“Tangled” up in blue
“I’m convinced they’ll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience.” – Floyd Norman, a retired Disney and Pixar animator, on Disney’s title change from “Rapunzel” to “Tangled”
Just because I have the insight to notice sexist themes in a piece of work (movie, book, tv show, advertising, what have you), doesn’t mean that I hate the piece of work, doesn’t mean I won’t watch/read/purchase/wear it, and certainly doesn’t mean that it’s the most horrible thing on earth. American (and certainly other) culture has been indoctrinated with sexist/racist/ageist/etc ideals, but the beauty is that individuals within a society can defy those ideals.
So fucking sue me if I choose to.
I grew up on Disney Princesses, and proudly will sing “This Provincial Life” at the top of my lungs in various public social settings. However, as an adult I’m not their biggest fan. Even my favorite princess, Belle, submitted herself to a life of abuse and degradation. With a few exceptions Disney has again and again, at least in their cartoons (not including Pixar), represented women as primarily sexual, innocent, wide-eyed corruptable messes, who’s pitiful lives need only the true love kiss from some overly-valiant prince. When I say this usually people bring up Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, and Pocahontas. To this I say: Ariel won her man BY LOSING HER VOICE, Belle WAS ABUSED by the Beast, Jasmine’s entire purpose was of SEXUAL DESIRE, and even the strong wonderful image of Pocahontas was tarnished by her “choice” between basically dating a white guy or a fellow Native American.
My point? Disney has a track record. This Rapunzel bull ain’t helpin.
In the trailer for Disney’s new princess movie, Tangled, based on the fairy tale of Rapunzel, the primary focus is – the prince? Wait, what? The situation would be different if the movie played the whole “my side of the story” angle, but I don’t think it’s like that. What’s really happening is Disney’s last excuse for a princess movie, The Princess and the Frog, flopped and for some reason they thought that the best way to get kids into the theaters again was to make a male the lead of a princess movie.
I’ve heard the whole “well guys bring in more to the box office, and maybe Disney’s trying to appeal to more guys”. Because, you know, every effing Pixar film, and nearly all of their live action movies, although almost completely male-centered, aren’t bringing in the dough. Right. And even if that was the problem, why is the only solution to switch sexes? This argument also centers around the bullshit idea that women don’t go to movies. Don’t even get me started.
Sex and the City 1&2, The Twilight Saga (not my favorite example, but still), Harry Potter (which I mainly use to argue that you can market a film to BOTH sexes and watch the money come in), The Notebook, It’s Complicated, Lovely Bones, The Blind Side, The Proposal, Julie & Julia, or maybe, oh, I don’t know, THE ENTIRE DISNEY PRINCESS MOVIE SERIES. There. Women can fucking bring the cash in. As Jos over at feministing.com said:
Disney deciding girls aren’t worth marketing their films to (or if the trailer is at all accurate, making movies for) is not a victory. It’s a reshaping of children’s culture into a more male-centric place. This is Disney deciding to consider girls about as worthless as Hollywood considers women.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/021498.html
So why this? Why “Tangled” and not just “Rapunzel”? Some argue that Rapunzel looks strong and stuff in the trailer because her crazy demon hair beats up the prince guy(which I’ll admit was kinda cool), and I agree that it is too soon to call the movie as a whole sexist. I do have hope for this, especially because I love the story of Rapunzel. However, I can’t deny what I saw and felt when I stared at the screen. I felt hurt, betrayed, confused. Disney, I was just beginning to fall in love with you again, why did you have to go and do this crap? The trailer was short and quick, but in those 2 min all I saw was THE PRINCE DUDE oh and he comes across this princess chick. Why can’t Rapunzel be the main character of her own story?
One thing I would like to address about Rapunzel which might (SOMEWHAT) excuse Disney’s behavior: this is probably the hardest fairy tale NOT to make sexist. In every frickin version of this story, Rapunzel is manipulated by just about everyone around her. Her mom gives her up for some fantastic fruit (drug metaphor), and the witch traps her in a tower to preserve her innocence, and even her true love tricks her into sleeping with him. But then again, Disney, you never stick to the damn script so you really should have overcome this.
Disney, you can totally tell the story of a strong, independent, funny, complex woman, hell you can even put her in power, without having to add some stupid prince or frivolous story about how “true love” will solve all her effing problems. Queen Elizabeth was a princess and love never solved her problems. Same for Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Anne Richards, Queen Victoria, and even the REAL Pocahontas. You didn’t do a bad job with Mulan. Hell, you did a GREAT fucking job! You made a Disney ACTION movie where a WOMAN was the hero (yes, she had to cross-dress to do it, but I attribute that to historical accuracy) and this movie appealed to ALL sexes. Just as many of the men in my life love that movie as much as the women in my life do. Hell, one of my guy friends (who shall remain nameless) knows all the words to “Be A Man” and even dances hilariously to it. Sure, the movie wasn’t a huge success and you’re only out to make money, but if you have the skill to make box-office hits, and the insight to create characters like Mulan, why can’t you make anything slightly original in it’s view of women?
