On Disney and the Movies that Never End, Tangled Edition

I have very mixed feelings about this Walt Disney fellow. Not only did the man create, but also, because of his success/vision/financing(?), allow to be created, some of the greatest family movies and cartoons of all time. Disney, and now Pixar, are mighty companies, designed to delight children of all ages (and delight their shareholders as well). Disney owns theme parks, cruises, TV networks, Broadway shows, and so much more. They have even acquired two entities that I love: Marvel and Star Wars. Despite what I think of the company's marketing/merchandising machine and my concerns over what will happen to the my beloved Star Wars franchise, the most important thing for me right now is that my three-year-old daughter has been sucked into that machine.

It started when my wife and I decided to put on Cinderella for my youngest. My daughter has never been a huge TV watcher, primarily because we don't watch a ton of television. When she did watch TV, a lot of it was music based (i.e. Barney) and never any full-length movies. We put Cinderella on thinking she would just watch for 10 minutes, if that, and ask for something else or move on to some other activity. That girl sat through the entire film, eyes glued to the TV. She laughed, she asked pertinent questions and said "Oh no!" at the appropriate moments. My wife and I were stunned. And then came the words I dreaded to hear... words that brought back repressed memories from when my three oldest children were younger.. my daughter looked me in the eye and said "Can I watch that again?" Aaaaargh! It was starting!

"Can I watch it again?" How can children watch the same movie (or TV show) over and over again? I mean, what pleasure can they possibly get from it? Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. My daughter watches movies over and over again and somehow seems surprised that everything turns out all right in the end. She is only three, but still... she's insane, right?

Just as an aside, she did watch TV shows over and over but usually there were enough episodes in a season to keep it at least a little fresh. Also, as I mentioned above, when a show has a lot of music in it, the TV almost becomes more like a radio.

Unfortunately I find myself watching these same movies over and over again and then my insanity kicks in. No, I don't expect the outcomes to change but I start picking apart the movies, analyzing them and wondering things that are best left un-wondered. Some of you may be understanding exactly what I am saying, others may be scratching their heads wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Well, for the latter, let me show you what I am talking about.

My daughter's current obsession is Tangled (I know it should be Frozen, but hey, kudos to her for not jumping on the band wagon.) For the last month or so she has wanted to watch it in the mornings before going to day care and also when she gets home from daycare. She knows it so well she is quoting scenes, and singing along to most of the songs. I have watched the film over and over as well and I am left with all sorts of questions.

First off, I don't believe that anyone could be stuck in a tower for 18 years and never go outside. Especially when you have a big window overlooking your secret valley. Rapunzel let down her hair so her "mother" could come and go as she pleased yet she never, before her 18th birthday, lowered herself down to step on the ground. I don't care what kind of psychological abuse one uses on their hostage; it seems highly unlikely that someone would not, at some point even step a foot on the ground below the tower. This would slowly turn into a steady exploration of the valley, and then curiosity would take them outside the valley. Nope, not Rapunzel. She just stared out the window and pined.... I say bullshit!

Next, the movie tries to portray Mother Gothel as this evil woman who stole a baby for her own selfish designs (immortality). Yes, she did steal the child from its birth parents, and yes the primary motivation for the act was to keep her fountain of youth, but Rapunzel grew into a fairly intelligent, well-mannered and lovely woman. I feel some of her behavior (and art talent) could be attributed to birth, but a lot of her development must have been taught/learned. The only person to interact with Rapunzel was Mother Gothel. Therefore, there must have been a level of love that Gothel had for Rapunzel. She may have even reached the point where she thought of Rapunzel as her own daughter.

I think it is wrong to assume that there was nothing but selfishness and evilness behind the woman's actions (at least before the events of the movie). There must have been love of a sort between them. "Stockholm Syndrome", I hear you thinking; sure, maybe that would explain Rapunzel's side of it. After all, she did reach out a hand to try and catch her fake mother as she tumbled out of the window to her death. However, this doesn't explain why Rapunzel was not just locked in a room and ignored, except for "magical youth giving" time. Like I said, Mother Gothel must have developed some sort of love for Rapunzel.

Next, there is a series of little things that I noticed and feel the need to mention.

I know Rapunzel never wore shoes, so her feet must have toughened up a bit, but she was walking on stone floors and rugs in the tower. Running outside in a world full of rocks, twigs and other sharp foot-piercing stuff seems a bit far fetched. Yet Rapunzel puts on a huge dance number in the valley.

At one point during the movie, Flynn Rider and Maximus (the palace horse, who happens to be chasing Rider, who made off with the crown of a certain lost princess) fall from a tree into a very deep gorge. The fall is hundreds of feet yet they just land with an ooof! In real life, there would have been two shattered corpses on the valley floor.

In the bar scene, where Flynn and Rapunzel are hiding from a group of guards who are hot on their trail, Maximus enters the search and is practically a bloodhound. The horse sniffs out an entrance to a secret tunnel out of the bar in under 5 minutes. Yet in an earlier scene, Maximus is no more than two feet away from Flynn, who is blocked by a thin wall of vines, but doesn't detect the rogue. This almost annoys me as much as the Ring Wraith in Fellowship of the Ring. The foul beast is two feet from Frodo and can't find, sense or smell the ring. Hey Sauron, maybe these aren't the best candidates for a Ring recovery team! But, I digress...

Later in the film, when a group of the song and dance ruffians arrange a Flynn Rider rescue operation, the piano playing thug places Flynn on the end of a cart. Another one jumps off a second story landing (2 stories! Broken legs anyone?) onto the cart catapulting Flynn a tremendously large distance to land exactly on the back of Maximus. I am not even going to guess the distance both vertically or horizontally but, it is absolutely ridiculous. A Chinese circus act would have to train years to get that to work (including the death or dismemberment of countless acrobats) and these guys pull it off first try. Not friggin' likely.

After watching Tangled as many times as I have, I am also convinced that most of the royal guards are clones. The majority look exactly alike. And I also might add, they shoot as well as Storm/Clone Troopers from the Star Wars movies as well.

Let's jump right to the end, which I have to say was very reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast (hero gets stabbed in the back, villain dies by extreme gravity, and hero brought back from the brink with a tear from their beloved). Flynn, on climbing the tower to save Rapunzel, gets a knife to the back from Mother Gothel. Rapunzel agrees to stay with her fake mother (knowing that she is the lost princess) with no resistance, if Gothel lets her heal Flynn with her magic hair. In an act of supreme sacrifice, Flynn cuts Rapunzel's hair, freeing her from the control of her wicked abductor. All I have to say to this is... how stupid is Flynn Rider? The sacrifice is nice and all, but he could have cut Rapunzel's hair after she healed him. Nope, not Flynn. Maybe deep down inside he realizes he doesn't want to settle down and get married and figures this is the best way out. Probably not, but you never know!

Was I also the only one that thought that if Flynn wants to live forever, all he has to do is be a jerk to her (or marry her, that seems to make a lot of women cry)? Apparently her tears still have the magic healing power, since it was Rapunzel's tear falling on Flynn that healed him. If Flynn could bottle up those tears and force her to sing, he could stay young forever. And he wouldn't even have to use force--she obviously is susceptible to emotional control.... okay, that last bit is getting a bit dark, but it just helps bring home my point.

I have watched this film too many times. If the over-analyzing of the film wasn't enough, the fact that I find the songs popping into my head randomly throughout the week proves it. The sad thing is, is that this is just the beginning. Today it is Tangled, tomorrow it will be something new. A new movie will be placed on repeat. Then my daughter will not just want to watch the movie but she will want the bed sheets and the curtains and the cups and the play set and the dolls and the trading cards and on and on and on. I guess that is just one of the hardships we as parents have to bear, and to be honest, if this is one of the hardest, with all the shitty stuff that can happen to a child in the world today, I say "Let it go, Let it go, Can't hold it back anymore..." (Okay, that was from Frozen, but dammit, that is the movie she should be fixating on!)