EXTRA CREDIT: Gender Roles in Tangled

Today I'll be analyzing a fairy tale film from Disney that is called Tangled. The film was directed by Nathan Greno, Byran Howard and released in 2010. This movie's inspiration was based upon the fairy tale "Rapunzel" written by the Brothers Grimm. Dan Fogelman, the writer for the cinema version, had the original intention of making a film more closely related to Cinderella, in which the main character is a princess, and a prince shows up somehow later in the movie. Interestingly, this new version is the interaction between the male and female characters; they are both representations of the film, mainly to market the film as gender-neutral. The leading characters are Flynn and Rapunzel. When the movie first came out, it was perceived as revolutionary for the unexpected plot; Tangled would become an incredibly successful Disney animated features film since The Lion King in 1994. Besides, here is a review of the movie from Max Nicholson in 2015, "HERE'S WHY TANGLED IS THE ULTIMATE DISNEY PRINCESS MOVIE." In the author's opinion, this is not only a great movie to watch; it laid the groundwork for Brave and Frozen to introduce a new Disney Princess era. As Max puts it, "She's a total Renaissance woman, both figuratively and literally. And unlike her storybook counterpart, Rapunzel doesn't need some generic prince to rescue her; she's more than capable of holding her own in a scrap. In fact, when Flynn comes to her rescue at the end of the movie, it's ultimately Rapunzel who winds up saving him. Plus, she does it all barefoot!"

In recent years, Disney has started to implement new definitions of gender roles. One can view Tangled as a transitional movie, where there are no more damsels in distress who end the film by landing a man. Rapunzel is portrayed as courageous and bold, as when she replies to Mother Gothel (01:22:53), “ No! I won’t stop. For every minute of the rest of my life, I will fight. I will never stop trying to get away from you!” We can see that Rapunzel represents the female role as a strong and independent woman who wants to get away from her mother’s manipulation of forcing her to stay inside the tower forever. On the contrary, Flynn values Rapunzel as an amazing lady, unlike her mom, who holds her merely as a possession. This particular movie is different from the classic Disney fairy tale movies. Specifically, Rapunzel is an improvement on Snow White, who could only sing to animals and accepted her role of taking care of the household. Most importantly, Snow White fell into the queen’s trap quickly and needed a prince to come to rescue her. As such, Tangled is a progressive princess film challenging the gender roles, as Rapunzel transforms from an innocent, obedient girl into an adventurous and intelligent young woman who discovers the world for herself.