Film Review: Tangled

[Three]

It's not finished, but I was so eager to share what I had, I felt like posting. Enjoy 





In the film Tangled, Disney's version of Rapunzel, the story begins by having the film's anti-hero, Flynn Rider, give the audience back-story which introduces us to our main characters. Rapunzel is a daughter of royalty. Her parents rule over an unnamed kingdom that is home to a magical golden flower that has the incredible ability to heal wounds, illnesses, and even reverse aging. However, the flower is only a legend to the King and Queen as well as to the rest of the kingdom. The only person who is certain of this flower's existence and its location is the film's antagonist, Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel is a very old woman who uses the flower to to stay forever young and beautiful. In order to continue using it, she hoards it by making sure it is hidden under an artificial bush. When the Queen is pregnant with Rapunzel, she becomes struck with a fatal illness. Desperate to keep his wife alive, the King sent his army to search for the Golden Flower to use its healing properties. The film then shows us Mother Gothel attempting to use the flower again. Before she can activate its power, she becomes startled by the sound of a squad of the Kings' soldier's footsteps moving towards her location, so she quickly rushes to conceal the flower with her fake bush and hides. Unwittingly, the accidentally knocks over the flower's cover with her foot as she hurries to get out of the approaching men's sight, leaving the glowing magical flower visible. Once the soldiers see the flower, they immediately take it back to the castle and use its magic to save the Queen. Thus, a healthy baby Rapunzel is born.

Rapunzel was not merely healthy, though. Thanks to the potion's magic, Rapunzel was born with golden blond hair with the flower's ability to heal. All seemed well in the Kingdom, but Mother Gothel was not unaware of Rapunzel's whereabouts. In fact, she followed the guards and witnessed what became of the flower. Eager to keep getting her fix of age reversing magic, Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel and took her to a faraway tower where she decided to raise the baby as her own daughter. It is at this point our exposition scene ends and the actual film begins. So far, my first impressions towards the film are very positive. The animation is breathtakingly gorgeous, the humor is charming, and the pacing is just right for my taste. And while there is much to say about the technical aspects of the films, my purpose in this review is to bring attention to the more disturbing and subtle psychological themes within the film, so my main focus will be on the characters. I do want to be clear that I am not a psychologist and thus am not trained to diagnose mental illnesses. These are simply my thoughts that I will try to make a rational case for with the help of some very useful material I've read. Some of the terms I'll be using are based on highly complex concepts that have a plethora of literature written about them, which I have only been exposed to a small percentage of, so I'm in no way an expert.





The first character that I want to explore is the evil Mother Gothel. I originally thought this character was a typical narcissist. Her gross obsession with youth and beauty, the multiple mirrors in her house, as well as her exploitative tendencies, all of these things seemed indicative that Gothel was a Narcissist. However, after giving the idea more thought I realized that, due to Gothel's willingness to murder, kidnap infants, and chronically lie to get what she wants, I decided that she would best be described as a sociopath, although it is clear that she exhibits classic narcissistic characteristics, such as vanity. To use the helpful distinction that clinical psychologist Martha Stout lays out in her fascinating book “the sociopath next door”, the difference between Narcissism and Sociopathy is that ”Narcissism is, in a metaphorical sense, one half of what sociopathy is. Even clinical narcissists are able to feel most emotions as strongly as anyone else does, from guilt and sadness to desperate love and passion. The half that is missing is the crucial ability to understand what other people are feeling. Narcissism is a failure not of conscience but of empathy, which is the capacity to perceive emotions in others and so react to them appropriately.” Thus, Narcissism is a lack of empathy, while sociopathy is a lack of conscience.



The way that sociopathy is portrayed in most films is not entirely accurate. Most of the time the villains in cinema are exaggerated characatures of sociopaths at best. Sociopaths in reality are not so obvious or grand. They do not normally kidnap babies. They do not wear dark, hooded cloaks. They do not laugh maniacally. In fact, according to Martha Stout, “the only emotions that sociopaths seem to feel genuinely are the so-called 'primitive' affective reactions that result from immediate physical pain and pleasure, or from short-term frustrations and successes.” Dinsey villains appear to be passionate about being evil, but sociopaths cannot experience love, passion or joy. They are in fact not usually violent. How do I know this? Well, have you ever came across anybody like this in your life? Probably not,(I genuinely hope not) but statistically you have certainly came into contact with a sociopath. It is estimated that 1 in 25 Americans are sociopath. That is more than anorexia, which is considered to be an epidemic. The fact that you most likely cannot recall where or when this occurred demonstrates what I mean when I say that sociopaths are much more subtle and hidden. It is this subtle and hidden nature of sociopathy that I think Tangled portrays quite well in some instances, most notably in the interactions between Rapunzel and Mother Gothel when Rapunzel is an adult.

After the film's exposition scene, we are introduced to Rapunzel, who is now a young adult. She starts off the main plot of the film with a wonderful song entitled “When Will My Life Begin.” The song communicates her weariness and frustration at living in a tower,regardless of having as much time as she wants to spend on improving her plethora of skills and talents, such as, pottery making,painting, ballet, guitar playing, and sewing. My interpretation of this scene is that mere productivity without growth is not living. So much of what we do during the day, what we call "living life" is not actually living. Each day, without striving towards a noble goal, such as individuation, living with integrity, and speaking the truth, simply becomes a photocopy of the last day. And in much of the same way a copy of a copy becomes more and more degraded, so too do our lives lose definition when do not raise our standards. So, why does Rapunzel stay inside and continue to choose the comfort of routine and repetition? Because her "mother won't allow her to leave." is her stated reason. Yet, as she soon discovered, her prison was only internal for she eventually left the tower. She could have left anytime. Perhaps that's why many of us choose the familiar. To avoid the pain of knowing that the jail cell that we thought was permanently sealed, the cell that we spent years of our lives in for the sake of appeasing empty people, was unlocked the entire time. 

The following sequence struck a deep emotional chord with me. It was almost as if every interaction I had been in where I ended up being on the receiving end of some type of emotional abuse was spliced together so that I no longer felt like I was watching a film based on an old fairy tale, but was rather reviewing my own memories. Because of this, it was very difficult for me to re watch these scenes. It is these exchanges between Mother Gothal and Rapunzel that motivated me to write this paper. One of the main purposes of emotional abuse is to obscure the source of the abuse. Unlike physical abuse or even some verbal abuse where the victim can clearly see what is being done to them, emotional abuse makes the victim feel like she is in a fog so that when she feels hurt she isn't able to figure out why. This keeps her in a perpetual state of confusion, which is then taken advantage of by the abuser to continue the abuse usually to convince the victim that she is imagining things, there is no abuse, and that she is misinterpreting the situation. An error of reality processing on the victims part. If the abuser is successful in convincing her that her pain is entirely self generated by her erroneous thinking, then she has been programmed to abuse herself. Nothing could be more satisfying to a sadist. It's the perfect scam. To abuse anyone in such a way as to get the victim to doubt her own ability to press reality is called gaslighting.


Mother Gothel arrives at the tower and calls Rapunzel to let down her hair. Immediately, the first interaction that we see between the two is entirely destructive to Rapunzel. After Gothel is pulled up from the tower she asks Rapunzel with an obviously disingenuous tone of voice “Oh, Rapunzel. How do you manage to do that every single day without fail? It looks absolutely exhausting, darling!” Rapunzel hesitantly replies, ”Oh, it's nothing.” “Then I don't know why it takes you so long.”, Gothel tauntingly says in which is followed by a hearty laugh at her own “joke”. “Oh, darling I'm just teasing!” Rapunzel says nothing with a confused look on her face. Gothel walks towards her mirror to inspect her reflection. Rapunzel follows and tries to express what's been on her mind. “All right...so, mother. As you know tomorrow is a very big day” Gothel interrupts showing no sign that she's listened.“Rapunzel look in that mirror. You know what I see? There's a short pause and during this moment you an see by her uneasy facial expression on that Rapunzel is anticipating another attack. “I see a strong confident beautiful young lady.“ Rapunzel is relieved that no put down was made. She lets her guard and even allows herself to smile. Then the trap is sprung. “Oh, look! You're here too!” Gothel one again ejects an intensely derisive laugh like cannon fire. Rapunzel's distress becomes more apparent by the expression on her face. Gothel continues the abuse, “I'm just teasing, stop taking everything so seriously.” .


So, here we have in manipulation put forth as compassion and concern, put downs and insults disguised as humor, invalidation of the the person's feelings, which then finished off by gas lighting. And the order in which these things occur is no accident. There is certainly a kind of brilliance in the way that these abusive strategies are executed. Abusers want two things; to hurt you and for you to stick around so they can keep hurting you. For example, a good action film doesn't start with the most intense sequence nor does it keep the action non stop. If it did, the audience would lose interest or find the excess of stimuli unbearable. Then they would leave the theater Instead, a good action film builds the tension gradually. Once the tension of an action scene reaches its pinnacle, it is then released by allowing the next sequence to be more focused on dialogue and character development in a relaxed environment. This allows the audience to relax before the next action scene wherein the tension becomes even greater. Similarly, a good abuser, such as Gothel, always leaves room for “down time”, where she compliments Rapunzel or asks a question out of “concern”. This allows Rapunzel to relax and thus let her guard down, which only makes the next blow's impact is that much greater. As Vin Deisal says in the film Riddick “It's always the punch you don't see that puts you down.” It is not hair, but Rapunzel herself that is tangled, tangled in Gothel's web emotional vampirism and abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIs9sFyFSDk

http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers.html
 




Perhaps the most tragic thing about being tortured in this way for many years is that the abuser becomes internalized. Internalization is the process by which the attitudes, values, standards and opinions of others is integrated into one's own sense of identity. It happens automatically and cannot be undone. The result is that even after Rapunzel escapes her prison and her torturer,  Gothel is still in her head. Remember how I said that gaslighting, getting the victim to doubt her ability to process reality, leads the victim to attack herself? Again, this is something the film portrays surprisingly well, which is not only the abuse, but its effects. After Rapunzel is free she constantly doubts her decision and castigates herself, proclaiming that, "she is a bad daughter", "breaking her mother's heart", and a "horrible person". And for anyone who has gone through the rough process of breaking out of abusive relationships, it is not uncommon for this doubt and self flagulation to occur. Even when the person has treated you egregiously your entire life, this process can take years. 

[rock siles barcellos]

fantastic job, Joel, great analysis, by watching the clips you posted along with your review gives me the impression that the writers were very aware of the kind of abuse they were portraying and also everything you said here

[JoaoPMatos]

Hi Joel,Just say the movie and read your review, and I’d like to say first of all that your writing is very pleasing to read and it made me go through your review in a bristling pace. Congratulations for that!I found the movie wonderful, and some tears came to my eyes in two parts of the movie, first when Rapunzel and Ryder were on the boat witnessing for the first time the candle-balloons being sent into the night skies (which I’m not sure it’s the white knight inside me wanting to do what Ryder did, or the desire to provide such special moments to a companion), and on the last part of the movie when Rapunzel was introduced to the real parents. In a Disney movie a king and queen can be designed to be adorable, without any kingdom to “manage”, so they looked like common people to me and as such I empathized to de degree of tears. It’s easy to take it like this when you don’t see the dark side of how kingdoms are built. 

Aesthetically the movie is awesome to see, with the anthropomorphism of the horse being the icing on the cake, like the squirl in Ice Age, it’s hilarious to watch. Great faces on all characters, and I was actually pleased to see that Rapunzel was not a 10, she is made very pretty without looking like a bony-angelina-jolie-style model face, and that leaves space for her personality to show, and at least to me made the connection with her much easier.It’s great that the writters made Ryder be a “player”, a pick up artist, in the beginning of his interactions with Rapunzel, which is a lot more real and instructive way to show that it’s the stupid way of dealing with woman, then showing that this progressively changes along the storyline. So both characters grow as people during the movie, which although I find unrealistic to be done in such a short time and without a lot more effort, sends the right message: you should be better tomorrow than you are today, and by that the joy of life will come.

 

I saw another recent movie called “Divergent”, and the main male character is a 10 guy who is made to be (at a quick glance) deep, but it’s just too obvious that is a boy toy with pretense depth…that may be only me prejudice, but I find it very unlikely. In this “Divergent” movie, the main character (female) also falls in love by this boy toy at first sight, which is predictable and ridiculous, and it seemed that Ryder grew on Rapunzel through the movie, which is a much healthier relation. This divergent is modern feminism on a screen..a retarded movie in my opinion.

The bitch, Gothel, is like you say a sterorypical character, and her face is a lot more model like, with hard edged cheek bones, deep red lips etc, the “skinny woman with zombie eyes” that Stef mentions ever so often. So up to this part props to Disney for making the characters the way they are, there are great subtleties about the world to be noticed.It also sends out the message that evil people worry too much about their looks (aka makup and D&G bags), and that their looks are the sole purpose of their looks..she has no activities, no purpose for the looks, just for vanity; which is most instructive for spotting these people in the world!

 

 

I think your observation of Tangled being the situation and not the hair is spot on, and agree with your developments about the dysfunctional relationship between Rapunzel and Gothel. Looking back I found strange that the manipulation tactic crying was not used. Making others feeling guilty by crying is the strongest and most destructive tactics some woman utilize, and I wish this was shown clearly in the movie. Drawing my philosophy from standup comedy, crying is the last resort dmanipulative woman resort to, and it generally works (and that is why they do it). Bill Burr and Chris Rock talk epically about this. So it is an absolute shame that this is was not depicted, as it would be very instructive to put it out in the open. That would also put the sociopathic nature much more palpable, I think. First you fuck their logic process, then you guilt them into doing what you want.The hatches at Rapunzel`s self-confidence with the repeated “you are this---, im just teasing” are disgusting to watch and the emotional mess that Rapunzel finds herself (the mood swing video you posted) , with the internalized alter-ego it’s also really sad to see.Overall I find your review spot on; I just think that as in the movie, the treatment process is fast forwarded. She could not have been healthy without a lot of work on herself, and this fantasy that you can go from broken to sane by meeting the right guy, or by just leaving one place to find another, or by switching jobs, etc is wrong and deadly, yet it’s all over the movie world. It’s even on FDR, with people that listen to the shows for years without getting past the listening, to the working stuff out phase. And that takes time and effort, not “finding the knight who will take you away from all this”.The thing you mention, skills without growth mean nothing, is one of the main points I take from your review, and this cannot be emphasized enough. According to one of those books I talked to you about a while ago, “social intelligence”, the male psychological wellbeing requires freedom and growth, while the female psychological well-being requires safety. Living in the welfare state, we are forced to comply with the wish for safety over freedom and growth, and the reason most men are miserable these days, I believe, is that they bought into this notion of safety, which is counter our nature.It’s curious that in the movie this comes from a girl…and I guess woman won’t understand it from the movie, and guys won’t watch a “girly” animation movie…Rapunzel is the libertarian after all.

 

 

Also it’s great to see that it’s not her hair (some magic), but her tear (her empathy) that saves Ryder from the backstabbing bitch…I know I’m stretching it a bit, but if I can indulge in this…What a great metaphor for what FDR is being built on, and of what truly heals the world, empathy. Wonderfull!

 

From the text you published on FDR a while ago about your personal situation, I know you can add a lot of value to your review by including this hidden aspect in your review of this otherwise brilliant movie. If you agree that this is missing of course =).

 

 

..and on a personal last note, I’m so glad that when Ryder cut off her hair, Rapunzel didn’t end up with a feminazi-short-butch hairstyle, that would have ruined it completely for me.. 

Hope this is of value to you Joel,Regards

Joao

[Three]

rock, thank you for the compliment . I'm glad you enjoyed it. Joao, thank you as well, your feedback is very much appreciated.I absolutely agree with you that the film is gorgeous. Just some fun trivia, this is the 2nd most expensive film of all time! The animators truly did a wonderful job. And the facial expression are hilarious! I found it particularly delightful to pause the film at particular moments just to enjoy the expressions. I too cried during the scene in the boat and I'm not sure why. The moment where the king cried was pretty heartbreaking too and unexpected, so once again props to whoever decided to show a man express sorrow. I  want to mention, just to be clear, I'm a novice at film analysis and I'm not even sure this would qualify as a strict review or analysis. This was more of, "hey, this is what popped into my head as I was watching this sequence of beautiful images and I wanted to share." I think that the first step towards healing is awareness and because it's so hard to see this stuff that it might be valuable to others.Also, I'm not quite sure what to say about the rest of the film. If you accept the premise which Stef and another reviewer on the boards uses to interpret fantasy that Magic is a metaphor for madness, then it could be said that the rest of the film is Rapunzel's  borderline fantasy to compensate for the pain of being abused, that she never left, and that the bad Gothel/ good Queen is her splitting psychologically. Because as you pointed out, there are some things that make no sense, such as the fantasy of going broken to sane. But, I'm not really sure.On the topic of using tears to manipulate, I think that is very interesting and I wanted to add to it. In Martha Stouts book, "The Sociopath Next Door" she says that the number one way to tell if someone is a sociopath or untrustworthy, is not a facial expression or something subtle in the way they look at you, it is repeatedly doing egregious things followed by an appeal to sympathy. I had the misfortune of working with a person who would skip work or come to work and provoke his boss into bullying me by telling him I was doing a bad job, although he was going in 2 hours late. This was immediately followed by him going home and saying "my mother is in the hospital!"While Gothel doesn't cry she does appeal to sympathy by saying things, literally right after she's screamed at Rapunzel, "oh, look now I'm the bad person." Crying is just another way to execute this tactic. During the song "mommy knows best", there's a moment when Gothel puts the back of her hand on her forehead, gets into the damsel pose and says, "say no more, you'll just upset me"During the extended version of this sequence, there is a deleted scene where she says "go ahead and leave me, I deserve it. let me die alone, be my guest. when it's too late, you'll see. just wait! mother knows best. "[media]

[media]And that makes sense about the different psychological requirements of men and women. I think it's worth exploring that concept more in the future.Which text were you referring to by the way? I would certainly consider adding it.Again, thank you for you're response!

[JoaoPMatos]

Hi again Joel,Its great to put things on paper, whatever definition you find for them, i.e. review or not so keep them coming =]I am hearing the call in show No one left behind, and this torture and subsequent appeal to sympathy is mentioned by Stef, which relates to what you mentioned in the psychopath next door. So the gist of it is the psycho, tortures mentally the victim until he gets very stressed and then stop, when you stop the victim gets a rush of endorphines as a signal of relief from the body, and at this time, the psycho appeals to sympathy in order to connect the feeling of relief of the victim with the endorphin relief of the victim. Doing so will signal that compliance is the way to the victim feeling good, so from that moment forward the abuser may rage at any time, for any reason, and he will automatically get compliance. Pure evil automation. The same as in the movie, although i wasn't fully aware of the mechanics of how it works.Id also like some exploration of the latter part of the movie, the feasibility of the all ends well approach. I'm very skeptical as you are.Your text i was mentioning was one you wrote shortly after you called in, about therapy and confronting your parent, it was on the gold donator section, but i cant find it now. This experience is what is mostly missing in the movie.Good to hear from you,RegardsJoao

[Three]

Hi again Joel,Its great to put things on paper, whatever definition you find for them, i.e. review or not so keep them coming =]I am hearing the call in show No one left behind, and this torture and subsequent appeal to sympathy is mentioned by Stef, which relates to what you mentioned in the psychopath next door. So the gist of it is the psycho, tortures mentally the victim until he gets very stressed and then stop, when you stop the victim gets a rush of endorphines as a signal of relief from the body, and at this time, the psycho appeals to sympathy in order to connect the feeling of relief of the victim with the endorphin relief of the victim. Doing so will signal that compliance is the way to the victim feeling good, so from that moment forward the abuser may rage at any time, for any reason, and he will automatically get compliance. Pure evil automation. The same as in the movie, although i wasn't fully aware of the mechanics of how it works.Id also like some exploration of the latter part of the movie, the feasibility of the all ends well approach. I'm very skeptical as you are.Your text i was mentioning was one you wrote shortly after you called in, about therapy and confronting your parent, it was on the gold donator section, but i cant find it now. This experience is what is mostly missing in the movie.Good to hear from you,RegardsJoao

The complexity and depth of the sadists cruelty and techniques are as fascinating as they are horrifying. Wow, thank you for sharing that with me. Oh, yeah! It just now clicked for me. I do have a post which outlines a convo i had with my father. it would be cool to include that. After all, this writing about tangled is to a large degree emotionally driven by that.