#tangled criticism

[fancylala4]

Why creepy dream (aka new dream or whatever the ship name is) from Tangled is an awful Disney ship:

For some reason, the Disney fandom find Rapunzel and Flynn to be the best Disney romance, but they are so wrong. This romance is the worst written romance Disney has ever written, and they are overrated. This is also based on a great article on Wattpad that was sadly taken down. So Here’s why creepy dream sucks:

The age gap! This is the number one criticism towards this ship, and it's not hard to see why. Rapunzel is 17 going on 18 in the movie, while Flynn is 26 years old. Why? It's so unnecessary and adds nothing to the story. It's also super creepy because Rapunzel has only interacted with one person for 18 years and is childish. I think Disney has realized how bad this looks because they tried to recon Flynn's true age by saying he's meant to be between his early to mid 20s and that he has no official age. However, this doesn't help their case because he still acts way older than Rapunzel, looks way older than her (especially when he's hand drawn) and treats her like a child in the first half of the movie! It also doesn't help that Rapunzel acts and looks way younger than she actually is. Look at this comic and see how much Flynn looks like a creeper. I still don't understand why the creators made him look so old and her so young. Like, what the hell were they thinking? Especially for a Disney princess movie.

The huge gap in maturity: As I stated before, Rapunzel is super childish in the movie. She looks way younger than she is, wears an ugly bootleg barbie as Rapunzel dress, and acts like a 5-year-old. Flynn acts as her babysitter through the first half of the movie and treats her like a child. We can see this when she was having her mood swings and the breakdown afterward.

The reasons for why they fall in love with each other are awful: Rapunzel likes Flynn because she thinks he likes her. That's it. That's basically what she told Gothel in the camp scene, and we have gotten no follow up on this. Well, it makes sense that she has a childish view of love, since Rapunzel acts like a five-year-old. On the other hand, Flynn likes Rapunzel because she likes his true self or something. It's not very clear in the movie why he likes her. It doesn't mean much in the end because she grew up in a tower alone for 18 years. Of course She's going to cling to the first person she comes across and likes whatever he's going to say. Thats basically how these “born sexy yesterday” romances work in movies. Also, what the hell does he find a barely 18-year-old girl who hasn't left her house attractive? He reminds me of those real life creeps who seek out younger girls because they would find anything the creeper does cool since the girls don't know any better. It also makes their love shallow. These characters would fall in love with anyone because any person could fil these desires. Rapunzel would like anyone because she thinks they like her, and Flynn would like anyone under 18 or barely that age because he believes they accepts his true self (whatever that is).

They are willing to give up their dreams and desires for someone they only knew for TWO days: Flynn gives up his trash ass dream of being an adventurer for a girl he knew for 2 days. Rapunzel was willing to go back into the tower because of one guy she knew for two days! Disney stans would criticize princesses like Ariel and Cinderella for falling in love and giving up their life for it. Why is creepy dream any different? It's worse because in the end, they both put their lives on the line for each other after 3 days of knowing each other. Rapunzel was going to be a prisoner so she can heal a creepy guy, and flynn's dumbass cut her hair without Rapunzel's consent before she can heal him. So he can prove his love and save her from gothel (even though he could have waited until Rapunzel healed him and protect her, just in case gothel lived but I digress). Wow, what a great message to send to little girls. Giving up their own life for some creepy guy they met two days ago, it's such a great message. For creepy guys I guess.

Bonus: look how old Flynn looks and tell me this isn’t creepy:

[ceruleanwhore]

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.

[neokonewman]

I feel that Rapunzel and her Dad's issues relied too heavily on demonizing Varian as their problem. True he kidnapped the Queen, but their was more going on with them before Varian lost it on them. I dislike how defeating Varian is treated as solving the issues between them.

Honestly, all of Frederic’s shortcomings are too easily explained away because the show uses Varian as a scapegoat. Frederic hiding the knowledge of the black rocks until they are literally starting to destroy the captial? Somehow he convinces the angry townspeople to turn against the one person actually working on stopping the rocks. Frederic sending disguised guards to harass Varian in his already destroyed home? Completely overlooked in favor of Rapunzel just being angry about being lied to. Even Rapunzel uses Varian as an excuse to lesson Frederic’s actions when Frederic even dared to try to take responsibility for his mistakes.

Varian didn’t cause the rift between Frederic and Rapunzel. It was Frederic’s lies that caused that rift. It’s Rapunzel’s inaction until she literally couldn’t not ignore the black rocks that’s part of the problem. The townspeoples’ rage about the black rocks destroying their homes and livelihoods shouldn’t have been “solved” by directing that anger on a single teen. Frederic was WAY more responsible for the conflict in S1 than Varian was. All Varian did was allow his sorrow turn into rage, borned from the desperation that was forged by Frederic and Rapunzel actions and inaction.

Also, Frederic and Rapunzel has had their issues with each other before Varian was even induced to the series. Frederic was already understandably overprotective of Rapunzel, while Rapunzel felt like the kingdom of Corona just became a larger tower for hun to hide her away. Rapunzel comparing Frederic to Gothel for that brief moment was the true conflict between the two of them. Varian was just a boy who wanted to help when it was clear to him that no one else was trying to stop the rocks. Whatever weird obsession the show has in portraying Frederic as this “poor and misunderstood, soft-hearted” father just makes his character suffer due to not letting him develop.

[artist-issues]

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.

[criticaaaaaaaal]

shadowpeach tangled au bc im predictable

[flower-boi16]

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.

[disneyfanboy13]

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.

[dragonpyre]

What would a Tangled au be with The Death scene?

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

[eliaism]

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

[kanerallels]

Here for your annual reminder that Tangled is the greatest Disney movie ever

[eggmuffinwaffles]

shana tovah 💖

[fancylala4]

Rapunzel fans talk shit about jasmine, saying that she doesn't even have her own movie. However, these same fans forget that rapunzel was sidelined in her own movie for some sexist bullshit. Disney was trying hard to make Tangled marketable and changed the protagonist to Flynn instead of Rapunzel.  At least it made sense for them to focus on Aladdin, the movie is based on Aladdin and the magic lamp.  Tangled was based on Rapunzel, and Disney reduced her as a plot device in HER story.

[ceruleanwhore]

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

[neokonewman]

What's the hottest hot take you have about Tangled the series?

I don’t exactly know what truly constitutes a “hot take” but my most steadfast belief that I don’t think I’ve gotten a chance to express on tumblr is that Eugene had a lot more going for him then just being Rapunzel’s supportive boyfriend, and the show really dropped the ball when it came to his potential as well as New Dream’s development as a couple and as individuals.

Like most things in the series, TTS had all the potential story elements to do Eugene’s character justice, but stops short for one reason or another in my opinion the most frustrating way possible. Lance being his old partner in crime that he screwed over, but later reconciled with and joined him on his way to redemption. A bitter lover that Flynn Rider betrayed. A crime lord that he worked under for most of his life that has it out for. An identity crisis that involves his long lost birth family. All of these elements have the potential to make a story arc that would have gracefully continued Eugene’s arc from the movie about him making up for his past, and moving forward as the bat version of himself.

Unfortunately, almost all of these plot points weren’t even resolved by Eugene himself. They were most often “solved” by Rapunzel either telling him what was “best” for him, or taking over the plot point entirely, robbing Eugene a chance to have agency in his own story beats. Sometimes, the story just drops a plot point for Eugene almost entirely (ex: his identity crisis at the end of S2 completely overshadowed by the Cassandra betrayal twist that no other character ever touches on)

As for the lost potential of New Dream, even if we ignore the near universally hated ending of “No Time Like the Past” making Rapunzel on the same level as Stalyan (arguably worst than her), the couple is so one-sided that the show just forgets that Eugene is supposed to the future co-ruler of Corona or at least heavily support Rapunzel with her doing so by marriage, and instead makes him take a job directly under Rapunzel’s employment. Instead of using his previously establish position as a criminal consultant to the royal guard be a stepping stone of him applying his knowledge to help heal Corona from the reckless war on crime, he instead is put in a position that he in canon of the show was established to be awful at, and ended up “running the tightest ship the kingdom’s ever had, which again Corona did not need.

As a fan of the original movie, Eugene was tied as my favorite character in the movie along with Mother Gothel, so seeing his character so sidelined was a heavy hit to my enjoyment of the series.

[artist-issues]

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.

[lightaphorism]

Wish I looked like them part IV - Intelligent, sometimes charismatic, sometimes asshole-y guys with sweet outfits:

[Percy de Rolo - Critical Role]

[Varian - Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure]

[Jim Hawkins - Treasure Planet]

[Five Hargreeves - The Umbrella Academy]

[Robin - Teen Titans Robin]

[Anthony Lockwood - Lockwood & Co.]

[Ambrose Spellman - The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina]

[The Detective - Escape the Night season 3]

[Logan Sanders - Sanders Sides]

[Riz Gukgak - Fantasy High]