world, even though she's scared and she doesn't really know what to expect.
So to me Rapunzel is a strong, admirable female character. She's also very talented (those artworks are pretty awesome). Yes, sometimes she's scared. Sometimes she feels weak. Sometimes she wants to give up. But that's what real people are like. Courage doesn't mean you're never afraid, it means you overcome your fears and keep going.
Now keep in mind that this girl didn't grow up watching Buffy and Xena and Wonder Woman on TV. This is a girl who never got the message that she could do anything she liked, be anything she liked. This is a girl who was literally told every single day of her life that she'd never be able to take care of herself. And the greater part of herself probably believed it. It's not until near the end of the movie that she faces Mother Gothel and says, "You were wrong about me!" Meaning, "I'm not ditzy, naive, clumsy and all those other things you said about me in your villain song. I'm strong and capable, and I don't have to allow you to treat me this way!" It really is a glorious moment, and shows how much her self-esteem has grown from her adventures.
Speaking of those adventures, in our society we label some characteristics as masculine and others as feminine (weird segue, I know, but I'm leading up to it, I promise). Due to masculinist bias, we tend to value those masculine characteristics over feminine characteristics, even when the feminine ones are actually more conducive to problem-solving. Things like competition and aggression are considered masculine and therefore positive, and so in a lot of our stories problems are solved by violence. The corresponding female values are diplomacy, co-operation and, of course, emotions, which apparently are a bad thing to have because it makes you sissy or something.
Getting back to Rapunzel and her adventures in the outside world with Flynn Ryder (aka Eugene Fitzherbert). The two of them get themselves in quite a few scrapes. While at the end of the film there is a damsel-in-distress situation in which Eugene needs to come to Rapunzel's rescue, throughout most of the film, Rapunzel is the one who solves the problems. And while she does sometimes use violence to get her way (using her infamous frying pan), most of the time she uses her wits or her words. Take the scene at The Snuggly Duckling, for instance (a scene which I love with all my heart). There is this group of big, aggressive men who nearly tear Eugene apart in order to satisfy their own greed. Rapunzel doesn't respond by attempting to beat them all up with her frying pan. No, she appeals to their emotions. And it works. And the following scene is not only hilarious, but also surprisingly heart-warming. It shows that it's a good thing to have dreams and emotions, not just for sweet, little girls like Rapunzel, but also for big, masculine men like the group at The Snuggly Duckling.
Later, when Maximus tries to catch Eugene again, Rapunzel rescues him again by befriending the horse and using diplomacy. And of course, it is Maximus and the patrons from The Snuggly Duckling who later save Eugene from getting hanged, allowing him to save Rapunzel, which they certainly wouldn't have done if Rapunzel hadn't awoken their tender sides.
Another interesting point is Rapunzel's and Flynn's respective dreams, because Rapunzel's is the one that came true (she got to see the lanterns) while Flynn gave up his dream (being alone on a private island surrounded by money) for something better. I'm pretty sure usually it's the other way round; the man follows his dream while the woman gives up hers to be with him. Although, by marrying a princess (who is stated to later become a queen, as in a female ruler of a kingdom, not just a king's wife), he did kind of end up getting his own castle, so everybody wins.
So is this a perfect feminist movie? Of course not. You'd be hard pressed to find a movie that's flawless in this regard, I think. There is, for example, still the evil, older woman obsessed with her looks, a rather sexist tropes from fairy tales. But I love the movie so much that it doesn't bother me. You could also argue that it's not fair that Rapunzel's story is narrated by a man, rather than allowing her to speak for herself. I do think it works here, though, since Eugene never tries to make the story his own. He emphasizes that it's Rapunzel's story. Also, the original idea for the movie was a classic storybook opening with a female narrator, as you can see on the bonus features of the DVD. While I do enjoy storybook openings, I agree with the filmmakers that it's kind of been done to death, and the way they ended up doing it in the movie was fresher, funnier and more interesting. Feel free to disagree, of course.
How could the film have been even better? I guess a few more female characters would have been nice. But, really, this is just nit-picking. I do think this is a great movie for building confidence in little girls. And it's a huge step away from the early Disney movies that were all about young women prancing about, singing how nice it would if a handsome prince would come and sweep them off their feet.
To me, this is one of the most interesting parts of the film. I know it's not the main focus of the story, so it would have been silly to show more of those 18 years Rapunzel spent in Mother Gothel's tower, but I really can't help wanting to know more about their interactions. What does it mean to raise a child, pretending to love her, when you're really only using her for your own purposes?
As I've watched and re-watched the movie, it was a bit scary to see how manipulative Mother Gothel really is. She heaps psychological abuse and emotional blackmail on Rapunzel in much the same way that real abusive parents do. The only difference is that Mother Gothel knows what she's doing. She intentionally breaks Rapunzel down, making her doubt her own abilities, whereas abusers in the real world genuinely believe that they're acting in their victim's best interests. Whereas Mother Gothel presumably thinks "I need to tell her how dangerous the outside world is, and how incapable she is of handling it, so she won't run away and I won't lose her magic hair", real abusers might think "I need to tell her how dangerous the outside world is, and how incapable she is of handling it, because she really isn't, and she needs me to protect her every moment of her life". Doesn't make it any more right, of course.
Also like real abusers, she does nice things for Rapunzel too to attempt to offset the abuse; she cooks her favourite food and brings her paint. And considering that Rapunzel only has three books in her library, Mother Gothel must be the one who taught her most of what she knows.
Considering how Mother Gothel doesn't want Rapunzel to interact with other people ever, I started wondering how much the girl actually knows about relationships. None of the books on her shelf are romance novels, and why would Mother Gothel teach her about love and sex and such things? (It actually made me start to wonder if Eugene had to explain things to her on their wedding night, but I quickly broke that thought off, because ewww.) Yet when Gothel comes to her in the forest to take her home, Rapunzel says "I even met someone" in the tone of voice of someone who knows about relationships. And she's the one to kiss Eugene first. So I guess Gothel must have told her something about romance. Why would she do that?
And that led me to another train of thoughts: maybe, deep inside, Gothel actually believes she is acting in Rapunzel's best interests. Maybe part of her actually does love her in her own horrid, selfish way. After all, she could have kept her chained up in a dungeon with just enough food to survive, rather than raising her as her daughter. Maybe she feels like she deserves the sole use of Rapunzel's magic hair and her unquestioning loyalty after all the nappies she's changed, bedtime stories she's told and hazelnut soups she's cooked. That's why she goes out of her way to do nice things for Rapunzel and teach her about things that, from her own perspective, she doesn't need to know. Yes, so she can gain and keep Rapunzel's trust, but also so she can look at herself in the mirror and think: "I am a good person. I am a good parent to this child that isn't even my own." This actually makes a lot of sense to me, and it makes the movie a lot darker.
...Not that it wasn't dark enough already, because if we move to Rapunzel's side of the equation, there's no question that she loves the person she believes to be her mother. The movie attempts to tie up the loose ends by not mentioning Mother Gothel again after her death, but let's be real here. 18 years of emotional abuse are not something that you just shake off like that. During her Happily Ever After, there will be plenty of times when Rapunzel will think wistfully about all the good times she had with Gothel, when she will miss the hazelnut soup she made, when she will wake up crying because she watched her die. Knowing that the other person's intentions weren't kind are not enough to make such long-running feelings of love disappear.
And what about Gothel's attempts to make Rapunzel feel weak and pathetic? While at the end of the movie she's grown enough as a peron to realize her own abilities, that doesn't mean that those 18 years worth of damaging words are never going to come back to haunt her. There will probably always be times when she will feek incapable and stupid, simply because that's what she's been told she is for all of her childhood.
The good news is that with issues like that it helps a lot to have people around you who genuinely love you for who you are and who support and believe in you. And Rapunzel has a lot of those now.
Tl;dr: I've probably put a lot more thought into this movie than anyone was ever meant to.
Last night when I couldn't sleep, I watched Tangled. I'd seen it several times before, but the more often I watch it, the more I love it. It's simply a movie that really works.
And now it's again 3am and I can't seem to be able to sleep. So I've decided to do something semi-productive and write down some thoughts on this lovely, lovely film.
(Spoilers to follow. Duh.)
...in which I mostly have good things to say. Which, as much as I love Disney, is kind of weird for a movie from that company. 0.0
Let's look at the Grimm's tale "Rapunzel". A witch takes a baby girl from her parents as revenge for the rapunzels they stole from her garden (whatever those are). The witch calls the child Rapunzel, and raises her as her own. When Rapunzel turns twelve years old, the witch starts keeping her locked up in a tower, where the only way inside is by climbing the girl's hair. Then some prince comes along and, being the first man Rapunzel ever sets eyes on, she falls in love with him. Rapunzel gives her lover away to the witch because she's stupid. The witch gets angry and chases Rapunzel away. When the prince finds her gone, he tries to commit suicide, but only gets blinded. He wanders through the country for a while until he finds Rapunzel, who has given birth to twins, and regains his sight from pure joy or something and they live happily ever after.
As far as fairy tales go, the sexism could be far worse (compare it, for example, with tales like "Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow White", in which the message is that a beautiful, catatonic teenager is the perfect woman). Still, Rapunzel doesn't do much to gain her happy ending and even manages to almost ruin it because she can't keep her mouth shut. She doesn't even leave her tower until Mother Gothel kicks her out. Then there's also the fact that the witch doesn't lock Rapunzel up in the tower until just before the onset of puberty and then, after finding out about her dalliance with the prince, she cuts her hair off, which I think is meant to symbolize castration, and it seems like she's trying to protect her from her own sexuality. I could try to analyze that further, but that's not what we're here for.
In Tangled, Rapunzel has a dream. Her dream is to see the floating lanterns in person. It's a humble dream, to be sure, but what do you expect from someone who's spent her whole life locked in a tower? Unlike her fairy tale counterpart, she doesn't wait around for that dream to come true by itself; she actively goes to pursue it. When she realizes that she won't get support from her surrogate mother, she takes a great risk by going behind her back. She leaves the protective bubble of her tower and goes out into the world, even though she's scared and she doesn't really know what to expect.
So to me Rapunzel is a strong, admirable female character. She's also very talented (those artworks are pretty awesome). Yes, sometimes she's scared. Sometimes she feels weak. Sometimes she wants to give up. But that's what real people are like. Courage doesn't mean you're never afraid, it means you overcome your fears and keep going.
Now keep in mind that this girl didn't grow up watching Buffy and Xena and Wonder Woman on TV. This is a girl who never got the message that she could do anything she liked, be anything she liked. This is a girl who was literally told every single day of her life that she'd never be able to take care of herself. And the greater part of herself probably believed it. It's not until near the end of the movie that she faces Mother Gothel and says, "You were wrong about me!" Meaning, "I'm not ditzy, naive, clumsy and all those other things you said about me in your villain song. I'm strong and capable, and I don't have to allow you to treat me this way!" It really is a glorious moment, and shows how much her self-esteem has grown from her adventures.
Speaking of those adventures, in our society we label some characteristics as masculine and others as feminine (weird segue, I know, but I'm leading up to it, I promise). Due to masculinist bias, we tend to value those masculine characteristics over feminine characteristics, even when the feminine ones are actually more conducive to problem-solving. Things like competition and aggression are considered masculine and therefore positive, and so in a lot of our stories problems are solved by violence. The corresponding female values are diplomacy, co-operation and, of course, emotions, which apparently are a bad thing to have because it makes you sissy or something.
Getting back to Rapunzel and her adventures in the outside world with Flynn Ryder (aka Eugene Fitzherbert). The two of them get themselves in quite a few scrapes. While at the end of the film there is a damsel-in-distress situation in which Eugene needs to come to Rapunzel's rescue, throughout most of the film, Rapunzel is the one who solves the problems. And while she does sometimes use violence to get her way (using her infamous frying pan), most of the time she uses her wits or her words. Take the scene at The Snuggly Duckling, for instance (a scene which I love with all my heart). There is this group of big, aggressive men who nearly tear Eugene apart in order to satisfy their own greed. Rapunzel doesn't respond by attempting to beat them all up with her frying pan. No, she appeals to their emotions. And it works. And the following scene is not only hilarious, but also surprisingly heart-warming. It shows that it's a good thing to have dreams and emotions, not just for sweet, little girls like Rapunzel, but also for big, masculine men like the group at The Snuggly Duckling.
Later, when Maximus tries to catch Eugene again, Rapunzel rescues him again by befriending the horse and using diplomacy. And of course, it is Maximus and the patrons from The Snuggly Duckling who later save Eugene from getting hanged, allowing him to save Rapunzel, which they certainly wouldn't have done if Rapunzel hadn't awoken their tender sides.
Another interesting point is Rapunzel's and Flynn's respective dreams, because Rapunzel's is the one that came true (she got to see the lanterns) while Flynn gave up his dream (being alone on a private island surrounded by money) for something better. I'm pretty sure usually it's the other way round; the man follows his dream while the woman gives up hers to be with him. Although, by marrying a princess (who is stated to later become a queen, as in a female ruler of a kingdom, not just a king's wife), he did kind of end up getting his own castle, so everybody wins.
So is this a perfect feminist movie? Of course not. You'd be hard pressed to find a movie that's flawless in this regard, I think. There is, for example, still the evil, older woman obsessed with her looks, a rather sexist tropes from fairy tales. But I love the movie so much that it doesn't bother me. You could also argue that it's not fair that Rapunzel's story is narrated by a man, rather than allowing her to speak for herself. I do think it works here, though, since Eugene never tries to make the story his own. He emphasizes that it's Rapunzel's story. Also, the original idea for the movie was a classic storybook opening with a female narrator, as you can see on the bonus features of the DVD. While I do enjoy storybook openings, I agree with the filmmakers that it's kind of been done to death, and the way they ended up doing it in the movie was fresher, funnier and more interesting. Feel free to disagree, of course.
How could the film have been even better? I guess a few more female characters would have been nice. But, really, this is just nit-picking. I do think this is a great movie for building confidence in little girls. And it's a huge step away from the early Disney movies that were all about young women prancing about, singing how nice it would if a handsome prince would come and sweep them off their feet.
To me, this is one of the most interesting parts of the film. I know it's not the main focus of the story, so it would have been silly to show more of those 18 years Rapunzel spent in Mother Gothel's tower, but I really can't help wanting to know more about their interactions. What does it mean to raise a child, pretending to love her, when you're really only using her for your own purposes?
As I've watched and re-watched the movie, it was a bit scary to see how manipulative Mother Gothel really is. She heaps psychological abuse and emotional blackmail on Rapunzel in much the same way that real abusive parents do. The only difference is that Mother Gothel knows what she's doing. She intentionally breaks Rapunzel down, making her doubt her own abilities, whereas abusers in the real world genuinely believe that they're acting in their victim's best interests. Whereas Mother Gothel presumably thinks "I need to tell her how dangerous the outside world is, and how incapable she is of handling it, so she won't run away and I won't lose her magic hair", real abusers might think "I need to tell her how dangerous the outside world is, and how incapable she is of handling it, because she really isn't, and she needs me to protect her every moment of her life". Doesn't make it any more right, of course.
Also like real abusers, she does nice things for Rapunzel too to attempt to offset the abuse; she cooks her favourite food and brings her paint. And considering that Rapunzel only has three books in her library, Mother Gothel must be the one who taught her most of what she knows.
Considering how Mother Gothel doesn't want Rapunzel to interact with other people ever, I started wondering how much the girl actually knows about relationships. None of the books on her shelf are romance novels, and why would Mother Gothel teach her about love and sex and such things? (It actually made me start to wonder if Eugene had to explain things to her on their wedding night, but I quickly broke that thought off, because ewww.) Yet when Gothel comes to her in the forest to take her home, Rapunzel says "I even met someone" in the tone of voice of someone who knows about relationships. And she's the one to kiss Eugene first. So I guess Gothel must have told her something about romance. Why would she do that?
And that led me to another train of thoughts: maybe, deep inside, Gothel actually believes she is acting in Rapunzel's best interests. Maybe part of her actually does love her in her own horrid, selfish way. After all, she could have kept her chained up in a dungeon with just enough food to survive, rather than raising her as her daughter. Maybe she feels like she deserves the sole use of Rapunzel's magic hair and her unquestioning loyalty after all the nappies she's changed, bedtime stories she's told and hazelnut soups she's cooked. That's why she goes out of her way to do nice things for Rapunzel and teach her about things that, from her own perspective, she doesn't need to know. Yes, so she can gain and keep Rapunzel's trust, but also so she can look at herself in the mirror and think: "I am a good person. I am a good parent to this child that isn't even my own." This actually makes a lot of sense to me, and it makes the movie a lot darker.
...Not that it wasn't dark enough already, because if we move to Rapunzel's side of the equation, there's no question that she loves the person she believes to be her mother. The movie attempts to tie up the loose ends by not mentioning Mother Gothel again after her death, but let's be real here. 18 years of emotional abuse are not something that you just shake off like that. During her Happily Ever After, there will be plenty of times when Rapunzel will think wistfully about all the good times she had with Gothel, when she will miss the hazelnut soup she made, when she will wake up crying because she watched her die. Knowing that the other person's intentions weren't kind are not enough to make such long-running feelings of love disappear.
And what about Gothel's attempts to make Rapunzel feel weak and pathetic? While at the end of the movie she's grown enough as a peron to realize her own abilities, that doesn't mean that those 18 years worth of damaging words are never going to come back to haunt her. There will probably always be times when she will feek incapable and stupid, simply because that's what she's been told she is for all of her childhood.
The good news is that with issues like that it helps a lot to have people around you who genuinely love you for who you are and who support and believe in you. And Rapunzel has a lot of those now.
Tl;dr: I've probably put a lot more thought into this movie than anyone was ever meant to.