The fact that Cassandra got off scott-free for her actions while Varian got sent TO JAIL and STILL wasn't fully forgiven by the townsfolk after Rapunzel forgave him when Cass did FAR FAR WORSE than him and for LESS SYMPATHETIC reasons will never not annoy me.

To be fair, the writers of the movie did an awful job sending that message. Pitting two women together over beauty and youth, the fact that the villain’s only motivation in the movie is to be young and pretty for no reason. While having the other two woman in the movie be young looking and no visible flaws on them (you have to look very closely at them if you want to see them).

Also showing the blonde hair as being this great magical thing that can do so much great things and when it’s cut (without rapunzel’s consent or wishes. Someone else makes that decision for her), it’s brown, boring and lacks no magic. Heck, it made girls feel uncomfortable and bad about themselves for having brown hair. The Disney showing her with her blonde hair in merchandise and content doesn’t help matters either. The movie and Disney ties rapunzel’s blonde hair as being valuable. They also showed her as embodying white femininity.

So it’s no surprise that racists loved this movie and say that “blonde hair is magical and valuable” crap. Among the other fucked up things that are in the movie (creepy dream, the antisemitic villain that also is ageist and sexist), why are we even surprised that the stans are like this?

shana tovah 💖

Barbie rapunzel they definitely the more better adaptation. Rapunzel is the one active, the villain motivation despite kinda petty and simple it's better than the mother gothel disney motivation who is misogynistic

Even when i was a kid i knew Disney was ripping off the Barbie version. I mean come on, both rapunzels are lost princesses who love to paint, has a reptile sidekick, wears purple&pink, has a light motif, and a brown haired prince, war between rapunzel's kingdom and another. It has its differences ofc, but i might as well stick with Barbie.

And barbie's rapunzel gets to take out her villain. Rapunzel should've cut her own hair as a sign of taking back her agency.

A (Mostly) Complete Critique of Tangled

I used to love Tangled but, as I’ve said before, it’s been ruined for me in recent times, starting with when I watched the series. However, where at first I felt like the movie was fine but the show messed up a lot of what was there, I’ve recently begun to see the truth, that the movie was never good to begin with. Being me, I want to talk about it and hopefully find others who feel similarly.

First and foremost, I have to talk about Disney choosing to make Rapunzel a princess with royal parents. One of the main aspects of the original fairy tale is that she comes from a poor family and when that family commits a relatively minor crime of stealing some vegetables, they are punished far too harshly by the witch who literally kidnaps their daughter in retribution. The story is that of a poor family having their daughter stolen but, because they’re poor, they literally don’t have the means to get anyone to go after this witch and get their daughter back. It’s a heavy metaphor for class disparity where those in power can do whatever and have no one challenge them because they’re so powerful while the powerless innocents they trample can do nothing to fight back. Making Rapunzel a princess ruins all of that and Jew-coding Gothel flips that power dynamic back around so now it’s a Jewish woman stealing a baby in the night and these rich, white royals are just powerless to save their poor infant daughter in the face of her evil Jewish magic or whatever.

Speaking of “evil Jewish magic or whatever,” next up is all the bullshit with the flower. Aside from the extremely lazy worldbuilding aspect of it that’s later retconned to be made even worse, this is just another way that they’re missing the whole point of the original story and tbh kind of ruining it. The entire point of the original is that the parents steal something of little value and are punished by having something as valuable as their own baby taken from them as punishment. If you make the stolen object something that not only is extremely valuable but is literally the only thing of its kind that is literally priceless, that radically changes things. Objectively, that flower is worth more than any other life in that world, including that of literally any royal, so that whole transaction just got flipped. Also, everyone acts like it was so terrible of Gothel to hide that away and keep it for herself but no one cares that Rapunzel’s parents literally made tea with it and destroyed the fucking thing to prevent a very natural death and force a very unnatural birth.

Another setting-type thing before I get into the actual story itself is what I mentioned earlier of Gothel being so very heavily Jew-coded by Disney. For one thing, Walt Disney was a freaking yahtzee and hated Jewish people, so keep that in mind. For another, it’s yet another thing that further wrecks the story. Yes, witchcraft as a concept does have a lot of roots in antisemitism, but I do believe there are ways you can have a witch as a villain and not have it feel like a really bad Jewish stereotype. Hell, look at the Barbie Rapunzel and how much different that version of Gothel feels from the Disney version. But because of how symbolism works in movies, there ends up being this effect with the Disney version where it then feels like everything Gothel does in the movie that’s bad is actually a greater stereotype and criticism of all Jewish people.

So, getting into the story, I want to start with Rapunzel herself. She’s freshly 18 but has the vibe and acts like she’s 8. I understand having Gothel try to limit how much she can intellectually explore the outside world, but that sheltering wouldn’t affect her personality. It’s this thing where people associate naivete with childishness and so, when they make a character who’s sheltered or naive, that character then has to also act like a child. For all the events of the story, Rapunzel would be better if she were older and also acted her age, even though she’d still have limited knowledge of the world. A great example of the issue with her character is how her immediate response to an intruder breaking in is to hit him with a frying pan, tie him to a chair with her hair, stuff him in a closet, and then actually think she can use a literal hostage to convince her helicopter mom that she’s a capable adult.

The next issue is Flynn. He’s fine in and of himself, but this movie with the canon version of Rapunzel we got is not the movie to go plugging in this 27 year old man who was created by a panel of women to be hot. There’s something really weird and icky about having the most sheltered, naive, very childlike character who looks and acts like a child end up with the love interest who’s been made to look the most mature and appeal to grown ass women. My biggest issues with him all have to do with his relationship with Rapunzel. He’s the adult here so he should’ve insisted upon taking a good chunk of time to let her adjust to existing in society and also processing everything that just went down in less than a week and meeting her parents and everything before trying to date her. It was irresponsible at best and harmful at worst for him to allow her to throw herself into a relationship with him when she is the way she is and he’s very literally the first person she’s ever met aside from her kidnapper.

As for the plot, the biggest thing I have a problem with is the hair, which I know sounds weird when we’re literally talking about Rapunzel but hear me out. The sundrop was destroyed and consumed in order to keep not just the queen but also Rapunzel alive, which should’ve used up the magic and produced a normal, non-magical child. However, since Rapunzel has magic hair in this, there’s a few other issues, like that she hears Gothel talking about how valuable her hair is and how people will want to steal it, but she doesn’t just give herself a trim as soon as she leaves to ensure her safety? Also, I get that the hair needs to be super long, but it’s too long for her to be able to like… exist with it. It would only weigh about 20 lbs but, when wet, it would definitely be super heavy and the length would be literally impossible to do anything with. She tries to walk across a room, it’s getting caught on five different pieces of furniture. At least let her braid it.

Another issue I have is with the haircut at the end. There’s nothing wrong with short hairstyles, but this particular one seems to accentuate the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ aspects of Rapunzel’s character and, especially when combined with the rest of her design, I feel like it makes her look even younger. Instead of having this moment be the really charged metaphor I think it was supposed to be about the end of her sheltered childhood and entry into adulthood, it feels lackluster because, visually, it’s the opposite. Rapunzel with the long hair looks like she could be 18 but, with the short hair, she looks no older than 14:

And then compare that to this edit that @juliette-daria made of Rapunzel with longer hair:

Do you see it? How, yeah, she still has big eyes and youthful features but, with a different hairstyle, she doesn’t look literally 14? I just really want to know why they chose to do what they did and make a very young-looking character look even younger before pairing her with a grown ass man who damn well looks like a grown ass man. I always thought I just didn’t particularly like Rapunzel’s haircut aesthetically but now I’m realizing it’s because I can’t stand to see her doing couple stuff with Flynn when she looks so young like that and he looks, well, 27. 

Aside from the hair stuff, the antisemitism, and questionable stuff with age, I don’t have a ton of issues with the story itself. The biggest story thing I have an issue with is Gothel showing up in the middle of their journey like that instead of having her kind of tailing them until the main conflict at the end. Her popping up at the campsite and being a bitch just seemed so unnecessary and I feel like the story would’ve been better without it. Also, I feel like that big, climactic conflict should’ve gone differently and happened in Corona because we’ve already seen that it’s a multiple-day journey from the tower to the city or vice versa, so the idea that Flynn is just running to that tower the way one might run to the store doesn’t really work. Having everything come to a T in Corona also could have provided tons more drama and been way more interesting. That way, you could have Flynn bust out of prison and then go with all the Snuggly Duckling guys to save Rapunzel together and there could be an even bigger conflict.

Disney doesn't need to change "the formula." That's the last thing that Wish proves.

What Wish proves is that "the formula" only works when you know why the ingredients are in it, and you use them the correct way.

The Princess Character is meant to wish for only half of the movie's message, and go through an adventure that teaches her what the other half is; what her dream was missing. Ariel dreamed of understanding but she was missing love. Tiana dreamed of achieving her goals but she was missing faith. Jasmine dreamed of freedom but she was missing trust. Belle dreamed of adventure but she was missing being understood.

The Villain is meant to highlight the opposite of the movie's message. Jafar gets what he wants through trickery and manipulation; that's the opposite of Aladdin's "truth will set you free" message, and he gets imprisoned in a lamp. Scar thinks being a King is having his way all the time and can't learn from his past of living in Mufasa's shadow; that's the opposite of The Lion King's "Let the past remind you of your responsibility to selflessness." Gaston loves only himself and is always obsessed with appearances; that's the opposite of Beauty & the Beast's "true love is found within a heart of self-sacrifice." That's what makes them such good villains. (and that clear direction is what drives good villain songs, since Magnifico's is what everyone is talking about)

The sidekick is supposed to compare/contrast with the main character's qualities. Abu is a greedy thief, which is what everyone in Agrabah thinks Aladdin is; when he scolds Abu and teaches him selflessness, it shows us who Aladdin actually is. Flounder is easily frightened and looks at the glass half-full; when Ariel coaxes him and leads by example, we see her bravery and positivity reflected in Flounder's tiny character arc. Timon & Pumbaa do whatever they want all day just like young Simba always dreamed of; when Simba goes to live with them, he finds that "getting his way all the time" makes him forget who he really is and feel empty.

The setting is supposed to show off the characters and highlight the movie's message. Rapunzel's tower is designed to be pretty on the inside because of her influence; if it were too dark and prison-shaped, we'd wonder why she didn't work up the courage to leave sooner. Just like how Quasimodo has made his corner of the bell-tower beautiful, too; they're taught the world is cruel and they're not strong enough for it, but they make their own worlds beautiful enough to hint that that's wrong right from the start. Ariel's grotto is shaped like a tower with no roof so that she only has one window to the forbidden Surface, and it's the light that comes from that forbidden world into her dark grotto which literally makes her able to see human things differently. Tiana's apartment has no interesting features except her father's picture, a perfectly made bed, a drawer with no extra outfits but stuffed with tip money, and only two dresses; both of which are for work.

None of that is happening in Wish, because they didn't know why the formula ingredients are there. Disney needs to understand and return to the formula the right way; forgetting it was what got them here.

Asha learns nothing to add to her dream, unless you count "the power to grant wishes is in me." Which you shouldn't, because we didn't even know she was confused about that until the animals sang a song that was completely off-topic and she had the chance to jump in and sing "I'm a Star!"

Magnifico does not demonstrate the opposite of Wish's message effectively because his character has nothing to do with a philosophy against making wishes, and everything to do with power. (He is the strongest character in the film. But because the message and core concept of what wishes are are so bad, that's not saying much.)

Valentino, and Asha's friends, do not highlight anything about her character through compare/contrast. Valentino is brave and all over the place. Her friends are seven-dwarfs parodies. Happy, Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, Sleepy, Grumpy. None of that contrasts with Asha's vague characterization of "cares too much." None of it compares to that characterization, either.

The setting is empty. There are no interesting details that teach you something about any of the characters. None in Asha's home, none in the neat-and-tidy one-dimensional forest, none in the Rosas square, and none in the bland, empty castle. Magnifico's study is the closest anything gets; there's a loose concept that all of Asha's friends have to work together to open the roof, and take a leap of faith to weigh the pulley system down. Unfortunately, none of these characters is shown struggling to work together, OR to take leaps of faith, at all, before this point.

The ingredients of the formula are in Wish. They're just not being used correctly. This is how not to use the formula; it's not the formulas fault. If it ain't broke. They should never have let people convince them to try and fix it.

tangled au

(jester's room reference is from the mighty nein origins comic)

shadowpeach tangled au bc im predictable

People: Disney's quick/three day romances aren't realistic.

Me, inwardly: Neither are mermaids, genies, fairies, talking animals, magical transformations, ice powers, or magical healing hair. Maybe it's not always conveyed the best but it's escapist fantasy and not meant to be idolized, just enjoyed with the knowledge that it's fantasy.

Me out loud: Watch something other than Disney then.

What would a Tangled au be with The Death scene?

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

While the show did tend to sideline Eugene in favor of Cass, at the same time, the show does that whether she’s in the episode or not. Like in “Be Very Afraid” where Cass is off in the woods somewhere, and the writers decided the most interesting thing they could do with Eugene in episode about the characters’ biggest fears is to make his fear a freaking COWLICK. Incredible

I was going to make a post about how Eugene deserved better in TTS but I guess I'll just talk about that here.

But ya, it seems that the writers didn't know what to even DO with Eugene so they just use him for comic relief and nothing else. The only thing resembling an arc that Eugene gets is...finding out he's a dark prince? Which, I don't really know how to feel about since while it doesn't technically contradict anything...it also feels like an addition that a fan-fiction would add (which adds to the fan-ficy feel TTS has as a whole).

Plus they barely ever do anything with that concept anyway after it's revealed. With Cassandra the Eugene sidelining is at it's worst since the show constantly pushes Eugene to the side so it can shine it's light on it's new favorite OC. It gets especially bad when the show sidelines Eugene's romance with Raps in favor of focusing on Cass's friendship with her, which, considering that Eugene was a main character in the movie, seeing him constantly get sidelined in favor of the show's new favorite OC gets real annoying real fast.

Again, I like TTS, but man, as a sequel to the movie...while it's far from bad, there are some decisions it made that were...questionable, to say the least.

To be fair, rapunzel has always been shown to have blonde hair because it was said to be golden in the “original” fairy tale and most people take it as her being blonde. However, any hair color can be considered golden in a certain shade. So it’s not that big of deal.

Also that “rapunzel is a blonde white girl” thing is dumb as anybody of any race and gender with long hair would be called rapunzel. Because rapunzel having long hair is the core trait of the character. At this point, they are just being racist or they are stupid as hell and don’t know that the Disney version isn’t the only version of the character.

I do agree here that Disney added this magical blonde shit into their version story was messed up and it’s also super problematic in so many ways. It’s like a white nationalist wrote this unnecessary plot line into the movie.

Get you someone who’s the 🩷💜🤍 to your ❤️🖤🩶

I saw this at target a couple months ago and knowing Rapunzel was supposed to have a crossbow makes me sad why did they go with that stupid frying pan?

Can we talk about Tangled? Because I used to love it until I watched the series, which I felt ruined it in many ways. One of the main things was that I felt like Eugene and Rapunzel’s relationship was not well written at all and the show actually made me not ship them anymore. What I then realized after I stopped shipping them is how toxic their relationship is the way it’s written.

Rapunzel is canonically 18 and has spent her entire life in a fucking tower and, until the events of the movie, had never met anyone other than her abductor and abuser. Then, she proceeds to jump into a relationship with the very first person she ever meets aside from Gothel. However, it’s not just that because the person she gets with just happens to be canonically 27 and also grew up as an orphan and a thief on the streets, so he has tons of life experience where she has none whatsoever.

This is bad enough in and of itself but then it’s made worse by the fact that they get together within like 2 days of her leaving the tower for the first time. She had no time at all to actually acclimate to society, meet her family and form relationships with her parents, start learning how to be a princess, figure out who she is, and maybe process some trauma before throwing herself into a relationship. This is honestly what ruined tts for me, that they didn’t put anything in there with like them taking a break after the events of the movie to relieve some pressure for her while she goes through all those massive changes she has going on but, instead, have him keep proposing to her while she’s clearly not ready.

I don’t think age gaps are inherently bad and I do think that flynnpunzel could have been handled in a way that would have made it actually good, but that isn’t what we got. What we got was actually really toxic and problematic and it’s frankly disappointing. This is why people have crack ships from the series and crossover ships tbh

I remember during the making of Tangled, the filmmakers said they had to work hard to design Rapunzel’s tower to be beautiful and seem like a cozy, fun environment, while also making Mother Gothel seem sweet and loveable, if manipulative.

Because, they said, if the environment is too much like a prison, and Gothel is too much like a villainess, the audience wouldn’t believe in Rapunzel as a character. They’d think she was either stupid or cowardly, to stay in such a nasty situation without trying to escape sooner. But if her circumstances seem just livable enough, just sweet enough, that you can see some of the appeal, then you wouldn’t blame her for waiting so long to leave.

Why didn’t they do that with Wish?

Why didn’t they think that relatability through?

Nobody is really feeling compelled to root for the everyday Rosas citizens during the movie. You don’t feel like rooting for Asha’s cause, or even Queen Amaya’s. Because you think to yourself, “why did it take the townspeople so long to ask the question ‘why can’t we just have our wishes back?’”

Asha comes up with those culture-breaking questions, inexplicably, in the first twenty minutes of the movie. It takes the rest of the townspeople about 24 hours to suddenly start asking that, too.

So why don’t you root for them?

Because when something bad happens to them, part of your brain goes, “why didn’t they see that coming, though? Why didn’t they ask questions? That one’s a little bit on them.”

And you don’t really feel that feeling you got with Mother Gothel, where you were like, “Oh yeah, I can see why the main character trusted this villain; the villain really seems to care about the hero, if you didn’t know what she was after.” You don’t;t get that same feeling with Magnifico. Because the whole idea of what he does—by erasing people’s memories and yelling at them and having no moments with regular folk where he’s warm and personal and building trust—is so malicious that we don’t believe the other characters couldn’t see it.

We COULD HAVE believed it. If they’d added in good writing and character moments to make it believable.

When Magnifico interacts with the people who trust him and are duped by him, he’s up on a stage, flashing superpowers they don’t have and then disappearing back into his tower after only granting one wish. He’s not on the welcome tour with Asha. He doesn’t know his own palace staff by name. He’s done nothing to build the trust all the side-characters unquestioningly give him. So even at the end, when everyone’s like, “aw, we wanted to believe in Magnifico,” we don’t feel it. Because didja? Why? Everyone could see that coming.

Meanwhile Mother Gothel tells Rapunzel she loves her most every time she leaves. She laughs with her. She reinforces every conversation they have with the idea that she’s desperate to protect Rapunzel. She brings her her favorite soup as a surprise and remembers the ingredients. She goes to get white paint on a very long trip so Rapunzel can paint. She compliments her strength and beauty—even if it’s backhanded. She calls her “dear,” and “darling.” She knocks thugs out with sticks, returning even after she argued with and supposedly ‘gave up’ on Rapunzel, all to supposedly’ protect’ her. So when Rapunzel realizes it was all an act, and she’s wrathful and furious and grabs Gothel’s hand, we DO feel it. Because we believed that Rapunzel really didn’t see this coming, so the shock stings worse. We don’t blame Rapunzel, and we do blame Gothel.

Just another example of what #NotMyDisney forgot about themselves.