Monday at the Movies: Disney's "Tangled"

I'm keeping this review as spoiler-free as possible for those of you who haven't had the chance to see Tangled yet, promise. Now, when I first heard about Disney's working on a Rapunzel film, I was actually pretty shocked. You see, I'm a firm believer that there are just a number of fairytales which are simply not Disney-able. Of my top-two of those, first is Bluebeard and second is Rapunzel. I mean, seriously, go read the actual fairytale--it's crazy, starting with two peasants stealing radishes (rampion, from which Rapunzel is named) from a witch next door, and ending up with Rapunzel pregnant with twins in the desert after having been taking advantage of by a prince who eventually finds his way back to her over many years, blind. Reading it, I just couldn't imagine how the folks at Disney were going to handle this amount of crazy. But to my pleasant surprise, their adaptation is quite successful.

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First, the stolen radish becomes a magic golden flower with the power to grant eternal youth and heal, and Rapunzel is born a princess who is stolen because of her magic hair by Mother Gothel. This, and the prince is now a rogue thief by the name of Flynn Rider. I won't give away anymore for those who haven't seen the movie, but I will say that I am VERY impressed with this adaptation. I loved Princess and the Frog, but this was even better in my opinion.

Now, before I can go into the film itself, I have to talk about the marketing of Tangled. First, as you'll obviously notice, the title of the film is not Rapunzel, and there's a very specific reason for that: Princess and the Frog was successful, but not as much as Disney had hoped, and this was due in majority to its being marketed to audiences as a princess (read: for little girls, melodramatic romance) movie. The androgynous title combined with the focus on humorous/action scenes and the male lead over the female in most trailers led to Tangled's marked box office success (hey, it outsold DEATHLY HALLOWS at one point!). I can vouch for this--when I saw the film, there were fathers with their sons who went to it all by themselves, not with their sisters. This movie successfully reaches all genders, as well all ages--Disney got the coveted 15 and up age range via some amazing youtube promo campaigns, including one making use of the infamous Double Rainbow viral video. If you'd like to learn more about the marketing campaign, I'd suggest watching Nolstagia Chick's newest vid about it.

On to the movie characters!

Rapunzel is voiced by one of my favorite singer-turned-actresses, Mandy Moore, who does an excellent job of getting into her character vocally. A lot of people might be put off at the idea of a well-known pop-star/actress like Moore playing her, but I've always loved Mandy Moore as an actress (Saved, Walk to Remember, and yeah, even American Dreamz). The other Disney movie musical with a famous actress playing the lead female role that I can remember is Hunchback with Demi Moore, but she never sang her own part. Mandy Moore does all of the singing, and with Alan Menken working on the songs (which are catchy without being overly cheesy) this all adds up to awesome. In addition to sporting Moore's spunky, enthusiastic voice, Rapunzel's character is a welcome departure from past Disney princesses in that she can defend herself (and does, frequently, with her handy dandy frying pan XD) and really isn't out looking for love--she's seeking out the world and trying to put together the puzzle of her identity. She's trapped in a tower, yes, but she's well-educated, skilled, and quite independent. Tiana was very similar, but there was still a lot of pointless debate about whether or not her character was empowering. With Rapunzel--the Disney canon version--I feel no such debate is warranted. If you see the film, you'll be more than likely to agree. Oh, and her animal companion? A super cute chameleon named Pascal--looks like the reptile animal bff continues (PatF's animal companions include a firefly and an alligator, and Mulan had a dragon and a crickett).


Here comes the smolder.

Flynn Rider is a roguish thief on-the-run who becomes entangled (no pun intended) in Rapunzel's world. He is voiced by Zachary Levi of Chuck fame, who does an excellent job and, holy crap, I had absolutely no idea he could sing. But he does, quite well actually! I really enjoyed Flynn's character, and I'll say one thing for Disney--leaving his past open was a crucial step in preserving the intrigue and drama of the story, and Disney played their cards right here. Rider is a bit of a Han Solo/Indiana Jones type male lead: he's too sure of himself, and is cocky, but not in an offput-ish way. He's a lovable anti-hero, similar in many ways to Aladdin (who was probably the last Disney male to be as appealing to young boys, including Levi, Flynn's voice actor!). Interesting fact: to get the right amount of "smolder" and good looks for Flynn Rider's appearance, the animation crew gathered all the female Disney employees in the studio and had them go through pictures of hot guys and pick out the sexiest features. No joke, and I think they did a really great job! Thanks, ladies!


Mother Gothel is voiced by Donna Murphy and is a fabulous villain, very much like Frollo from Hunchback (consequently also about a dark adoptive parent figure who locks their "child" in a tower). We aren't sure if she really loves Rapunzel or is just using her, and she throws us because of this. She isn't one-dimensional or as predictable as some of the run-of-the-mill evil-for-evil's-sake villains.

I can't really say anymore without giving it all away, but I can tell you that you should see this movie: The animation and visuals are breathtaking, the story is well-written, and the music stunning. It's perfect Disney magic, and you'll get a new favorite Disney princess out of it. The last time I remember this much thought and effort being put into a Disney princess film, it was Sleeping Beauty. And coming from the biggest fan of that film, that's saying a lot. To paraphrase Rapunzel, best. movie. EVER.

Retro Aesthetic Inspiration: Lady LovelyLocks

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last couple of days--Jan Term's started at college and I'm busy writing a paper on Beowulf and Paradise Lost. Two English epics completely unrelated to the content of this post, lol.
The first of what I hope will be a continuing series of aesthetic inspirations I've gathered over the years. Today's piece of inspiration is from the 1980s and typifies the decade's obsession with bright colors, princesses, and above all--BIG freaking hair. Lady LovelyLocks was created by American Greetings, the same company that produced Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Bright. LovelyLocks never reached their level of lasting popularity, but is a very interesting series nonetheless.

Here's the story: In the faraway land of LovelyLocks, where everyone has long and lustrous hair, the king and queen give birth to a beautiful girl they name Lady LovelyLocks. However, the Grand Duchess RavenHair, envious of their power, destroys the king and queen. A wizard named ShiningGlory rescues the infant princess who will return once she grows into her powers. Lady grows into a fair maiden whose magical hair is streaked with three colors: "The soft pink glow came from the Dawn, the Sun added the radiant gold, and Twilight bestowed the shimmering lavender. These precious streaks enable her to summon the friendly little forest creatures called the Pixietails and command them to do her bidding." The Pixietails are these tiny woodland creatures with long magic hair that keep the kingdom lovely and free of evil. Lady also has another power--she can see the goodness inside anything no matter its outward appearance. With her parents gone, she is completely responsible for protecting LovelyLocks Land from the wicked heiress of RavenHair, the Duchess RavenWaves.

Lady LovelyLocks and the PixieTails, artwork examples.

What is really cool about the series is the artwork, which is highly stylized due in part to American Greetings' having originated the series. All the watercolor work, the over-the-top pastels and the cherubic faces of the characters are quite astounding. It's shocking in our age of cg-animation and 3-d to see something so intricately designed by hand! I actually only remembered the series a short while back, when I found a card from AG featuring LovelyLocks and thought," gosh, how pretty." A little googling and I found whole sites dedicated to the old cartoon/doll series, including LLL.org (where the images in this post come from).

The vain and wicked young Duchess RavenWaves

I think my favorite aspect of the show is that, by social standards, RavenWaves can be considered prettier than LovelyLocks. Yet she feels the need to compete, never satisfied with how she looks. Indeed, Lady and her friends initially hope to welcome RavenWaves as a friend and ally, but RavenWaves betrays them out of jealousy. Usually the villains on girls' shows in the 80s were portrayed as ugly hags, equating physical beauty with goodness. In this series, the villainess and the heroine are equally beautiful, but Lady is courageous, friendly, and compassionate--the things RavenWaves lacks on the inside and tries to compensate for on the outside. The one thing RavenWaves fails to realize, as we're told almost every episode, is that Lady's true powers come not from her appearance, but from her heart. The strongest message of the show was that girls needed to stop fighting with each other over what's on the outside because power and lasting beauty is only found on the inside. And to complement this, the prince on this show is named StrongHeart (emphasis added), and is cursed to live in the form of a dog, playing a secondary role the majority of the time. A different take on the fairytale model, that's for sure. But even if the show and the backstory aren't your thing, the angelic art from American Greetings is still pretty phenomenal:

The series is definitely for those of the sweeter persuasion, princess and fairy kei fashion enthusiasts would be more likely to enjoy it than your average 80s timesurfer. Tata! :-)