A Tangled Mess

Ah, yes, thanks for the applause! I know that was SUCH a clever title. I’m sure you’ve NEVER heard that one before…joking of course!

But it is true. Tangled is a tangled mess of a “third-wave” princess movie. Just as we thought we made some progress in the gender and race department, we return to a variation on the trope of a white damsel in distress…or so some critics say. After watching the film, however, I agree to some extent that Rapunzel is not much better than her second-wave predecessors. Within the wide range of second-wave princesses, Rapunzel falls somewhere in the middle.

In my opinion, the second-wave princesses fall on a spectrum of feminism from Ariel on the most pseudo-feminist side to Belle on the most real feminist side. Rapunzel is in the middle, somewhere better than Ariel but worse than Belle. She is better than Ariel mostly because she can save herself when she is in immediate danger, besides the fact that she needs Flynn, a man, to ultimately save her from her greatest danger…but we’ll talk about that later. Rapunzel actively uses her resources to fend for herself, using her hair as a rope and lasso and her frying pan as a weapon, which is an improvement from Ariel, who needs Eric to defeat Ursula for her. In the end, Rapunzel also has authority over Flynn, chastising him for changing the story when he narrates the end (“Eugene!”). These actions paint a stronger, more self-reliant girl than past princesses.

However, although Rapunzel is a better princess than Ariel, she is not as independent as Belle. First, she still dreams of being with a man. When Flynn is dying, he confesses that “you [Rapunzel] were my next dream,” and Rapunzel replies, heartbroken and with tears in her eyes, “and you were mine.” This shows how even though she dreamed of adventure and breaking out of her prison in the beginning, her dreams changed once a man was introduced into her world, eventually stripping her independence from her, much like Ariel. Furthermore, even though Rapunzel can save herself from smaller dangers with her hair and her frying pan, she cannot ultimately save herself from Mother Gothel. Flynn is the vessel by which Rapunzel leaves her tower in the first place, and in the end, Flynn is the one who cuts her hair, finally breaking her shackles and setting her free from Mother Gothel’s control.

When comparing the male characters in Beauty and the Beast and Tangled, we can also see a step back. Both films have a macho man character; Beauty and the Beast has Gaston, and Tangled has Flynn Rider. They’re both very selfish and boast to be the “ladies’ man,” but Beauty portrays that characteristic as bad because Belle rejects Gaston’s advances on him, eventually making him the bad guy, whereas Tangled portrays it as good because Rapunzel falls in love with Flynn, who becomes a good guy in the end. We can see set-backs in Tangled from Beauty and the Beast on both male and female fronts.

There are areas in which Tangled is better than second-wave princess films, such as The Little Mermaid, but there are also set backs, so overall, ideologically, Rapunzel should be considered a second-wave princess.

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