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How is rapunzel represented as a woman
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Tangled and Rapunzel
Many people know the old story of Rapunzel. It is a fairy tale that has been told many times, and in different ways. The original German version is much different than the modern Disney version, “Tangled”. However, both stories give an interesting and different Gender perspective. In classic fairy tales the woman is usually in need of rescuing, and the prince is the one who rescues her. In both of these stories the Gender roles are somewhat different, especially in Tangled. Tangled presents different gender roles than most classical fairy tales because, Rapunzel is more independent, does not fall in love immediately, and saves the prince in the end.
In the movie Tangled Rapunzel is more independent than most fairy tale princesses. The original German version written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm represent several classic gender roles in fairy tales and some different roles as well. However, in the original version Rapunzel makes the woman more dependent. Rapunzel is in need of the man to bring her silk everyday so she can make a ladder to be able to climb down from her tower (Grimm). In Tangled, Rapunzel takes control of the situation when she takes the man (Flynn Rider) captive and forces him to help her. Rapunzel takes Flynn captive when he climbs into the tower. Rapunzel she hits him over the head with a frying pan and ties him up. Rapunzel proves her independence when she says, “Too weak to handle myself out there, huh, Mother? Well......tell that to my frying pan.” This scene in the movie goes against the classic gender roles in most old fairy tales. Instead of the woman being frightened and needing help, Rapunzel takes action (Greno, Howard).
In many classic fairy tales the man and the woman fall in l...
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...d this he saves Rapunzel from being stuck in the tower forever. Rapunzel holds the man she loves in her arms and as she does she begins to cry. A single tear falls onto Rider. This tear heals him completely, and the couple is able to live happily ever after (Greno, Howard). In this version the woman and the man save each other, this goes against the gender roles of many fairy tales. The woman is not completely dependent on the man but he is also dependent on her.
The story of Rapunzel has many interesting gender roles in both versions. Both versions portray a different woman then most classic fairy tales. This is even truer in the story of Tangled. Tangled breaks down many stereotypes, and expectations of the woman’s role. Throughout the story the Rapunzel is different, because she is more independent, doesn’t fall in love right away, and saves the man in the end.
Imagining the similarities between one of the most famous Shakespearean plays and a new animated Disney movie is difficult, until you look deeply into the characters. From the Shakespearean play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is extremely similar to Mother Gothel from the Disney movie Tangled. Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife that has strong desires and personality. The movie Tangled created a similar character with Mother Gothel, she is Rapunzel's mother and believes in going after what you want. The two characters are not the exact same, they differ in their desires and in their ending demise. They are much more similar in their motives and their actions which reveal their shared character traits.
Have you ever gone so far to achieve your dreams? In Tangled by Disney, Rapunzel is trapped in a tower by Gothel, who pretends to be her mother. Gothel prohibits Rapunzel from leaving the tower. Every year on her birthday, she sees floating lights in the sky and she dreams about leaving the tower and going to see the lights.When Flynn Rider breaks into her house, she convinces him to take her to see the lights. When Disney introduced Tangled, it was meant to be like every other story of a princess stuck in a tower. Tangled travels through the Hero’s Journey by going on the Call to Adventure, Crossing the First Threshold, Supreme Ordeal, and the Resurrection.
Imagining the similarities between one of the most famous Shakespearean plays and a new animated Disney movie is difficult, until you look deeply into the characters. From the Shakespearean play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is extremely similar to Mother Gothel from the Disney movie Tangled. Lady Macbeth is Macbeth’s wife that has strong desires and personality. The movie Tangled created a similar character with Mother Gothel, she is Rapunzel's mother and believes in going after what you want. The two characters are not the exact same, they differ in their desires and in their ending demise. They are much more similar in their motives and their actions which reveal their shared character traits.
One of the biggest differences is how the two fairy tales begin. In the original fairy tale “Rapunzel” it started off as a love story. “Two young people who were in love with one another were finally able to become man and wife after they had overcome some objections to their relationship by their relatives. They were extremely delighted by this and lived together like two happy doves” (Schulz 484). On the contrary, the beginning of the “Root of The Matter” begins with the tragic memory of being molested as a child by a father. It states, “That being at the core of the wretched life i’d abandoned, it didn't make much sense that i'd ever go back again. Nice, liver-spotted daddy seated on the far side of the cranberry sauce that's lumped in its bowl like somebody's heart, is the same daddy who hoisted my slick pink bottom bubbles and spread me with his thumbs and tore out the childhood in me” (Frost 394). The theme of being molested continues throughout the tale of the “Root of The Matter”, when it refers to Mother Gothel and the way that she bathed rapunzel her whole life. “Mother gothel lathered me as she has done since I was a child. She spends a great deal of time washing between my legs, and I've always let her. It felt so rapturous. Now, though the sensations the same. I've no desire to let her enjoy me- that is what she does, why
In the 21st centuries take on the fairytale Rapunzel, the movie “Tangled” depicts the troubled life of an adolescent that is raised by a woman whom is not her mother. Rapunzel is abducted from her crib as an infant by an evil witch, Gothel, for the sole purpose of using her magical hair to enhance her beauty to make her young again. As an eager Rapunzel ages, she soon wants to be set free into a world that she has yet to see.
A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these accomplishments with stereotypes of women present in Walt Disney movies. These unrealistic stereotypes may be detrimental to children because they grow up with a distorted view of how men and women interact. Disney animated films assign gender roles to characters, and young children should not be exposed to inequality between genders because its effect on their view of what is right and wrong in society is harmful to their future.
The familiar story of Rapunzel, as told by the brothers Jacob Ludwig Carl and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, takes on new meaning with a psychoanalytic interpretation. It is a complex tale about desire, achievement, and loss. The trio of husband, wife, and witch function as the ego, id, and superego respectively to govern behavior regarding a beautiful object of desire, especially when a prince discovers this object.
Through the three revisions of Beauty and The Beast, the fairy tales retold share many similarities as well as many differences according to their time period. In all three versions femininity and masculinity are presented in many ways. Femininity is shown through all three main female characters, Belle from the famous Disney film “The Beauty and The Beast”, the narrator in “Tiger’s Bride”, and Psyche in “Cupid and Psyche”. In all three versions, the female characters breaks society’s expectations of a typical woman. In CP Psyche stands up to Cupid’s mother Venus and accomplishes these activities usually performed by males. She shows society that women can overcome male activities and have strength to complete the same tasks. She breaks tradition of the male character fighting for her because in this version she takes on the hero role and fights for Cupid. This was not something ordinarily done by woman characters during this time. In TB the narrator breaks the tradition of the innocent stereotypical woman figure. The narrator exposes and does things most woman would never have the nerve to do. She shows society that women can fault their beauty in other ways. Even if society does not make it acceptable to have sex before marriage, she shows that women can expose their body and beauty in many ways. In DB version Belle is a great example that women should not be looked at as dolls and let males have control over them. She shows society that woman can be independent and educated. She does not get married to the most handsome male in town however she goes after someone who deeply cares about her. She displays a great example of how woman have their own mind and can think for themselves. Woman are allowed to make decisions and have ...
of the Cinderella story are psychologically harmful to women.” (p648). The fact that Cinderella is a limited character may give the girl an impression that she should be happy with what she has and not have any or aspirations in her life. That is, until her Prince comes to rescue her. Since these comments were made, the Cinderella story has been modified and changed. In order to see how gender roles have changed in fairy tales from the old to the new, let’s compare the classic version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault to a recent version which is a movie that was released in 1998 called “Ever After”which was directed by Andy Tennant.
Disney movies have a very narrow view of what women should be like. Since the arrival of the first Disney movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the idea of it has expanded, but rather marginally. There is a clear distinction of what a young women should be and what she shouldn’t be. Those who do not fit the mold of Disney’s expectations are cast aside to become villains, but those who do, end up becoming the damsel in distress. Ultimately, these stereotypes are what influences young girls who watch these films, and can have devastating effects on their self worth and change their idea of what it means to be a women. Films like Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
Though Rapunzel’s lengthy confinement in one room, her home, is convincing evidence of the female’s domestic belonging, it does not adequately demonstrate the connectedness of the woman to the domestic. The ambitious young Prince faces an insurmountable task when he plans to elope with Rapunzel; he must, temporarily, displace the woman from her domestic home. After the Prince decisively wins Rapunzel’s affection, Rapunzel delineates her escape plan: “ 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse’” (The Brothers Grimm). First, Rapunzel states she will “go away with [the Prince]” and he will “take [her] on [his] horse,” two statements which reveal both Rapunzel’s dependence upon the Prince and her lack of independence. Though Rapunzel agrees to leave her domestic realm, she does so only to elope in the safe, steady hands of the Prince, venturing from one sphere of domesticity, with her mother, to another sphere of domesticity with a man. Rapunzel also promises to “weave a ladder with [silk].” Weaving, a deep-rooted, traditional female activity arises in Rapunzel because it is both feminine and perfectly accessible within a domestic setting. The woman’s skills, in any patriarchal work, are not
The movie Tangled, by Walt Disney Pictures, follows the story of the classic character Rapunzel. In the movie, Rapunzel is kidnapped as a child by Mother Gothel, who locks her away in a tower so that no one will ever find her. She does this because Rapunzel 's hair has magical properties after her birth mother ate a magical flower while pregnant with Rapunzel. Eventually, Rapunzel makes the decision to leave the tower because she wants to see the floating lights that appear every year on her birthday. She is assisted in her travels by a man named Flynn Ryder. When Mother Gothel discovers that Rapunzel has left the tower, she employs various methods to try and force her to return. Eventually, Rapunzel discovers everything that Mother Gothel
In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that females are supposed to be docile, dependent on the male persona and willing to sacrifice themselves. In many cases, when strong female characters are presented they are always contradicting in these characteristics, thus labeled as villainous. Such is the case of the Cinderella’s stepsisters in Perrault’s “Cinderella” and the stepmother in the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White.” These female characters face judgment and disapproval when they commit the same acts as male characters. With such messages rooted in our beloved fairy tales it is no wonder that society is rampant with these ideals about women and disapprove of women when they try to break free of this mold.
In many fairy tales, there is always a damsel in distress that is beautiful and the male character always falls in love with her. In Rapunzel the short story, Rapunzel is put into a tower and lives there most of her young life by her ‘mother’ before her prince comes to recuse her. The difference between Tangled and Rapunzel the short story is that, Rapunzel is the princess and her prince is actually a thief, which ends up falling in love with her. Tangled illustrates how a naïve and beautiful heroine, evil mother figure, and a shallow egotistical hero can make a fairy tale story end with love and marriage.
Disney and old fairytales threaten gender politics and ideal women roles by giving certain stereotypes for domestic and personality traits. Fairytales that have turned into Disney productions have sculpted domestic roles for women that consist of cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. Disney has also created these princesses with personalities that are shy, passive, and vulnerable. The cause of these stereotypes are making individuals obliterate their own identities and becoming clones from the mold that was prepared for