Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the beck Del Cast. Oh, Jamie, let
Speaker 1: down your hair. Wow, Caitlin, my hair is so unhealthy. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get about. Do you need to travel from
Speaker 1: my shoulders to my scalp because that's about as far
Speaker 1: as we're gonna get at this point in time. Oh great,
Speaker 1: well then yeah, absolutely no problem. It will hurt a lot,
Speaker 1: But like Rapunzel, I'm extremely self sacrificing for no reason,
Speaker 1: So sure it hurt me. Oh do you actually we
Speaker 1: just met? But should I like die for you? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Bechdel Cast. We both have pretty short hair,
Speaker 1: not like short, we're both we're both medium right now.
Speaker 1: Mine used to be much shorter. I used to be
Speaker 1: the baldest woman in charge and then and now I
Speaker 1: would say, we're we're about right now. It's a really
Speaker 1: equal leadership. We're both kind of medium right now, which
Speaker 1: is which I think is a fair and just way
Speaker 1: to rule a podcast. I think so I love parody
Speaker 1: equality I wish, I wish I could do. I get
Speaker 1: nervous about having a shorter haircut because I have a
Speaker 1: weird head shape and I have a lump on top
Speaker 1: of my head, and I just don't like calling too
Speaker 1: much attention to my head. Don't say those things about
Speaker 1: my friend Jamie. Look, I've I've known her for a
Speaker 1: long time, and she has a lump on her head
Speaker 1: and I don't have the confidence to embrace it at
Speaker 1: this point in my life. Someday I'm gonna be calling
Speaker 1: attention to this damn lump, because that's where all the
Speaker 1: good ships happening, right in that little golf ball on
Speaker 1: top of my head. Oh boy, Welcome to the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante,
Speaker 1: and this is our show where we examine movies through
Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens, using, of course, the Bechdel test
Speaker 1: simply as a jumping off point. Oh for sure, that
Speaker 1: Bechdel test. Let me tell you about it, because there's
Speaker 1: some things about it, but you're not going to expect
Speaker 1: Just kidding. If you listen to the show, um, you
Speaker 1: know what it is. Uh, we use it as a
Speaker 1: jumping off point for discussion. It is a media metric
Speaker 1: originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the
Speaker 1: Bechdel Wallace Test. Many versions of this test. Our version
Speaker 1: is this, are there two characters with names of a
Speaker 1: marginalized gender who talked to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man for two lines of dialogue? And very
Speaker 1: often it doesn't happen very often, you know, in this
Speaker 1: day and age and this economy, very often it does.
Speaker 1: Either way, we're gonna talk about it for about two
Speaker 1: seconds in one and a half hours, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about it for now. Um, and today we are covering
Speaker 1: on the main feed. I think this is what we've
Speaker 1: been kind of making a concerted effort as of late
Speaker 1: to uh knock out some of our top requests that
Speaker 1: have literally been on our request list for at this
Speaker 1: point more than half a decade, because look, enough is enough.
Speaker 1: We understand there are certain films, Flims, pieces of cinema
Speaker 1: that you pieces of cinema no, no, that go with it.
Speaker 1: Commit Oh my god, I just in my head heard
Speaker 1: a shattering glass sound and I'm just like you can
Speaker 1: interpret that as my brain breaking, or you could interpret
Speaker 1: it as me punging through the glass ceiling coming up
Speaker 1: with a new incredible phrase. Pieces of cinema, I choose
Speaker 1: the ladder. Wait, what happens at the end of What
Speaker 1: does he say at the end of Saw? And then
Speaker 1: he slams the door? He says, game over, slam. That's
Speaker 1: what's happening in my head. Twenty four seven. Anytime I
Speaker 1: encounter something that is confusing to me, and I just
Speaker 1: take a nap and I'm kidding and I educate myself.
Speaker 1: I learned, Okay, wow, okay, no no no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no. Of course not of course, not doing really
Speaker 1: weird lately, but that doesn't mean I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: have some discorse about the movie Tangled with my friend Caitlin.
Speaker 1: This movie has been on our list forever, Yes, it has.
Speaker 1: Our listeners want this episode, and we decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's time. It's time, and so that's what we're covering today.
Speaker 1: Two thousand ten Disney animated film starring I didn't really
Speaker 1: I knew it was Mandy Moore because I was a
Speaker 1: childhood fan of Mandy Moore. I know I've talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show before. I haven't had a Haunted
Speaker 1: Mandy Moore Poster. I didn't know Zachary Levi was in
Speaker 1: this movie, which is interesting to me because he's handsome.
Speaker 1: That he is, and that's all I have to say.
Speaker 1: And also Paul of Tompkins shout out to Pop Tompkins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some fun voice acting in this movie. Zachary Levi
Speaker 1: Mr Shazam himself. I do confuse them of Zachary Quinto
Speaker 1: sometimes due to their both being named Zachary and being handsome.
Speaker 1: But this is Zachary. This is Shazam Zachary, not star
Speaker 1: Trek Zachary. Correct. And that is how we distinguish them.
Speaker 1: That is, that is famously how we do that. There's
Speaker 1: Sam and Their Spots podcast, and there there are two
Speaker 1: kinds of Zachary's Shazam and spak Sprouse. There's three kinds
Speaker 1: of Zachary's. Oh right, Oh, you don't know the Sprouse
Speaker 1: is off the tip. No wait, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: got it wrong. It's Dylan. I was thinking of his
Speaker 1: character zach from This Week Life of Zach and Cody.
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, Glass shattering game over slam Well, Zachary Zachary. Listeners,
Speaker 1: please let us know which of the two Zachary options
Speaker 1: you are. Are you a Spock or Chosam. We're back
Speaker 1: down to two. Sprouse is not an option because that
Speaker 1: was a fictional character. I'm more spok, I think, Oh
Speaker 1: I am definitely more of a Spok than a Chosam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you didn't like Sham, as we talked about recently
Speaker 1: on the Matreon. Um, I really broke some young man's
Speaker 1: heart that day. Sorry sir. Anyway, Okay, Jamie, what is
Speaker 1: your your relationship with Tangled? Oh my gosh, Um, I
Speaker 1: did not see this movie when I came out. I
Speaker 1: was in high school and I was like, I'm too
Speaker 1: old for this. I don't need I don't need to
Speaker 1: go see Tangled. You. So I did not see it
Speaker 1: when it originally came out. I think I saw it
Speaker 1: a couple of years later. My vague memory that is
Speaker 1: completely useless and irrelevant about seeing this movie was I
Speaker 1: saw it on DVD at a woman's house where I
Speaker 1: was modeling T shirts for her question Mark. At some
Speaker 1: point in college, I made money, um, in a lot
Speaker 1: of shady ways. In college. I sold my blood and
Speaker 1: I did that too. I mean, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: time honored tradition in the grand uh in the grand
Speaker 1: tradition of late capitalism. Of course, we both sold our blood.
Speaker 1: And I also would do these like weird modeling gigs
Speaker 1: where I'm pretty sure you're getting super ripped off that
Speaker 1: you would wear like these ugly ass T shirts that
Speaker 1: would say, like, you know, like corny early tens T
Speaker 1: shirts that would be like, I'm trying to think, like
Speaker 1: good morning is an oxy moron something like that. Kind
Speaker 1: of I kind of like those better, I like Auntie
Speaker 1: T shirts are fine with me, but this was like
Speaker 1: sassy millennial like like bacon humor. It was bacon humor,
Speaker 1: ultimately embarrassing. I hope they don't exist on the internet anymore.
Speaker 1: But anyways, this random woman was doing my makeup at
Speaker 1: her house and we watched Tangled, and then I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I got my got my image exploited, I see,
Speaker 1: But I liked it. And then I've and I've and
Speaker 1: I've watched it a couple of times since. I think
Speaker 1: it's like I've never thought very hard about it. But
Speaker 1: I knew a little bit about the production around this movie,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to talk about it because it feels
Speaker 1: like a very particular moment in time for Princess Energy.
Speaker 1: So sure, what's your history. I don't think I saw
Speaker 1: this in theaters, but I do remember seeing it probably
Speaker 1: within a year of it coming out. I was living
Speaker 1: in Boston at the time. Brave Me too, and we oh,
Speaker 1: no way, I was still at home. Oh jeez, well,
Speaker 1: I was living in Boston. I was not, um, a
Speaker 1: supermodel like you were. Yeah. Yeah, people were datat pictures
Speaker 1: of me in ugly shirts on their point and shoots.
Speaker 1: So it sounds to me like you were doing some
Speaker 1: like runway high fashion runway modeling. It was really sexy
Speaker 1: what I was doing, for sure. Um No, I was
Speaker 1: just kind of chilling in Boston. Probably saw this with
Speaker 1: my friend j T. I remember liking it, but not
Speaker 1: enough to be like, oh, this is gonna be in
Speaker 1: my rotation kind of thing. So I didn't watch it
Speaker 1: again until I want to say twenty nineteen, maybe sometime
Speaker 1: around then. I went to a friends giving celebration at
Speaker 1: a friend of the pod Sammy Junio's house, Love It,
Speaker 1: and we decided that we were going to watch a
Speaker 1: bunch of movies and that those movies could only start
Speaker 1: with the letter T. So we watched three T movies,
Speaker 1: the first one of course, being Titanic, the second one
Speaker 1: being Terminator too, and the third one being Tangled. So
Speaker 1: I saw it again and I was like, oh, this movie,
Speaker 1: this is cute, this is this is better than I remember.
Speaker 1: I like this movie. But then again, I didn't see
Speaker 1: it again until prepping for this episode, so rewatching it,
Speaker 1: especially through like the Bechtel cast lens Um, was an
Speaker 1: interesting journey. I feel like there's there's a lot to discuss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this movie really is it. It's it's messing with you.
Speaker 1: And I think when the first, like maybe one or
Speaker 1: two times I saw it, it didn't really click for
Speaker 1: me because it is for its faults, which we will
Speaker 1: be discussing. I think it's a really fun movie. It's
Speaker 1: like a good, engaging Disney movie that doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: most other Disney movies. But not because it's you know,
Speaker 1: amazing and progressive. It's just kind of different. It's actually
Speaker 1: I like it. I like the chameleon Pascal. That was
Speaker 1: the chameleon from the Minions test, wasn't it? It was
Speaker 1: so listen. Famously, we all Jamie and I both took
Speaker 1: a which Minion are you test? On your birthday of course,
Speaker 1: I swear to god. I texted that damn quiz to
Speaker 1: every person I've ever met and was like, I need
Speaker 1: to know what many you are right now, because like,
Speaker 1: is this friendship gonna sustain or not? Let's share our results?
Speaker 1: Shall we mine? Sucks? Okay, yeah, Caitlin, now you're awesome.
Speaker 1: Minions quiz results. I got Stewart, Is that right? I
Speaker 1: don't even remember now Stewart Sieball the rock Star. I'm
Speaker 1: classic me, you know, classic Caitlin. A bunch of people
Speaker 1: in my life got Kevin's, which is like, okay, that's
Speaker 1: if we're getting we're pulling a Kevin or a Stewart
Speaker 1: result friend for life. Meanwhile, I pulled Grow. I got Grow.
Speaker 1: I don't see it if if it makes you feel
Speaker 1: any better, thank you so much. I don't know how
Speaker 1: I got Grow, but it lowered my self esteem immeasurably.
Speaker 1: I can't and on your birthday. It happened to me
Speaker 1: on my birthday while we got the Minion's menu at
Speaker 1: eye Hoop, which was gross disappointing. Oh my god. Okay,
Speaker 1: last thing before we jump to the discourse the Minions.
Speaker 1: First of all, I don't think I hop as one
Speaker 1: of ours, our sponsors. Listeners are randomly generated, and so
Speaker 1: we don't really know, but hopefully not. I hop because
Speaker 1: the Minions menu, we were so looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Caitlin brilliantly decided we should go on my birthday. And
Speaker 1: then we get there and what is the menu. It's
Speaker 1: just existing menu items with Minions characters. Yeah, like pancakes,
Speaker 1: but with yellow and blue sprinkles. Literally, minion come. Sorry,
Speaker 1: but like that was that was the consistency. It was gross.
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting that minions come, yes, yellow and blue sprinkles? Okay? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I was I was talking about the yellow gou. Oh,
Speaker 1: the yellow okay, So there was banana flavored goo and
Speaker 1: then sprinkles on top of that. Yeah, the goo was cold,
Speaker 1: So I do think that minions come cold, yellow banana goo. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a thing not to derail this conversation even further,
Speaker 1: but similar to the does beetle juice come wet or
Speaker 1: dry scabs? You're in the camp of minions, come that
Speaker 1: cold banana flavored goo. I'm in the camp of minions,
Speaker 1: come yellow and blue sprinkles. See that's a fun kind
Speaker 1: of changing of the narrative because with beetle juice. As
Speaker 1: we're going to be debating come October, as we do
Speaker 1: every year. I always say he comes dry scabs sounds
Speaker 1: like card shuffling. You always say he comes wet scabs
Speaker 1: like a laser jet printer. And in this case, I'm
Speaker 1: team wet and your team dry exactly. Wow. What we
Speaker 1: know for sure is that Minions, uh, they do not
Speaker 1: sexually reproduce, so all of their sex is strictly for pleasure,
Speaker 1: and I celebrate that, which I think is um kind
Speaker 1: of amazing and progressive Minions progressive text. Okay, transitioning into
Speaker 1: our discussion around Tangled. So we both have uh light
Speaker 1: you know, light appreciation for this movie prior to prior
Speaker 1: to covering it. I don't think either of us have
Speaker 1: a particularly strong attachment. But I was thinking, as I
Speaker 1: was watching this movie for you, what like, as much
Speaker 1: as I was enjoying the movie, I'm like, what is
Speaker 1: this movie doing that Shrek had not already done? Yes,
Speaker 1: a question, a legitimate question, and I will say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, my thing is like I do think that
Speaker 1: Rapunzel has more certainly more screen time than Princess Fiona
Speaker 1: certainly has a more distinct well, I don't even know there.
Speaker 1: I think that Fiona might do more with less screen time,
Speaker 1: and Shrek two thousand one is because she is. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: did I rewatch Trek before this? No? Should I have?
Speaker 1: Of course this is in a comparative study. I just
Speaker 1: there's obviously, because Shrek is a rip off of literally everything,
Speaker 1: Princess Fiona kind of has a Rapunzel thing going on.
Speaker 1: She has trapped in a tower against her will and
Speaker 1: needs to be rescued. Right, I would argue that Rapunzel
Speaker 1: has in this movie, at least in this version of
Speaker 1: the narrative, she has more agency than Fiona. She there's
Speaker 1: no far quad. There's no far quad, so there's not
Speaker 1: like a rival man. Right. The humor of the movie
Speaker 1: does not rely on punching down in the way that
Speaker 1: Shrek humor often does. Excuse me, or just like kind
Speaker 1: of outdated references the way that Shrek tends to do.
Speaker 1: I truly did not mean to start this as a
Speaker 1: genuine conversation, but finishing it was a joke. I know,
Speaker 1: but I think still a legitimate question. Donkey better than
Speaker 1: Maximus certainly, Oh yeah, for sure, But I don't like
Speaker 1: Maximus is the Max the Horses arc. I don't like
Speaker 1: Max the Horse's arc. I say we cut Max honestly
Speaker 1: because it's just my My central issue with this movie
Speaker 1: is that it's there's so much Flynn, There's so much Flynn,
Speaker 1: and there's like, why does Flint, even Flynn's horse, have
Speaker 1: an arc? Why not give that to Rapunzel's animal familiar,
Speaker 1: who is mostly just very adorable, which I love. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, we're giving the horse an arc, but we
Speaker 1: still don't have any empathy for the villain. Like I
Speaker 1: just I was like, too much, too much Flynn. As
Speaker 1: much as I think zach rely By is handsome, he's
Speaker 1: a cartoon in this. So what why am I watching this? No?
Speaker 1: I agree my very scholarly opinion. Yeah, I say Max,
Speaker 1: take him to the backyard and put him down. That's
Speaker 1: what I say about man. Wow, you want to send
Speaker 1: him to the glue factor? Your face? Yeah, we gotta
Speaker 1: turn Max into glue. I think he's he's mucking up
Speaker 1: the story. I don't care about Flynn's rivalry with his
Speaker 1: own horse. Well it's not his horse. Sorry. I I
Speaker 1: as much as I love love a good horse, we
Speaker 1: just went to medieval times. I love a good horse.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I went to the Kentucky Derby this year.
Speaker 1: I love a good horse. Yeah. Okay, well that's I
Speaker 1: think that brings us into the recap, because let's talk
Speaker 1: about it. Here's the story of Rapunzel, or of Tangled Tangled,
Speaker 1: which is also a huge thing. Why is the name different?
Speaker 1: We'll still talk about it, yes, okay, So we open
Speaker 1: by learning about Rapunzel's backstory, which is told to us
Speaker 1: by Flynn Rider. We will meet him for what reason later?
Speaker 1: Good question, and we are in you could say, medieval times.
Speaker 1: Shout out to your recent birthday celebration. Shout out to
Speaker 1: the Red Knight. Oh my god, Red Night, Red Night,
Speaker 1: Red Night King, the king of medieval times. Okay, I
Speaker 1: went a park, a drop of sun fell to the earth,
Speaker 1: and a magic golden flower grew from it that had
Speaker 1: the ability to heal the sick and injured if you
Speaker 1: sing a special song to the flower. Put a pin
Speaker 1: in that. There is a kingdom with a king and
Speaker 1: a queen, and the queen is gregnant, and she is
Speaker 1: about to have a greg but she gets really sick.
Speaker 1: So the king's people, like the kingsman, reciput and go
Speaker 1: out and search. This movie was missing a respute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where was Rescputen? Where was Resputen entangled? There, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start asking truly nonsense questions, start pivoting into extremely bad
Speaker 1: faith analysis and being like, so, um, I thought this
Speaker 1: movie was feminist, but then where was Resputen? Another question? Um? Okay?
Speaker 1: So the kingsmen go out to look for this golden
Speaker 1: flower to heal the queen. But there's this woman, mother Goffel,
Speaker 1: who had already found the flower and has been hoarding
Speaker 1: its power for centuries to keep herself young this whole time.
Speaker 1: But the kingsman find the flower and take it to
Speaker 1: the queen to heal her. She gives birth to a
Speaker 1: little girl with golden hair, and this, of course is Rapunzel,
Speaker 1: and to celebrate the birth of their daughter, the King
Speaker 1: and Queen release a floating lantern into the sky. Adorable
Speaker 1: love it cute, But then mother Gothel shows up. Rapunzel's
Speaker 1: hair has the same magical properties as the flower, and
Speaker 1: Gothel thinks she can cut some of the hair off
Speaker 1: and use it to keep her young, but she discovers
Speaker 1: that cutting this lock of Rapunzel's hair takes away its
Speaker 1: magical properties and to her earns that strand of hair
Speaker 1: that's still attached to her. Punzel's head renders it unmagical
Speaker 1: and brown, gross brown hair bad you and me found
Speaker 1: dead in a ditch like unbelievable. So basically, the hair
Speaker 1: needs to be attached to Rapunzel's head in order for
Speaker 1: it to retain its magical properties. So Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel
Speaker 1: so that she can always have access to her hair.
Speaker 1: Gothel keeps Rapunzel locked away in this tower hidden in
Speaker 1: the forest, and raises Rapunzel as her own daughter, so
Speaker 1: Rapunzel thinks that Gothel is her mother. Time passes, we
Speaker 1: see Gozel singing this special song which activates the hair
Speaker 1: and keeps her young. Um. We also learned that each year,
Speaker 1: on Rapunzel's birthday at the castle far off in the distance,
Speaker 1: the King and Queen release hundreds of lanterns into the sky,
Speaker 1: hope being that their lost daughter will someday return. This
Speaker 1: is something that Rapunzel always like watches and sees and
Speaker 1: loves this event of the lanterns floating in the sky. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then we cut two Rapunzel as a teenager. She's
Speaker 1: still living in the tower. Her hair is like a
Speaker 1: hundred feet long since it can't be cut because it'll
Speaker 1: lose its powers. And I've watched, um, I've watched shorts
Speaker 1: on how I mean, I know that, like it's extremely
Speaker 1: extremely hard to animate hair, And after under fully understanding
Speaker 1: that process and working in animation, I was like, wow, this.
Speaker 1: I wonder if if we have UM like legit animators
Speaker 1: listening to the show, does watching these things with the
Speaker 1: hair give you a panic attack? Because it stresses me
Speaker 1: out and I don't even understand computer animation, UM, but
Speaker 1: you're like wow, Wow. This was like the most expensive
Speaker 1: UM Disney movie produced to date, and partially because of
Speaker 1: development stuff that we'll talk about right. Also because like
Speaker 1: the budget, like how many people you need to have
Speaker 1: on hair duty alone is just like wild. Anyways, the
Speaker 1: budget shout out to hair animators. The budget for this
Speaker 1: was I think two and sixty million dollars, making it
Speaker 1: one of the highest budget movies ever and the highest
Speaker 1: budget animated movie of all time. I think. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that record has been broken since then, but
Speaker 1: it but it's just by other Disney movies, So I
Speaker 1: don't think we need to give them more airtime. But
Speaker 1: one of them was Zootopia, the movie I disliked the most. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we learned about Rapunzel's life, which is pretty uneventful. Basically,
Speaker 1: she just spends all day trying to keep herself occupied.
Speaker 1: So she cleans, she cooks, she reads, she paints, she
Speaker 1: plays guitar, she puts together puzzles, she plays chess. She
Speaker 1: does all these things to occupy her time. And her
Speaker 1: only friend is a chameleon named Pascal. She gets regular
Speaker 1: visits from Gothel, but Gothel doesn't seem to live in
Speaker 1: the tower with her, so Rapunzel is pretty isolated. The
Speaker 1: point basically being that she wants much more than this
Speaker 1: provincial life all the way down to like the I
Speaker 1: feel like that had to be a Beauty in the
Speaker 1: Beast reference for when she gets out of the tower
Speaker 1: and there's that little what do you call those goddamn
Speaker 1: poof plants um with the seedlings that fly into where
Speaker 1: those are like dandelions, like dandelion, it's something about dandelions.
Speaker 1: We're botanists, so we should not this um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that do you remember that? That's like a very specific
Speaker 1: image and Beauty and the Beast I remember, And then
Speaker 1: Rapunzel has the same image, but this time it's computers,
Speaker 1: and she's in the middle of saying about how she
Speaker 1: wants much more than this whatever tower life based life
Speaker 1: hashtag tower life. So okay. So Rapunzela has decided to
Speaker 1: ask Goszel if she can go outside and see the
Speaker 1: floating lights, especially because tomorrow is Rapunzel's eighteenth birthday. And
Speaker 1: she feels that these lights, which we know are the
Speaker 1: lanterns that the castle releases, she feels that they're kind
Speaker 1: of meant for her somehow, that she has some connection
Speaker 1: to them. And Gothel is like, no way, I know
Speaker 1: it's best for you. It's not safe out there. You
Speaker 1: can't handle yourself out there. You're not strong enough to
Speaker 1: go into this dangerous world. Yes, she's doing quite a
Speaker 1: bit of nagging, poor Rapunzel. There's a lot to discuss
Speaker 1: with this uh mother dog relationship, for sure, Yes, and
Speaker 1: also with just like Gothel in general, because for all
Speaker 1: of this movie seems to think it's subverting some of
Speaker 1: which it actually is, a lot of which it isn't.
Speaker 1: I feel like Gothel is like glaring, like we can
Speaker 1: have sympathy for everyone, but uh, woman over Ford, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, Flynn writer the narrator guy who is a bandit,
Speaker 1: steals a crown from the castle and is fleeing the
Speaker 1: castle guards along with his two kind of like the
Speaker 1: good buddies, the Stabbington brothers. Great name. Gotta hand it
Speaker 1: to him. It sounds a lot like Paddington. Also, that's
Speaker 1: his evil cousins. There's Paddington's and then there's Stabbington's. Um.
Speaker 1: So do you think that that will be an element
Speaker 1: of Paddington theory? God, that sounds like honestly, uh, robot
Speaker 1: chicken pitch that would have been rejected from me, from you, yes, specifically, Well,
Speaker 1: that's free for someone. So they're escaping. There's this horse
Speaker 1: named Maximus, one of like the castle horses. Uh. He's
Speaker 1: chasing Flynn, and Flynn escapes and but sabotages the Stabbington
Speaker 1: brothers along the way. And then Flynn stumbles upon Rapunzel's tower.
Speaker 1: He climbs it and goes into her room, and Rapunzel,
Speaker 1: startled by this intruder, bonks him on the head with
Speaker 1: a frying pan. There's a whole chat to have about that.
Speaker 1: Classic a subversive bonk. Wow, hilarious. Um I actually have some,
Speaker 1: you know, some unexpected thoughts about this. Perhaps, well, I
Speaker 1: think I'm excited to have this discussion because this was
Speaker 1: frying pan that didn't super broth. Same will unpack. But
Speaker 1: but on first glance, you're just like, well, there it
Speaker 1: is there, it is right. Yeah, there's no weapons in there.
Speaker 1: So Rapunzel bonks him on the head and stuffs him
Speaker 1: in her closet, and then she's like, wow, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I am strong enough to handle myself. So she lets
Speaker 1: Flynn back out. She ties him up with her hair,
Speaker 1: she hides his satchel with the crown that he stole,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I will give you your satchel back
Speaker 1: if you take me to see the lanterns tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: He reluctantly agrees, and then she finally leaves her tower
Speaker 1: for the first time, goes outside. She loves the freedom,
Speaker 1: but she's also racked with guilt for disobeying her mother,
Speaker 1: which I really thought was different and I liked that. Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: they showed that emotional struggle for sure. Meanwhile, Flynn is
Speaker 1: trying to get out of taking Rapunzel to see the
Speaker 1: lanterns because he's a wanted man and he can't just go,
Speaker 1: you know, gallivanting around, so he takes her to this
Speaker 1: kind of like rough and tumble tavern with a lot
Speaker 1: of scary ruffians. The twist is, but the twist is
Speaker 1: they're nice. They're nice, especially after Rapunzel inspires them to
Speaker 1: sing about their hopes and dreams. Kind of cute that
Speaker 1: song that they say where they're like, I actually have dreams. Okay,
Speaker 1: can you guess? Can you guess what other Disney song
Speaker 1: that heavily reminded me of? Um? Is it the one
Speaker 1: in Beauty and the Beast with Gaston singing in the tavern? No,
Speaker 1: it is stick to the status quo from High School Musical,
Speaker 1: because about like, I seem like one thing, but here's
Speaker 1: my secret dream. I want to break dance. I like baking.
Speaker 1: I'm a skateboarder, but I play the jella Anyways, that
Speaker 1: I was just like, Wow, it's better. It's better the
Speaker 1: high school musical song. I liked this song, but I
Speaker 1: was like, kind of a flagrant rip off. Stick to
Speaker 1: see what you're saying, same premise, pre incredible, yep, Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. That's why they pay me the
Speaker 1: medium book inside like that, So they're singing about their
Speaker 1: their dreams, and Gosfel is following them, as are the
Speaker 1: castle guards, as are the Stabbington brothers. So Rapunzel and
Speaker 1: Flynn have to run off and um. During this chase,
Speaker 1: Rapunzel and Flynn get trapped in a mind shaft or something.
Speaker 1: It's pitch black, it's filling with water. But then Rapunzel
Speaker 1: remembers that her hair is magic and it glows when
Speaker 1: you sing that special song, so she does that to
Speaker 1: kind of light the way and allow them to escape.
Speaker 1: She then uses her hair to heal a cut on
Speaker 1: Flynn's hand, and he's like, oh my gosh, wow. And
Speaker 1: then they're vibing and they're like flirting, and then he
Speaker 1: goes off to get some firewood, much like Shrek goes
Speaker 1: off to get some firewood after he and Fiona. How
Speaker 1: men really? Do men who help you out of the tower?
Speaker 1: Do you be getting firewood? Don't they? It is a
Speaker 1: trope at this point. Yeah, So he's off and it's
Speaker 1: just Rapunzel and then Gothel shows up and she's like
Speaker 1: what the hell Rapunzel, and Rapunzel is like, Flynn likes me,
Speaker 1: and I am enjoying this freedom and Gothel is like,
Speaker 1: no way, he's just sticking around because he wants that
Speaker 1: crown that you have and he'll leave you as soon
Speaker 1: as he gets it, and she gives the crown back
Speaker 1: to Rapunzel, and Gothel disappears with a with like a play.
Speaker 1: You can you can tell she's like plotting something. So
Speaker 1: the next morning we're Punzel and Flynn set off for
Speaker 1: the castle and they befriend maximum missed the horse along
Speaker 1: the way. They get to the castle, Rapunzel gets her
Speaker 1: hair braided and then she livens up the place with
Speaker 1: dance and music and drawings and everywhere that Rapunzel goes,
Speaker 1: she just kind of inspires the best in people. She's
Speaker 1: not like other girls. Caitlin, she's nice, question Mark, she's nice.
Speaker 1: She and Flynn also seemed to be vibing more. And
Speaker 1: then he takes her out on a little boat and
Speaker 1: across the way the King and Queen release hundreds of lanterns.
Speaker 1: It's very beautiful and romantic, and Rapunzel and Flynn almost kiss,
Speaker 1: but oh no, the Stabbington brothers show up and they
Speaker 1: want Rapunzel because Goffel had told them that she and
Speaker 1: her hair are very valuable. So they try to kidnap
Speaker 1: her um, but Goffel shows up and knocks them out.
Speaker 1: While this is happening, it seems like Flynn has taken
Speaker 1: off with the crown and like betrayed Rapunzel much while
Speaker 1: not much like not to keep comparing this to Shrek,
Speaker 1: but it's like that second act point during Shrek where
Speaker 1: Shrek thinks that Fiona has is like saying that he's
Speaker 1: not good enough for her, when really she's discussing her
Speaker 1: own insecurities. So a misunderstanding is pulling the couple apart. True, yes,
Speaker 1: Then Goffel takes Rapunzel back to her tower, where after
Speaker 1: examining all the art that Rapunzel has made over the years,
Speaker 1: she realizes a pattern the shape of the sun always appears,
Speaker 1: which is like the symbol of the castle and kingdom,
Speaker 1: and she realizes that she is the daughter of the
Speaker 1: king and Queen. So she confronts Goffel now knowing that
Speaker 1: she was kidnapped and the Gothel has been using Rapunzel's
Speaker 1: magic hair all of these years, and they have an altercation. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Flynn is about to be hanged for his like thievery,
Speaker 1: but all the guys from the Tavern show up and
Speaker 1: save him. So he gets on Max the horse and
Speaker 1: races two Rapunzel's tower. But oh no, Gosseel stabs Flynn
Speaker 1: when he shows up, which is I honestly I kind
Speaker 1: of forgot that that happened. And I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: I know, I feel like you don't usually get that.
Speaker 1: I didn't hate it, like I feel like I'm always
Speaker 1: complaining about how Disney villains aren't allowed to be like
Speaker 1: absolutely evil anymore. Um, and I was like, oh, she
Speaker 1: literally stab Zachary Levi. That falls under the column of evil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's more overt violence than we've seen in Disney
Speaker 1: movies in a long time. Like usually there isn't like
Speaker 1: if violence does happen, it's only very suggested, or it
Speaker 1: happens off screen or someone falls off a cliff. But
Speaker 1: I honestly did not. I mean, if I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I probably would have been pretty scared, but like make
Speaker 1: kids afraid again. Well the so, okay, what happens after
Speaker 1: this is Rapunzel strikes a deal with Gothel. If she
Speaker 1: lets Rapunzel, he'll Flynn with her hair. She will go
Speaker 1: willingly with Gothel, but if not, she'll basically fight every
Speaker 1: waking moment of her life to try to get away
Speaker 1: from Gothel. So she goes to He'll Flynn, but he
Speaker 1: chops off all of Rapunzel's hair, making her the baldest
Speaker 1: woman in charge, so that Gothel will die and Rapunzel
Speaker 1: will be free of her. But like Gothel's death here
Speaker 1: is very scary for children's movie because like the horror
Speaker 1: imagery of it all, Like if I was a kid
Speaker 1: and I saw that they well they body horror the
Speaker 1: ship out of this character for a moment one But
Speaker 1: you're I totally agree where the ending is like brutal.
Speaker 1: The only thing that they you know, I guess relieve
Speaker 1: you of is you don't have to see her girl
Speaker 1: splat because she turns into dust before she hits the ground.
Speaker 1: I kind of love and someone turns to dust. But
Speaker 1: it is also a very very witch canon to turn
Speaker 1: evil witch canon to turn to dust, because that's what
Speaker 1: happens to the Witch from the Wizard of Oz. She
Speaker 1: just doesn't oh yeah, she just kind of melts and disappears.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean we have there's
Speaker 1: a whole discussion around Gotholpe, but that is that is
Speaker 1: a pretty even by like Disney standards, twenty years before
Speaker 1: this movie came out. That's a pretty scary ending totally.
Speaker 1: And then the Rapunzel's whole being ready to die for
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that too, because I was just like,
Speaker 1: I felt like that was We're so close to like
Speaker 1: a really cool, exciting, you know, princess aversion. And then
Speaker 1: her agency is like taken from her at the very
Speaker 1: end of the movie, right, especially because like he cuts
Speaker 1: off her hair rather than like her cutting off her
Speaker 1: own hair. It would have been much better this unrelated
Speaker 1: but like he cuts her hair off into a perfect
Speaker 1: picks he cut Um, incredible, well done, but whatever, that's um,
Speaker 1: that's fun movie nonsense, but not fun movie nonsense. Was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt like her And we'll talk about this in
Speaker 1: more detail in a second, but like her agency was
Speaker 1: completely like ripped from her at the peak of the movies,
Speaker 1: at the action where she was like, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to be a self sacrificing person to be considered
Speaker 1: you know, legitimate, yeah woman, and um, and then he
Speaker 1: made the decision that ends up saving everybody. Great who
Speaker 1: and then and then we get closure with his fucking horse.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I'm anti the horse. Get the horse out
Speaker 1: of there. Yeah, I see your point. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: very frustrating, and we'll we'll unpack that shortly. But basically,
Speaker 1: the movie ends with Rapunzel and Flynn professing their love
Speaker 1: for each other. As Flynn dies and desperate to save him,
Speaker 1: she sings the song to you know heal his wound,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem like it's going to work because
Speaker 1: her hair has been chopped off and it's not magical anymore.
Speaker 1: But then her tear drop falls on his face a
Speaker 1: k A a drop of sunshine perhaps, and her magic
Speaker 1: works and he comes back to life, and then they kiss,
Speaker 1: and then they go to the castle and she's like, hi,
Speaker 1: Mom and dad, it's me your daughter, but I have
Speaker 1: brown hair now, and they're like, why is there? Okay
Speaker 1: another like does another too much Flynn moment? Get Flynn
Speaker 1: out of that scene. I don't need Flynn in that scene.
Speaker 1: This is like And also their reunion is wordless question
Speaker 1: mark between her and her parents. Yeah, why no words?
Speaker 1: And why is Flynn there? Great questions? Yes, So Rapunzel
Speaker 1: returns to the Kingdom. The Kingdom celebrates Rapunzel and Flynn
Speaker 1: get married and they live happily ever after. So that's
Speaker 1: the story. Let's take a quick break and come back
Speaker 1: to discuss. And we're back. We're back, and I've let
Speaker 1: down my hair. I haven't. It's a mess today. Um,
Speaker 1: where do we want to start? I mean, I should
Speaker 1: we just start with Rapunzel herself. Yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, her as a Disney princess
Speaker 1: and the way that as we've hinted at, like there
Speaker 1: are some subversions to the kind of classic Disney fairytale princess.
Speaker 1: There are tropes that get you know, reinforced in this movie.
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot to unpack. Um, I would say overall,
Speaker 1: and I guess it depends on kind of what era
Speaker 1: of Disney princess movie you compare this too. She falls
Speaker 1: into the very classic Like you know, she's kind of
Speaker 1: stuck in the beginning. She wants much more than this
Speaker 1: provincial life. Um, she's not motivated by love or romance
Speaker 1: the way that like snow White is, She's more like
Speaker 1: she's Yeah, she's definitely doing laps around the early Disney princess.
Speaker 1: It's more it's closer to like Belle from Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast where she longs for kind of just to
Speaker 1: see what's out there in the world. She's a prisoner
Speaker 1: for a large portion of the movie. Yes, like Bell.
Speaker 1: So so there's that um she I would say, is
Speaker 1: more active and has more agency than most Disney fairy
Speaker 1: tale princesses of older generations up into a point at
Speaker 1: least for a good amount of the movie. And then
Speaker 1: there's a point where there's that comes to a screeching
Speaker 1: halt in a way that I was like, really kind
Speaker 1: of bummed out by. Yeah, I like the I I
Speaker 1: really I like Rapunzela. I can see I it's like
Speaker 1: this sort of thing where like I can see where
Speaker 1: they were trying to go with her and also like
Speaker 1: the shut off of where they were willing, like how
Speaker 1: far they were willing to go. Because I do think
Speaker 1: that there are Disney princesses that came and whatever. Here
Speaker 1: we are comparing a group of fictional women to each other,
Speaker 1: but they are all built from the same mold, like canonically,
Speaker 1: um and I do think that there are princesses that
Speaker 1: came before Rapunzel that like, were more active and progressive
Speaker 1: than Rapunzel. Mulan. I think as a person who really
Speaker 1: comes to mind there of like Rapunzel's not topping uh
Speaker 1: Mulan in terms of her agency and activeness and sort
Speaker 1: of fullness of story. But I do think that she is,
Speaker 1: especially because this is like a Disney fairy tale movie.
Speaker 1: She seems to be, you know, the most active of
Speaker 1: the European fairy tale princesses, of which there are a
Speaker 1: stunning amount. I like that she is involved in a
Speaker 1: bunch of action sequences. I like that she at least
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of them kind of come
Speaker 1: up hollow and kind of um ring a little. I'm
Speaker 1: banning the word girl boss from my vocabulary because I
Speaker 1: think it's just like misused at this point, and like
Speaker 1: sometimes people say girl boss when they say woman with agency,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like I think it's sometimes using
Speaker 1: a misogynist way at this point, and it bothers me.
Speaker 1: But I think that, you know, it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: the Rapunzel stands up to her mom several times, but
Speaker 1: it usually ends up being story wise, kind of a
Speaker 1: hollow gesture because ultimately what severs her tie from her
Speaker 1: mom something Flynn does whatever. But but I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know they were definitely pros and constant. I like
Speaker 1: her a lot. I like her a lot. I like
Speaker 1: how she's written. I love Manny Moore's performance. I like
Speaker 1: that she like us as all of the skills that
Speaker 1: she has, and like participates in the action usually in
Speaker 1: about equal measure. She rescues Flynn a number of times.
Speaker 1: He also rescues her. But it does feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: even though whatever, we've already said this and will continue
Speaker 1: to discuss, Like, I think Flynn has an outsized presence
Speaker 1: in this movie in a way that is not you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's Disney executives that say that that was
Speaker 1: very on purpose, but given that that is the choice
Speaker 1: they made. I like that they are usually fighting and
Speaker 1: rescuing each other in equal measure. Like, it's not like
Speaker 1: and that she you know, she's using her hair. She's
Speaker 1: like tarzanning around on her fucking hair. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: She does fight and defend herself. She chooses to deceive
Speaker 1: her mom, she chooses to you know, take Flynn as
Speaker 1: her hostage, and I like it. I like her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also like she's cool. Not only is she able
Speaker 1: to engage in like combat, she also um like chooses
Speaker 1: non violence sometimes where like that scene in the tavern,
Speaker 1: which I think is also an interesting subversion of like
Speaker 1: but you would expect of like, oh, all these like
Speaker 1: toxic men end up being like I want to be
Speaker 1: a concert pianist, I want to be a mom. You know,
Speaker 1: like all these artistic pursuits doesn't mean that you can't
Speaker 1: also be toxic if you're a male artist. But I
Speaker 1: just the point is, you know, she inspires, like she
Speaker 1: inspires people to follow their dreams, and she inspires the
Speaker 1: best in people. Um, but I agree, Yeah, there there
Speaker 1: is an outside presence of the male lead in the movie,
Speaker 1: which which men in general and in general, like there's
Speaker 1: so many ancillary men in this movie. I feel that
Speaker 1: because I like this movie and I'm coming down harder
Speaker 1: on it than I'm expecting to I was expecting to.
Speaker 1: But I do I mean Rapunza, Yeah, I totally agree
Speaker 1: with you. Where it's like she has moments of action
Speaker 1: and combat and then she also has moments where she
Speaker 1: chooses non violence and it pays off in a big way.
Speaker 1: I think that that's good. I feel like often empathy
Speaker 1: and listening to people is regarded as a very like
Speaker 1: traditionally feminine trait, and sometimes that's presented as bad as
Speaker 1: a weakness. Yeah, when it's like when it's the reality
Speaker 1: is like everyone should everyone has the capacity for that,
Speaker 1: and everyone, regardless of gender right can do everything right right,
Speaker 1: And it's like everyone is capable of empathy. So that
Speaker 1: I like that she chooses moments and then then the
Speaker 1: same as much as I can't stand the horse, she
Speaker 1: negotiates with the horse and one moment where and and
Speaker 1: and it does feel like that's intentionally done because there
Speaker 1: are moments where Flynn is choosing combat again and again,
Speaker 1: and then it's Rapunzel's talking and listening to people that
Speaker 1: actually resolves the problem in the tavern and with the horse,
Speaker 1: because Flynn is also fighting his horse, because why is
Speaker 1: this horse here? Um? And that like on Flynn's and
Speaker 1: his you know, penchant for swashbuckling is you know, masking
Speaker 1: a lot of his own insecurities, which we learn about,
Speaker 1: We learned his back story. We learned that he has
Speaker 1: like kind of put on this fake persona as a
Speaker 1: defense mechanism. More or less, he wants, he wanted much
Speaker 1: more than that orphanage life. Um. So, so you know,
Speaker 1: I like, I liked I liked that. I like Rapunzel
Speaker 1: is like a more I feel like she had. She
Speaker 1: has traits that your traditional Disney princess has, which is
Speaker 1: like extreme loyalty, a lot of empathyness. Empathy inspires people
Speaker 1: to follow her your dreams, like you're saying. But also
Speaker 1: the those are traits that are very important to who
Speaker 1: she is. But it's not like all she's capable. She
Speaker 1: gets angry, she understands, at least when her mother's disrespecting her.
Speaker 1: She doesn't always even to understand Flinn's doing it. But um,
Speaker 1: Rapunzel is. I like her. I'm pro I just think
Speaker 1: that there are certain things that um undercut what a
Speaker 1: cool character they set up there, such as and we
Speaker 1: hinted at this also, but the big climactic moment at
Speaker 1: the end is her ending up with a man and
Speaker 1: like being in a Head of Row romance. When the
Speaker 1: narrative that had been set up for her was I
Speaker 1: want to escape this tower. I want to like go
Speaker 1: and see the lanterns, which could be kind of code
Speaker 1: at for just like I want to see the world
Speaker 1: and explore and discover who I am, she wants to
Speaker 1: be where the people are. Disney prince basic ship. She
Speaker 1: wants to or and slash Quasimodo like Wealthy Mottel also
Speaker 1: Tower canon, get me out of this tower cannon evil
Speaker 1: person in the Tower canon. So so she has these
Speaker 1: kind of dreams too. But then also like you could
Speaker 1: argue that like her wanting to go out and and
Speaker 1: and you know, discover herself, discover the world her, you know,
Speaker 1: find her place in the world. Part of a lot
Speaker 1: of people's journey of self discovery involves figuring out what
Speaker 1: type of relationships you want to be in, and some
Speaker 1: of those relationships might be romantic, so you know that
Speaker 1: is a thing for a lot of people. Um, but
Speaker 1: it just it still feels like here we are with
Speaker 1: another like Disney Fairytale Princess story, and of course she
Speaker 1: has to end up in a hetero romance at the end,
Speaker 1: right And it's like they I think it's interesting and
Speaker 1: very like of the time, how they choose to skirt
Speaker 1: the fact that that's absolutely what they're doing. I thought
Speaker 1: it was like I I Caitlin I l o lt
Speaker 1: when they do this fucking like gymnastics thing at the
Speaker 1: end where they're like, well we didn't get married right
Speaker 1: away and it's like all done in voiceover, was like,
Speaker 1: we didn't get married right away, but a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and we dated for a couple of years, and then
Speaker 1: of course we got married. And then you still see
Speaker 1: the wedding like you do at the end of any
Speaker 1: fucking Disney movie. But they they do this really quick,
Speaker 1: like oh, no, we get it. That's like that's weird,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, in whatever royalty, that's not actually
Speaker 1: really that weird. But they're like, but no, we dated,
Speaker 1: we're regular, We're just like you, and then we and
Speaker 1: then the movie ends exactly like you know it's going
Speaker 1: to end. I just like that was like I think
Speaker 1: one of the many like two like we're trying to
Speaker 1: do something, but actually we are not courageous enough to
Speaker 1: actually stick the landing on doing it, which is a
Speaker 1: lot of things in this movie. I thought that, like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: before we get to Flynn, let's talk frying pan. Is
Speaker 1: it frying pan time? Let's let's pivoting to frying pans.
Speaker 1: Let's take a let's take a break, and then we'll
Speaker 1: get to frying pan. So be right back and we
Speaker 1: are back. We're back, all right, frying pan time for
Speaker 1: frying pan discourse. So I mean, let's kind of I
Speaker 1: think that this is kind of I have a feeling
Speaker 1: we're on the same track with this, and I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting look. We've been doing the show for
Speaker 1: six years now, and I think that there has been
Speaker 1: a lot of um development in ways to have feminist
Speaker 1: and intersectional feminist discourse during that time. Certainly, I think
Speaker 1: perhaps we would have had a more kind of uh,
Speaker 1: I guess there's a very two intends way to criticize
Speaker 1: some movies that maybe don't hold up as well now,
Speaker 1: and I think frying pan discourse um is an area
Speaker 1: where there's been a little bit of shifting. So that mind,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk frying pan. So Rapunzel for people who
Speaker 1: haven't seen Tangled but are still listening, and we celebrate
Speaker 1: that Rapunzel her like go to weapon is frying frying pan,
Speaker 1: which we have said on this show before, and I
Speaker 1: think in some cases it genuinely is true. Can be
Speaker 1: a sort of sexist trope. We've seen it many times,
Speaker 1: and I think in a lot of older movies it
Speaker 1: is kind of a sexist trope where it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: what would a woman fight with body, very domestic object.
Speaker 1: That's the basis of frying pan discourse. We we have
Speaker 1: talked about this trope a lot on the cast where
Speaker 1: what we tend to see in movies is combat scenes.
Speaker 1: If women are allowed to participate in the action, the
Speaker 1: story is written so that the women are made to
Speaker 1: fight with household objects, and frying pan comes up again
Speaker 1: and again. We saw this in like Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Art we see it and who framed Roger Rabbit
Speaker 1: other examples that I can't remember off the top of
Speaker 1: my head. I think a lot of horror movies this happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of kitchen knife staff the
Speaker 1: original Halloween that makes more sense, but um, there's also
Speaker 1: Disney cartoons this has taken place in like sure plenty
Speaker 1: of times. I don't think by a primary character, but
Speaker 1: I do specifically remember like a villager from Beauty and
Speaker 1: the Beast fighting with a frying pan like this has
Speaker 1: happened in animation, live action for for generations generations. So
Speaker 1: this is what women are expected to fight with, whereas
Speaker 1: men in the same combat scenes in the same movie
Speaker 1: are equipped with weapons, actual weapons that they fight with.
Speaker 1: The implication often being well women can't Slash don't know
Speaker 1: how Slash, don't have the skills, Slash could never develop
Speaker 1: the skills to fight with weapons. But they do know
Speaker 1: their way around frying pans and other household objects, ones
Speaker 1: that are especially gendered if you consider, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: women have historically been expected to cook and clean, so
Speaker 1: they know how to use like frying pans and brooms,
Speaker 1: and those are their weapons now. So, like you said,
Speaker 1: a lot of movies in those scenes do have those
Speaker 1: sexist implications. But as with pretty much everything, context is
Speaker 1: very important. And when you consider Rapunzel's context, where by
Speaker 1: you know, whereby whereby whereby? Gothel controls everything that Rapunzel
Speaker 1: has access to, and this is a whole separate conversation,
Speaker 1: and she certainly wouldn't be giving Rapunzel access to weapons
Speaker 1: of any kind. Exactly. The only thing that Rapunzel does
Speaker 1: have access to our household items. And if you have
Speaker 1: an intruder, a cast iron skillet is a pretty decent weapon.
Speaker 1: It's heavy, it'll do damage, it's got to handle, so
Speaker 1: it's easy to wield, etcetera. I was kind of saying,
Speaker 1: I was thinking of like, just because the opening song
Speaker 1: is like puns getting more and more bored of the
Speaker 1: mostly domestic, e kind of tasks and activities that are
Speaker 1: made available to her. Um which again, like that context
Speaker 1: is important. It's not like she has a choice of
Speaker 1: everything to do in the world and she's choosing sewing, cooking, cleaning,
Speaker 1: like those are the only things she's given to do.
Speaker 1: Her life is very thoroughly controlled. So totally the only
Speaker 1: other thing I was like, m get those knitting needles
Speaker 1: in in the mix, but it's like the cats are
Speaker 1: in skillet I I totally agree, is like the most
Speaker 1: easily yield the ball weapon And why does she use it?
Speaker 1: She uses it quite a bit, to the point where
Speaker 1: it becomes a motif throughout the movie, where so Flynn
Speaker 1: uses it himself as a weapon, which I thought was cool.
Speaker 1: So what happens basically that the trajectory of the frying
Speaker 1: pan is this where Puntal uses it several times on
Speaker 1: Flynn when he first comes into the tower, and she
Speaker 1: like does damage with it. She knocks him unconscious several times.
Speaker 1: She then brings it along on the journey outside of
Speaker 1: the tower and brandishes it as a weapon anytime she
Speaker 1: feels she's in danger. So that happens a number of
Speaker 1: times later, Like you said, Flynn uses it as a
Speaker 1: weapon when he's fighting off the guards in that scene
Speaker 1: what they're at the damn and he loves it. He's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is such an effective weapon. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: myself days and it is. And then towards the end,
Speaker 1: when the Ruffians are saving Flynn from being hanged, one
Speaker 1: of them uses the frying pan to knock out a
Speaker 1: guard and he and Flynn are both like, wooho, what
Speaker 1: an awesome weapon. So, while this trope has been seen
Speaker 1: again and again in movies, specifically with women wielding a
Speaker 1: fronting pan as a weapon, I feel like when you
Speaker 1: consider the context and what Rapunzel has access to, and
Speaker 1: the fact that it then is used as a weapon
Speaker 1: by multiple characters across the gender spectrum, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more nuanced and tangled. I agree,
Speaker 1: um yeah, And I like that they kind of it almost.
Speaker 1: It felt more like they were commenting on that trope
Speaker 1: that when it appears as often very baseless and like
Speaker 1: you were saying, with the assumption that it's like this
Speaker 1: is all they would know how to use because women
Speaker 1: are pans, But in this case, they I got contextualized
Speaker 1: it well, Rapunzel wield it as a weapon over and over,
Speaker 1: did we I mean, and and I whatever. I think
Speaker 1: that this is open for criticism. But the fact that
Speaker 1: Flynn validated it as a weapon, which like m hm,
Speaker 1: but two ten, I see what they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think maybe maybe a bit of a
Speaker 1: twist on the pan discourse you're expecting exactly. So let's
Speaker 1: let's get into Flynn a little bit. Um So, he's
Speaker 1: kind of he's a bit of an Aladdin type. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say he's he's a steeler, he's a crimer.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a mama or a dad, you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a parent, So he's like Aladdin without
Speaker 1: the class stuff basically. Sure, so he's kind of swashbuckling around.
Speaker 1: The thing is like with Flynn for the most part,
Speaker 1: I like, don't dislike him as a character. I do
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things he does at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the narrative with Rapunzel where he clearly wants
Speaker 1: to get rid of her. He just wants to get
Speaker 1: what he needs and go on his way. And I
Speaker 1: get that that's his character journey. He needs to realize
Speaker 1: that that's a shitty way to behave. But he's pretty
Speaker 1: cruel to her at the beginning and like notices her
Speaker 1: insecurities and fear of her own mother, and instead of
Speaker 1: talking to her about it, weaponizes it against her two
Speaker 1: times back to back. At first he was like, I've
Speaker 1: noticed that you are feeling a lot of grief and
Speaker 1: guilt and confusion about whether you should be like striking
Speaker 1: out on your own, which to go back to a
Speaker 1: puzzle for a second, I thought, was I liked that
Speaker 1: they showed that in her where like it felt like
Speaker 1: you know, for Disney fantasy movie, pretty realistic of like
Speaker 1: her mom repeatedly guilts her for like thinking she would
Speaker 1: be capable of doing it anything, So of course when
Speaker 1: she gets out and she enjoys it, she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: a horrible person. No great, the complicated feelings, right, which
Speaker 1: is a relatable feeling to some extent for for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But Flynn, you know, obviously like notices
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on and instead uses it instead of
Speaker 1: saying what is obvious, which is like your mom treats
Speaker 1: you really badly and like you should feel okay about
Speaker 1: striking out on your own, like you're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: He had Stead says like, wow, looks like you like
Speaker 1: he does exactly what her mom does, and he does
Speaker 1: that a couple different times. And as much as I
Speaker 1: appreciate that you get context into Flynn's character and you
Speaker 1: get some insight into why he is the way he is,
Speaker 1: I felt like it was like a pointed thing that
Speaker 1: you get that for Flynn, who treats her the same
Speaker 1: way as Gothel at the beginning of the movie. But
Speaker 1: you don't get that for Gothel. She is just a
Speaker 1: villainous villain who is old but wants to be young,
Speaker 1: and that is it. There is no more context we'll
Speaker 1: get into discussion around her, but the whole like you
Speaker 1: know old Crone stereotype that like an anxiety around aging
Speaker 1: for women is a personal defect and not part of
Speaker 1: a larger societal pressure. It's like, oh, that's that's on you,
Speaker 1: which I thought was kind of like incredible that they
Speaker 1: didn't like in two thousand ten. I felt like, come on,
Speaker 1: but you know, like Flynn certainly grows as a character
Speaker 1: throughout the movie whatever, Like he has an outsized presence
Speaker 1: in the movie, which is why you get the context
Speaker 1: for him that you do. Um, I think that context
Speaker 1: is pretty effective. But he never like correct me Mark.
Speaker 1: He never really apologizes for doing what he does at
Speaker 1: the beginning, which is very manipulative and cruel. It's not nice,
Speaker 1: that's not boyfriendship to do. Yeah. I was frustrated by
Speaker 1: the romantic storyline because you know that that's where it's going,
Speaker 1: that they're going to end up together. We saw it
Speaker 1: in Trek, We saw it in every fairy tale ever made,
Speaker 1: but most importantly, most importantly in Trek, where he starts
Speaker 1: out as a dick. Yeah, he's manipulative. He weaponizes her
Speaker 1: own insecurities against her. He tries to like seduce her
Speaker 1: at various moments where he's like, let me do this, smolder.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just trying to like use various manipulation
Speaker 1: tactics to get what he wants out of her, and
Speaker 1: doesn't treat her well along the way. Uh. Of course
Speaker 1: he does soften up as the story goes. I also
Speaker 1: don't really know why they like each other by the end.
Speaker 1: This is a problem I have with most romantic storylines
Speaker 1: and movies, where it's like, well, yes, they're both attractive
Speaker 1: and they are near each other, but what else, why
Speaker 1: else are they drawn to each other in a sustainable
Speaker 1: way that would like sustain a relationship. I don't really
Speaker 1: see it here at least. And this is like giving
Speaker 1: the movie probably credit that it doesn't do serve but um,
Speaker 1: because Rapunzel has been locked in a tower for eighteen
Speaker 1: years and has never ventured out into the world, there
Speaker 1: was I thought a big danger of the born Sexy
Speaker 1: Yesterday trope being leaned into where she wouldn't know anything.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't know sure what common objects were, or like
Speaker 1: how to interact with people or things like that. She
Speaker 1: does fall in love with the first man she meets, Yes,
Speaker 1: that is part of that trope, but she is able
Speaker 1: to hold her own as a person out in the
Speaker 1: world far better than you know, other born Sexy Yesterday tropes.
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think that that is like contextualized
Speaker 1: by the fact that she interacts with her mom all
Speaker 1: the time, who like doesn't seem to have a vested
Speaker 1: interest in keeping her away from very basic knowledge. And
Speaker 1: she read the toun so it's not like she would
Speaker 1: have any understanding of how that works. So that all
Speaker 1: made sense for me in context, And I feel like
Speaker 1: saved us a lot of annoying trophy, like what is this? Um? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think the only moment you get that is
Speaker 1: when she puts her feet on the grass, which I
Speaker 1: thought was actually kind of beautiful and made me tear up.
Speaker 1: It was nice. Um. But yeah, so I appreciate it
Speaker 1: that that wasn't a part of the story. But Flynn overall,
Speaker 1: it is especially annoying to me because and maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I could be talked out of this. But her goal,
Speaker 1: her desire that drives most of the narrative is to
Speaker 1: go see these lanterns, which again you can kind of
Speaker 1: interpret as just a larger like I want to venture
Speaker 1: out into the world and see what the world has
Speaker 1: to offer and see where what my places in the world.
Speaker 1: Because she also like feels this connection. She's like, who
Speaker 1: am I What these lanterns happen on my birthday? Is
Speaker 1: it related to me and my backs? You know? She like,
Speaker 1: once to figure out all these things totally all works
Speaker 1: for me, And I wish that that had been the
Speaker 1: actual resolution of the story in the big climactic moment
Speaker 1: rather than and it's part of it, of course, but
Speaker 1: the big climactic moment having her recaptured, recaped, and then
Speaker 1: like she has to save Flynn, and she's prepared to
Speaker 1: like sacrifice her freedom in order to save him. And then,
Speaker 1: like we said, he's the one who chops off her
Speaker 1: hair thereby saving her, which takes away her agency. I
Speaker 1: saved her from herself, Like I just really didn't like that.
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot that that was how it ended.
Speaker 1: I remembered that her hair gets cut off, and that's
Speaker 1: how like the villain is defeated. But I thought I
Speaker 1: was like certain that she cut off her own hair
Speaker 1: so that when so when he did it, I was like, what,
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. Well, here here's Jamie's a little hot tech.
Speaker 1: If she were the protagonist of the movie, she would
Speaker 1: have But I don't think she's the protagonist of the movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's Flynn because of all this other stuff
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about in a second. But like, if
Speaker 1: the protagonists in the movie is going to do anything,
Speaker 1: it's going to be defeat the villain. She doesn't defeat
Speaker 1: the villain that she has the closer relationship with. Flynn
Speaker 1: has never met this lady, Like there's no reason, even
Speaker 1: like storytelling, why is that he would be the one
Speaker 1: to defeat a villain he has no connection to we've
Speaker 1: seen like everything, I kind of wonder at what, like
Speaker 1: if there there has to be a draft of this
Speaker 1: script where she does it, because that's what the whole
Speaker 1: movie is fucking building. We see her, she has two
Speaker 1: or three I thought, pretty effective confrontations, and she keeps
Speaker 1: trying to escape her mother's grasp and then is not successful.
Speaker 1: That doesn't even bother me, Like she's in this like
Speaker 1: abusive situation you don't always get out on the first try.
Speaker 1: But it's a fucking kids fantasy movie. She should be
Speaker 1: the one to remove herself from the situation at the end,
Speaker 1: but she's in stead ready to trap herself in that
Speaker 1: situation permanently in order to rescue the first guy she's
Speaker 1: ever met. And it's just like I felt like it
Speaker 1: doubled down worse than Disney movies that were coming out
Speaker 1: twenty years before this, Like it just it really bumped
Speaker 1: me out, Like she doesn't get to kill the fucking villain,
Speaker 1: especially we have spent so much time, Like it would
Speaker 1: have been so satisfying if she and it still would
Speaker 1: have had all the ages stuff going on, but it
Speaker 1: would have like I just like, it doesn't even make
Speaker 1: sense as a movie for Flynn to be the one
Speaker 1: to initiate the ending. But I think that he's like
Speaker 1: the movies protagonist. Honestly, we see it's more than change
Speaker 1: in him than we see change in Rapunzel. He's the
Speaker 1: first fucking face you see on the screen. He's narrating
Speaker 1: the movie for some reason. I don't even think she's
Speaker 1: the protagonist of her own movie, which is why that's
Speaker 1: like it bothers me. I would maybe argue that she
Speaker 1: is like a dual protagonist situation, but why it should
Speaker 1: just be Rapunzel. He doesn't have a song, I guess
Speaker 1: except for this song where they're like kiss the Girling.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's her desire and goal that drives
Speaker 1: the narrative, So I would are you dual protagonists? But
Speaker 1: even so, it's like, well, it's a princess movie. Why
Speaker 1: are we I think that that, Like that's something that
Speaker 1: bothers me, is like they're like, the way that we're
Speaker 1: going to subvert the princess movie is by making a
Speaker 1: man a dual protagonist. Like that just does not work
Speaker 1: for me. Not that it's like you can't have a
Speaker 1: buddy movie with characters of more than one gender. That's
Speaker 1: totally fine, but it's like, just because of the way
Speaker 1: this movie was specifically marketed as like this is a
Speaker 1: new kind of princess movie, where a lot of the
Speaker 1: princess movies suck ass and are like reinforcing every trope
Speaker 1: in the book and every stereotype in the book. But
Speaker 1: at least they are clearly the protagonist. I agree with
Speaker 1: what you're saying, like Nn isn't the um soul protagonist,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't make any fucking sense that he gets
Speaker 1: the final blow in that storyline, especially because the movie
Speaker 1: up until that point seems to have a very vested
Speaker 1: interest in making Rapunzel way more active, especially versus how
Speaker 1: she is in the brother's grim fairy tale version of
Speaker 1: the story. That's why I feel like pretty convinced that
Speaker 1: there had to be a different draft of because this
Speaker 1: movie was in development for nine thousand years and its
Speaker 1: first draft was and they said this themselves, not in
Speaker 1: this delightful way, but um Shreky in yes, where they
Speaker 1: literally like we're going to do Rapunzel Shrek. But then
Speaker 1: you know, later on in production they're like, well, we
Speaker 1: want to like give this a more wholesome core, a
Speaker 1: more Disney core. So you have those shreky and elements
Speaker 1: and then you have those Disney elements. And I think
Speaker 1: that that is the place where it's like chafing the hardest,
Speaker 1: because if you're trying to have Flynn Ryder be Shrek,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's not going to happen. Honey. There's
Speaker 1: only one There's only one truck, and I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: it any other way. But it really bugged me. Okay,
Speaker 1: So actually, let's well, because it keeps coming up. The
Speaker 1: production of this movie. It was in development forever. It
Speaker 1: was originally announced as Rapunzel Unbraided in October two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, which the director himself described as a Shrek
Speaker 1: like version of the film. He didn't think to because
Speaker 1: the word shreky and wasn't around back then. This was
Speaker 1: Glenn key who started developing the story in nineteen six.
Speaker 1: He eventually left left the project. Um but yeah, because
Speaker 1: it wasn't shreky and enough. It wasn't. He's like, not
Speaker 1: not sure, keen enough, I'm leaving. I'm out fair enough.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So it started as a Glenn Keene Shrek
Speaker 1: rip off, which is wildau Shruck was made despite Disney whatever.
Speaker 1: The story has been told a million times, but like
Speaker 1: it was supposed to take place in San Francisco and
Speaker 1: revolve around teenagers named Claire and Vince, question mark, it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds more like Enchanted than it sounds like
Speaker 1: Shrek or Tangled. Um, but anyways, that is obviously not
Speaker 1: uh what ended up happening. So then eventually Glenn Keene
Speaker 1: leaves the project. Rapunzel Umbraided is changed to Rapunzel, which
Speaker 1: makes sense. Most of the Princess movies are named for
Speaker 1: the protagonist, um with I think the exception of Beauty
Speaker 1: and the Beast um, but you've got the Little Mermaids,
Speaker 1: snow White, Sleeping Beauty. Jasmine is not the protagonist of Aladdin,
Speaker 1: so there you what Pocahontas which but it is named
Speaker 1: after her, and so the movie is going to be
Speaker 1: called Rapunzel. The Princess and the Frog is the one
Speaker 1: that comes immediately before this. So the story here is
Speaker 1: that Princess and the Frog comes out the year before Tangled.
Speaker 1: And while it was like people enjoyed the movie, you
Speaker 1: can listen to our episode about it that we we
Speaker 1: simply cannot get into it right now. There's pros and cons.
Speaker 1: But the movie was considered to have underperformed at the
Speaker 1: box office. And the reason that they decided that it
Speaker 1: underperformed at the box office is because the word princess
Speaker 1: was in the title, which, allegedly, per Disney executives, meant
Speaker 1: that young boys would not want to see a movie
Speaker 1: with the word princess in the title, or a movie
Speaker 1: named after a princess. So they rework the story to
Speaker 1: have to protagonists, including an action boy named Flynn Ryder,
Speaker 1: and they change the movie's title from Rapunzel two Tangled,
Speaker 1: which I think rightfully caused a lot of controversy and
Speaker 1: I think annoyance within the company. Um onkind of quote
Speaker 1: a former Disney Pixar animator named Floyd Norman, who said, quote,
Speaker 1: the idea of changing the title of a classic like
Speaker 1: Rapunzel to Tangle just beyond stupid. I'm convinced they'll gain
Speaker 1: nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately
Speaker 1: trying to find an audience. We've got another writer named
Speaker 1: Margot McGowan saying, can you imagine if Disney switched to
Speaker 1: movie title so it wouldn't risk highlighting a male star.
Speaker 1: It's awful that this kind of radical gender discrimination exists
Speaker 1: for our smallest people, which at first I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that? She means kids, children,
Speaker 1: little little kids who come into this world with huge
Speaker 1: imaginations and aspirations, big dreams that get squashed by a
Speaker 1: bunch of billionaire guys who run massive entertainment franchises. People
Speaker 1: had fun with, you know, being like, what what are
Speaker 1: we gonna call Little Mermaid beached or whatever? Like it
Speaker 1: is kind of an obvious thing. And then UM famous
Speaker 1: sexual harasser John Lasseter finally spoke out on the issue
Speaker 1: UM four years after the movie is released in March
Speaker 1: um saying that this was in fact why it had
Speaker 1: been done, in order to and this is like very
Speaker 1: business e in the in the Weeds terminology that I
Speaker 1: didn't even know existed improve the film's appeal to the
Speaker 1: four quadrants UM, father's Son, Holy Spirit, and women. Um.
Speaker 1: There but Lassater says, quote, there was an audience perception
Speaker 1: that these movies were just for little girls. But when boys,
Speaker 1: men whatever actually see these movies, they liked them. So
Speaker 1: on Rapunzela, we changed the name and we called it Tangled.
Speaker 1: We did marketing that made the people who would not
Speaker 1: normally show up say, hey, this looks pretty good unquote,
Speaker 1: and um, the movie did do very well at the
Speaker 1: box office, or at least outperformed what the Princess and
Speaker 1: the Frog had taken in. And so I think that
Speaker 1: this ethos was considered like, alright, cool male protagonist. I
Speaker 1: went back and watched two of the official trailers for
Speaker 1: this movie, and both of them make it seem like
Speaker 1: Flynn Ryder is the sole protagonist of the movie and
Speaker 1: the Rapunzel is barely a character based on just like
Speaker 1: the screen time and the activity that both characters are
Speaker 1: allotted in the trailers, and both of the trailers really
Speaker 1: emphasized Finn's Flynn what is it Flynn's Flynn's swashbuckling and
Speaker 1: like all of his his like he's riding horses, he's fighting,
Speaker 1: he's doing all this stuff that has featured far more
Speaker 1: prominently than anything related to Rapunzel's story and her like
Speaker 1: I have this and I want to go on that
Speaker 1: is left out of the marketing, exhausting the movie. I
Speaker 1: remember a similar thing happening to Mohanna, where I was
Speaker 1: watching mo Wanna trailers and now he was the protagonists,
Speaker 1: so which at least they were able to name the
Speaker 1: movie Mohanna, Like, it does seem like and maybe it
Speaker 1: was like Frozen that was able to turn this car
Speaker 1: around and like having dual female protagonists being wildly successful.
Speaker 1: They're like, maybe we don't need to go down this
Speaker 1: road of giving the love interest this outsize presence in
Speaker 1: the movie. I that's my guess off the top of
Speaker 1: my head of why you were allowed to name movies
Speaker 1: after female protagonists. Again, it's all money. It has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with you know, giving a shit about equity
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Um, but um, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Frozen being a billion dollar franchise contributed to that.
Speaker 1: But this is such a bizarre moment for Like, it
Speaker 1: sucks because Rapunzel is a very cool character and I
Speaker 1: don't I don't even mind that Flynn has I think
Speaker 1: it it is actually like a positive adjustment for the
Speaker 1: princess world that I mean, such a popular criticism of
Speaker 1: Disney princesses is that the Disney princes is that they
Speaker 1: have no personality and they're boring and you have no
Speaker 1: idea why she would be interested in him. This movie
Speaker 1: feels like a major overcorrection of that issue. I think
Speaker 1: that Flynn having a personality is great. I like that
Speaker 1: now and in Frozen, which is not a movie that
Speaker 1: I have any love for. Really like Frozen too much better,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, the love interests have or like
Speaker 1: Anna's husband guy has a personality, like you at least
Speaker 1: have some understanding of why are there at least attempting
Speaker 1: to let you know why they're interested in each other.
Speaker 1: I think that that's important and good. There are still
Speaker 1: two white hetero couples giving a man more of a personality.
Speaker 1: It feels like a real half step in sideways. But
Speaker 1: but it's whatever the point being like, great, let's have
Speaker 1: Flynn have a personality, But that doesn't mean that giving
Speaker 1: him a personality means the movie should then be about him.
Speaker 1: Plus like especially when that personality is he's kind of
Speaker 1: a dick for a large swath of the movie, right right,
Speaker 1: and it feels like he's like, well, it's okay that
Speaker 1: I'm a dick because I'm better, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like they try, which is also
Speaker 1: a very Disney choice, and I know that that's a
Speaker 1: lot of like I feel like with Rapunzel, she is
Speaker 1: a very abused person, and she's still extremely kind and
Speaker 1: extremely empathetic and wants to see the best in people.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't really play for me that it's like, well,
Speaker 1: Flynn grew up in an orphanage, which obviously is an
Speaker 1: extremely difficult thing, but they've both had difficult childhoods. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make it okay that he treats her like garbage,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so, which does that transition us to the
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship discussion. Let's talk about every movie's about
Speaker 1: fathers and sons. Not this time, baby it's about it's
Speaker 1: about mothers and daughters and Flynn Ryder. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I have a spiel about this. Here we go go off,
Speaker 1: thank you so Disney fairy Tale, Disney fairy Tales. As
Speaker 1: we've discussed, yes, as we've discussed endlessly on the podcast,
Speaker 1: they have a sordid history with mother daughter relationships because
Speaker 1: usually the mother is dead and or there's an evil
Speaker 1: stepmother situation. They don't kill the mother in this one.
Speaker 1: They just almost kill her. It just don't let her talk,
Speaker 1: They don't let her speak, and he almost dies. But
Speaker 1: then they're like, but then we saved her, We saved
Speaker 1: her and she's good now, and she's good and and
Speaker 1: and so in this movie there is an evil foster
Speaker 1: mother slash kidnapper slash captor. But because Rapunzel thinks this
Speaker 1: is her real mother for most of the movie, let's
Speaker 1: just call it a mother daughter relationship, even though it's
Speaker 1: I mean, she was raised as Gothel's daughter exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we've got so let's examine Gothel for a moment.
Speaker 1: She is emotionally abusive, she's manipulative, she gaslights Rapunzel constantly.
Speaker 1: She's obviously using Rapunzel for her powers. So a Gothel
Speaker 1: is dependent on Rapunzel and then has created a situation
Speaker 1: where Rapunzel has no choice but to be dependent on Goffel.
Speaker 1: And part of this is Gothel completely isolating Rapunzel and
Speaker 1: being very controlling of Rapunzel's life and what she does
Speaker 1: and does not have access to. Gothel also makes insulting
Speaker 1: remarks to Rapunzel that she insists our jokes and then
Speaker 1: says things like stop taking everything so seriously. Gothel blames
Speaker 1: her own abuse of behavior on Rapunzel and then says
Speaker 1: things like you're making me the bad guy, trying to
Speaker 1: make Rapunzel feel guilty. So even though we do not
Speaker 1: have a lot of great examples of loving, caring, non
Speaker 1: toxic mother daughter relationships in movies, because most movies aren't
Speaker 1: about mother daughter relationships, the relationship we see in this
Speaker 1: movie is very similar to plenty of real life mother
Speaker 1: daughter relationships. And I know that there are people who
Speaker 1: feel very seen by this particular relationship dynamic, which is important.
Speaker 1: People like, regardless of their circumstances, want to feel represented
Speaker 1: and seen and validated. And and I think like the
Speaker 1: focus on a parent child relationship in a movie of
Speaker 1: this genre that isn't uncomplicated is cool and I feel
Speaker 1: like it kind of Um, I don't know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of other parents. Like in earlier Disney movies,
Speaker 1: parents are either absent, dead or you have like a
Speaker 1: well meaning but ultimately harmful father whose behavior is never
Speaker 1: really called out. Thinking about King Triton and Bell's goofy
Speaker 1: dad who both you know, like, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: there is like some introspection on King Triton because he
Speaker 1: faces a consequence, which is his daughter bails on him.
Speaker 1: But all that to say, like, you don't get a
Speaker 1: focus like this with mother's specifically very often and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like i'd be interested to read how
Speaker 1: people feel about it, because it is, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: having a deeply narcissistic person in your life from a
Speaker 1: very young age is really traumatic and like function your
Speaker 1: perception of the world. And I like that going back
Speaker 1: to seeing Rapunzel's like back and forth of like elation
Speaker 1: and deep guilt, like that really follows, attracts, affects you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I thought that that was really um whatever. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a Disney movie. It's not subtle um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I'm kind of like the Mother gothel stuff is
Speaker 1: tricky because I'm of two minds about it. On one end,
Speaker 1: I do think that representing um or like just having
Speaker 1: a storyline with a child growing up with a very narcissistic,
Speaker 1: manipulative parent is interesting and I do totally understand why
Speaker 1: a lot of people felt seen in that. And I
Speaker 1: see a different side of it where it's like, is
Speaker 1: this not just another evil older woman who is being
Speaker 1: demonized for wanting to be young? And it's it gets
Speaker 1: tricky because it's like you should be angry at her
Speaker 1: for the way she is doing it. The fact that
Speaker 1: she in the same way that like you almost think
Speaker 1: of like the Queen and snow White to go way
Speaker 1: back in Disney Princess Canad where kind of a similar
Speaker 1: motivation where the Queen wants no way to die because
Speaker 1: she's younger and more beautiful than her. Gosthel is trapping
Speaker 1: Rapunzel and you know, manipulating her day after day because
Speaker 1: she needs her to remain appearing younger and quote unquote
Speaker 1: more beautiful prevent her from aging. She's like Rapunzel is
Speaker 1: like the touch Everlasting Tree of the movie. So I
Speaker 1: feel like the little wrench in this is that she
Speaker 1: needs to manipulate another woman in order to remain young.
Speaker 1: It becomes a rivalry between these two women. So so,
Speaker 1: but I also feel like it's having an older woman
Speaker 1: like making it seem it's it's almost like patriarchy the
Speaker 1: guy kind of thing where it's like, oh, well, her
Speaker 1: fixation on appearing young, that's an evil quality, and like
Speaker 1: there's no introspection to like, well, what about the world
Speaker 1: has made her feel that way? Because that's a very legitimate.
Speaker 1: Certainly in two thousand ten and also now and probably
Speaker 1: for a long time, women are going to be made
Speaker 1: to feel bad about aging, and they will be viewed
Speaker 1: as less valuable by society for visibly aging. Like that's
Speaker 1: just the factiest fact there is, unfortunately, Right, So I
Speaker 1: feel similarly conflicted because again, like I think on the podcast,
Speaker 1: at least, I've been guilty of seeing a toxic mother
Speaker 1: daughter relationship and just kind of writing it off as like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is two women being pinned against each other and
Speaker 1: I don't like it. But and there's a lot more
Speaker 1: nuance to that, because there are a lot of toxic
Speaker 1: relationship dynamics in real life that absolutely many, if not most,
Speaker 1: people have experienced. They deserve to be explored as much
Speaker 1: as positive relationships do on screen. But I just think
Speaker 1: it's very pointed that this is the first one you're
Speaker 1: seeing and the reason that it's toxic. I think like
Speaker 1: that's where it gets a little muddled. It feels like this,
Speaker 1: Like again, it's like a lot of this movie where
Speaker 1: like some of it is exploring new territory and like
Speaker 1: pushing forward in an interesting way, but even like the
Speaker 1: attempt to do that in this movie is still like
Speaker 1: hampered with these older tropes that I feel like gives
Speaker 1: what should be something that is and I'm glad that
Speaker 1: it has really worked and made a lot of people's
Speaker 1: family dynamics feel validated and seen in a huge movie.
Speaker 1: But it's just like, I feel like it takes away
Speaker 1: from it a little bit by having it hampered by
Speaker 1: those old tropes. Yeah, the main issue for me with
Speaker 1: this particular aspect of the story is that we end
Speaker 1: up with a pretty one dimensional female villain. I love
Speaker 1: a female villain, especially if their villainy is contextualized, and
Speaker 1: not that you necessarily need context for every single movie villain,
Speaker 1: but because this one, it does seem to be playing
Speaker 1: into tropes, it would be nice to have a better
Speaker 1: understanding of why Gothel is the way she is, where
Speaker 1: she's coming from, all this stuff, especially because like this
Speaker 1: movie has. I think it just depends on the kind
Speaker 1: of movie you're watching, where sometimes it's like we're not
Speaker 1: getting context for any of these characters. It's an action movie.
Speaker 1: We're giving the protagonist context and that's it, and that
Speaker 1: at least that's like equal. But in this this movie
Speaker 1: goes way out of its way to give you context
Speaker 1: for Flynn, which is a subversion of this kind of movie.
Speaker 1: But I think that the fact that they don't. And
Speaker 1: I love villainy evil villains. I love that she gets stabbed,
Speaker 1: like great, totally fine by me. I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I love a villainy villain. Jigsaw is my husband, Game over,
Speaker 1: Game over slam r I P. But I mean and
Speaker 1: talk about a contextualized villain Jigsaw, who they got whole
Speaker 1: movies about it. But but I just think that if
Speaker 1: this movie is trying to change some of the standard
Speaker 1: mechanics of a movie like this by giving the love
Speaker 1: interest context, not extending that to the villain feels pointed,
Speaker 1: especially when there's so much baggage around that type of
Speaker 1: character that like total crone archetype totally it would it
Speaker 1: would have been nice to get some some context because otherwise, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just feels like a harmful trope that we've seen
Speaker 1: again and again. But in keeping with the Disney tradition,
Speaker 1: I did really like her song. Oh it's a good one.
Speaker 1: I like the visuals too, is it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: tied with I also really like Rapunza opening song. I
Speaker 1: did like that Flynn Ryder did not get a song
Speaker 1: because I didn't need it. I also, oh, first of all,
Speaker 1: Brad Garrett and Ron Perlman. Wow, I mean, can I
Speaker 1: just say wow? Also, this movie is so aggressively white
Speaker 1: it is Um. Sorry, was another thing I was going
Speaker 1: to say about one of the things that this movie
Speaker 1: does not subvert as far as like Disney Princess Fairytale tropes.
Speaker 1: The character design for Rapunzel very much. She is adhering
Speaker 1: to classic Western beauty standards. She's thin, she's white, she's blonde.
Speaker 1: The male characters she's young, young, eighteen years old. Why
Speaker 1: are there so many movies about eighteen year olds? What
Speaker 1: about the movies about people double that age? Thirty six?
Speaker 1: My ageit Toronte story, erupted story. Um, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: those two. Anyway. My point is that all the female
Speaker 1: characters are very classically beautiful, and then men get to
Speaker 1: be different shapes, different shapes, different sizes, etcetera, not different colors.
Speaker 1: Everyone is white, which is, like, I mean, such an
Speaker 1: animation trope that we've discussed a million times at this point,
Speaker 1: where there's no reason that there couldn't be diversity in
Speaker 1: this movie. For and I it always really like, it
Speaker 1: always bugs me when the excuse for that is like, well,
Speaker 1: this movie takes place in European countries, so in the
Speaker 1: area it was supposed to take place in, there would
Speaker 1: not have been anyone who wasn't white. And it's like, um,
Speaker 1: he fights a horse with a sore, like with a pan,
Speaker 1: we can suspend our disbelief. Clearly we are like open
Speaker 1: to not adhering to the rules of reality. Like haven't
Speaker 1: you ever seen Brandy Cinderella seven the best fantasy adaptation
Speaker 1: of all time? Wow, that that movie really does I'm
Speaker 1: due for a rewatch. I really love that movie so much.
Speaker 1: But then I'm just like, can I cry all night again?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I just got like a really nice
Speaker 1: feeling to think about Brandy Cinderella Tangled. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: not diverse in any way. The most radical statement it
Speaker 1: makes on anything is that it's okay to have brown hair,
Speaker 1: which is so weird. Um like kind of a shockingly
Speaker 1: like nothing message, like you can have a shitty haircut,
Speaker 1: sorry but I don't like Rapundl's haircut. You can have
Speaker 1: a shitty haircut and brown hair, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I've been doing that for you know, decades at this point,
Speaker 1: So let's let's keep it. Let's keep it pushing, all right, there,
Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah, there there's no body diversity. There's
Speaker 1: no diversity period. And then also, like, I think it's
Speaker 1: very I read some criticism around how mother Goffel is,
Speaker 1: you know, like she's tall, or she's got dark hair,
Speaker 1: she has darker feature yours. Then Rapunzel and it just
Speaker 1: sort of seems like, oh, the palest blondes blue aside
Speaker 1: woman is going to be the best. Um, So okay,
Speaker 1: we wanted to add an insert here to address something
Speaker 1: that we didn't address in the original episode. A lot
Speaker 1: of listeners pointed this out. Honestly, I didn't pick up
Speaker 1: on it. So thank you to our wonderful listeners for
Speaker 1: performing us and just helping us be as intersectional in
Speaker 1: our analysis as possible. And honestly, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a trope that we have discussed before. I just we
Speaker 1: just did not pick up on it in this particular movie,
Speaker 1: So right, we wanted to make sure that we were
Speaker 1: acknowledging that once our listeners pointed it out, we're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean we want to sort of dig
Speaker 1: into this trope a little more because, uh, it is
Speaker 1: rife throughout animation, which is how has come up on
Speaker 1: this show before. That is the trend in not just
Speaker 1: Disney media, but children's media in general, and media on
Speaker 1: the whole of using anti Semitic tropes in the villain
Speaker 1: of the story, which is present in the character of
Speaker 1: Mother Gothel in Tangled, and a listener sent us a
Speaker 1: wonderful piece written by Tatum Shut from Hey Alma dot
Speaker 1: com entitled why do so many Disney Villains look like me?
Speaker 1: Tatum points out that Disney has a long history of
Speaker 1: Jewish coding their villains, and it is very clear Entangled.
Speaker 1: I'll pull a quote from this piece. Quote, Mother Goszel
Speaker 1: is the cinematic foil for the predictably wide eyed, button
Speaker 1: nosed Rapunzel Goszel, that magnificent mirror curial whoops, didn't do
Speaker 1: that word right, uh, manipulator, so miserly with her food
Speaker 1: and money, so separate from the other golden haired kingdom,
Speaker 1: so distinctly mothered, she so happens to be animated with
Speaker 1: the curly black hair and hook nosed stereotypical to Jews.
Speaker 1: But beyond Gothel's suspicious phenotype, Tangled follows an eerily familiar
Speaker 1: story blood libel and anti semitic canard that reverberates throughout
Speaker 1: history accuses Jews of stealing Christian children to bake their
Speaker 1: blood into Manza. I didn't even know that that like that,
Speaker 1: this is like a spot in history and tropes that
Speaker 1: I was not aware how deep this anti Semitic trope.
Speaker 1: When same same Yeah, Tatum goes on to say it
Speaker 1: was particularly prevalent in the Middle Ages, when it was
Speaker 1: not uncommon for European Jews to be hunted down and
Speaker 1: murdered whenever a child went missing. Jews stealing pretty Arian
Speaker 1: children to sustain their dark magic unquote as the you know, perception,
Speaker 1: yeah went And then another thing I just didn't know
Speaker 1: was Tatum shut goes on to describe and kind of
Speaker 1: explicitly connect the fact at uh, you know, Disney is
Speaker 1: a horrible company that is not employing this trope out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. It is cooked into the text of Grimm's
Speaker 1: Fairy Tales, which are also wildly anti Semitic, um going
Speaker 1: so far as they cite a lesser known, thank god,
Speaker 1: uh story from Grimm's Fairy Tales called the Jew in
Speaker 1: the Brambles. So the brothers Grimm, we're also horrifically anti
Speaker 1: Semitic themselves, and Disney instead of subverting all of the
Speaker 1: things that they do in this movie, which is how
Speaker 1: this movie was marketed. Instead re employs this Like you
Speaker 1: cannot overstate the harm of using a trope like this,
Speaker 1: and we see it in media still and so yeah,
Speaker 1: we really wanted to thank our listeners that sent this
Speaker 1: our way. We did not pick up on it on
Speaker 1: first viewing, and it is still an issue in animation.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked quite a bit about how Disney
Speaker 1: m habitually queer codes their villains, but this is also
Speaker 1: an extremely worthy discussion and where sorry we missed it
Speaker 1: on the first time. Thank you to everyone who sent it. Indeed,
Speaker 1: especially again because you know, coding villains in a certain way,
Speaker 1: queer coding them, quoting them as people of color, as
Speaker 1: Disney has done in the past, um, quoting them as Jewish.
Speaker 1: This consciously or subconsciously influences people's perceptions of already marginalized groups.
Speaker 1: It reinforces harmful stereotypes, all kinds of very nasty things,
Speaker 1: to the point where like we adult media critics did
Speaker 1: not pick up on it, right, So um, and my
Speaker 1: guest would be like, why is this happening in a movie?
Speaker 1: From as Tatum shut points out, like, yes, it is
Speaker 1: baked into the source material, but why is this but
Speaker 1: like fling Ryder is not, you know, there's there's no
Speaker 1: excuse for it. Honestly, my guests would be I mean,
Speaker 1: Walt Disney was notoriously anti Semitic, and he probably had
Speaker 1: a hand in coding early Disney villains as Jewish. And
Speaker 1: since most animated Disney films follow the same formula, they
Speaker 1: have a very distinct visual style. All the you know,
Speaker 1: princesses are kind of molded after a very specific, you know,
Speaker 1: Western beauty standard phenotype. All of the villains are modeled
Speaker 1: after like another very specific design. Like earlier Disney movies
Speaker 1: just reused animation from previous movies. It's just like the
Speaker 1: same movie basically over and over over and over and over.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like by the time Tangled came out,
Speaker 1: what is the when is the last time this company
Speaker 1: sat down and said, well, what have we harmed that
Speaker 1: we need to scale back? So so thank you again,
Speaker 1: and um yeah we wanted to include that um in
Speaker 1: this insert, So thanks again everyone, And back to the episode.
Speaker 1: He's got dark hair, she has darker features than Rapunzel,
Speaker 1: and it just sort of seems like, Oh, the palest,
Speaker 1: blondest bluicide woman is going to be the best. She
Speaker 1: can get a chitty haircut later, but she you know,
Speaker 1: she's got to have blonde hair for most of the movie.
Speaker 1: And then Flynn Ryder bravely legs women with brown hair fine, like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, what an ally? What a king? Just like,
Speaker 1: so bring in jig Saw. I'm ready to die that
Speaker 1: do do do? Al So, I don't think the Saw
Speaker 1: episode has come out yet on the Matreon, but matrons
Speaker 1: give it like four days. And then I think we
Speaker 1: really like not to freak anyone out, but I think
Speaker 1: that we had a really special month over in the Matreon,
Speaker 1: our most chaotic episode to date, and then Saw. We're um, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: we need to plan this offline, but that screening of
Speaker 1: Saw is coming up, and they're still time for us
Speaker 1: to get Jigsaw cosplay, right, do do do do? Do?
Speaker 1: Do do do do do? I think that because it is
Speaker 1: a four thirty screening, that there will be no one
Speaker 1: costplaying except for us, and it will be like that
Speaker 1: amazing tweet about the Baba Duck where everyone else is
Speaker 1: just enjoying themselves and then we're addressed as to Jigsaw perfect.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have any other way anyway. Do you have
Speaker 1: anything else you want to talk about? I wanted to
Speaker 1: share one more quote about specifically this movie's preoccupation with
Speaker 1: blonde hair. The link to this original story is unfortunately
Speaker 1: no longer working, but it was quoted in a Miss
Speaker 1: magazine piece from the time. The writer being quoted is
Speaker 1: only credited as Renee Um, but Renee of Womanist Musings.
Speaker 1: And she's talking about the you know I mean, and
Speaker 1: this is technically Rapunzel canon I guess like not that
Speaker 1: Rapunzel has to be canonically blonde or white or anything like.
Speaker 1: So she writes quote as a black woman, I know
Speaker 1: all too well how complicated the issue of hair can be.
Speaker 1: Looking at the image of Tangled Rapunzel, I found that
Speaker 1: I could not see beyond her long blond hair and
Speaker 1: blue eyes. I believe that this will also become the
Speaker 1: focal point of many girls of color. The standard of long,
Speaker 1: flowing blonde hair as the epitome of femininity necessarily excludes
Speaker 1: and challenges the idea that women of color are feminine
Speaker 1: and desired, and therefore, while Disney is creating an image
Speaker 1: of Rapunzel that we are accustomed to. Her rebirth in
Speaker 1: a modern day context is problematic because her body represents
Speaker 1: the celebration of white femininity. The fact that Tangled is
Speaker 1: coming on the heels of the first African American Disney
Speaker 1: princess is indeed problematic. It makes Princess Tiana seemed like
Speaker 1: an impotent token, with Rapunzel appearing to reset the standard
Speaker 1: of what princess means and even more precise Slee what
Speaker 1: womanhood means unquote. Um again, I mean, we do have
Speaker 1: a whole episode on the princess and the frog that
Speaker 1: you can go back to. But a big issue that
Speaker 1: a lot of people had but that movie, and that
Speaker 1: we did as well, is that Disney's first black princess
Speaker 1: spends most of the movie as a frog. And so
Speaker 1: you while Tiana is their first black Disney princess, she
Speaker 1: is also not celebrated to the extent that any other
Speaker 1: Disney princess is. So I I yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share that as well, because again, this is a
Speaker 1: Disney fantasy movie. Rapunzel didn't need to be white and
Speaker 1: blonde and skinny. It just didn't need to be that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, so most people have hair that could become long.
Speaker 1: That is so brave of you to say not everyone.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be making sweeping generalizations. No, but
Speaker 1: I mean, I I get. I think that truly. The
Speaker 1: only absolute must with Rapunzel's character is she's got to
Speaker 1: have long hair. The end of list, like kind of
Speaker 1: end of qualifications. Everything else about her is malleable. The
Speaker 1: only thing that is absolutely important to the character is
Speaker 1: that she has long hair, and she's going to be
Speaker 1: trapped in a tower. So there you go. She could
Speaker 1: also be wearing a wig or extensions. We don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Can you imagine that if Nicole Kidman
Speaker 1: played Rapunzel, what kind of wig she would be bringing
Speaker 1: to set? Oh? My word, Oh my word. Okay, Well, anyways, Um,
Speaker 1: that's all I have. I wanted to share that quote
Speaker 1: and that I think. That's that's all I've got. So
Speaker 1: shall we get to the matter at hand the test? Yes,
Speaker 1: it does, but I think only between Rapunzel and Gossl Yes,
Speaker 1: because this movie, I think again, in this overcorrection, like
Speaker 1: the boys won't see a princess movie like Panic, This
Speaker 1: movie is front loaded with a million extra male characters,
Speaker 1: some of them I like, some of them that I don't.
Speaker 1: We got too much Flynn. Flynn's animal has a huge
Speaker 1: arc tournament to glue, don't care. We have the gallery
Speaker 1: of rogues that all want to be musicians in my
Speaker 1: and I kind of like them, but they are all
Speaker 1: men and they didn't have to all be men. Nope,
Speaker 1: why can't we have some some women rogues that are
Speaker 1: give Punzela of a female friend. Let's get some envy
Speaker 1: rogues in the mix. All these the only qualification for
Speaker 1: a rogue, They're going to be rogue ish. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so you really only do get two women I think
Speaker 1: talking in the whole movie, because Rapunzel's parents are not talking.
Speaker 1: I think that her dad at one point goes yeah,
Speaker 1: but the queen says none of things. Zippo. Damn as
Speaker 1: far as our nipple scale, which is the golden standard.
Speaker 1: Speaking of golden hair, I see you're not going to
Speaker 1: have a reaction to that. Okay, Sorry, I was looking
Speaker 1: at a picture of Zachary Levi. Is that embarrassing? Wow? Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I did zone up for a second because I was
Speaker 1: looking at Zacharily Levi's Wikipedia page. Okay, kill me. So no,
Speaker 1: I was trying to it again. Wait, what did you?
Speaker 1: Can you do it again? It's not worth repeating because
Speaker 1: it's not even a good joke. I just said I
Speaker 1: said it was like, and I also phrased it wrong.
Speaker 1: I should have said, like speaking of golden hair. The
Speaker 1: golden standard of movie analysis scales manipple scale. Meanwhile, I'm
Speaker 1: being here looking at pictures of merne in on Wikipedia board,
Speaker 1: I know, setting the clock back yet again. Um okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I do agree. This is the golden standards. Yes, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. The golden shio. Wow, what is that?
Speaker 1: The golden ratio is a specific number. I forget what
Speaker 1: it is, but it shows up a lot in nature,
Speaker 1: like a snail's shell has the golden ratio. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: and it's like and and and like conscious and ship.
Speaker 1: That's fine, et cetera. Leaves shout out nature, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So the nipples scale zero to five nipples based on
Speaker 1: looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm
Speaker 1: tempted to just sort of and I know this feels
Speaker 1: like cheating, but I kind of want to give it
Speaker 1: like a split down the middle at two point five.
Speaker 1: I do think it is pushing the needle forward by
Speaker 1: a little bit as far as Disney Princess Fairytale movies go,
Speaker 1: because it is supporting some of the harmful tropes we've
Speaker 1: seen of the past, especially because when I think of
Speaker 1: Damsel and Distress, my go to person that I think
Speaker 1: of is Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel. Yeah, and I didn't
Speaker 1: even the only thing I knew about, like the Rapunzel story,
Speaker 1: because I've never read the Grimm's Brothers fairy tale. Fuck
Speaker 1: had to like look on Wikipedia to see what the
Speaker 1: actual story was because the only thing I knew was
Speaker 1: that there's a lady with long hair in a tower
Speaker 1: and a prince climbs her hair to save her, like
Speaker 1: very very classic Damsel in Distress narrative. So because this movie,
Speaker 1: you know, takes that premise, but then gives her a
Speaker 1: lot more agency, lets her save herself, lets her save Flynn.
Speaker 1: I keep saying, whatever his name is, Flynn, probably except
Speaker 1: it's Eugene. I forgot to mention that in the recap.
Speaker 1: But his real name is Eugene. Who cares Flynn, She
Speaker 1: saves him, she saves herself. She has far more agency
Speaker 1: than your classic Damsel in distres us character. But there's
Speaker 1: all these other things as we've discussed that, you know,
Speaker 1: don't push the needle as far ahead as we would
Speaker 1: have liked. But it is kind of like a stepping
Speaker 1: stone movie. I feel yes paves the way for Mowanna,
Speaker 1: for example. So with that in mind, I'll give it
Speaker 1: two and a half nipples, and I'll give one to Rapunzel.
Speaker 1: Love her Punzel. I think a lot of her Punzel.
Speaker 1: I mean this, I love her character, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it is just like, Wow, Mandy Moore, she's special.
Speaker 1: I feel like she's even though she just was on
Speaker 1: the most famous TV show for like ten years and
Speaker 1: I never watched it. I feel like she's still underrated.
Speaker 1: I love Mandy Moore. Yeah, I agree. Um, I'll give
Speaker 1: one nipple two to Gothel because I feel like she
Speaker 1: is potentially misunderstood. Slash. I love a female villain, Slash.
Speaker 1: I wish she had been more contextualized. Slash. There was
Speaker 1: just like things about her character that I didn't even
Speaker 1: need to contextualize her in a way that made her
Speaker 1: seem nicer. You had to give us something, right, although
Speaker 1: maybe people will be like you don't it's a fairy tale.
Speaker 1: Villains are just evil for the sake of being evil.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I still it's just I feel complicated
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'll still be My feelings about
Speaker 1: this will like continue evolving as we examine similar relationship dynamics. Yes,
Speaker 1: point is I would have liked more for for her character. Yes,
Speaker 1: my half nipple, I will give to the Paula Tompkins,
Speaker 1: little old guy who wears a paper and looks like
Speaker 1: a little cupid with a bone arrow at the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, shout out as always, friend Paul. He's
Speaker 1: the best best rogue in the gallery as far as
Speaker 1: I'm concerned. And when we had Brad Garrett in there,
Speaker 1: okay there, Caitlin. I before I give you my rating,
Speaker 1: I did just want to say I just sent you
Speaker 1: the first look at one of the two dueling Pinocchio movies,
Speaker 1: and it looks so bad. It looks so ugly. Gary.
Speaker 1: They've they made him look way too much like the
Speaker 1: Disney animated Pinocchio. It looks like a Robot Chicken sketch.
Speaker 1: It literally looks like robot Chicken. And I mean, and
Speaker 1: as a former employee, I love robot Chicken. But that's
Speaker 1: like this, this has like a billion dollar budget. Why
Speaker 1: does it look like that? Why does it look like that?
Speaker 1: And for more on that, you can go to the
Speaker 1: Matreon in November for our month that we've already roped
Speaker 1: off to be the dueling Pinocchio's month, del Toro Versus Zamackis.
Speaker 1: Do we already know who's going to win? Obviously, Robert Zameckis,
Speaker 1: I don't know what something happened, something happened that that happened,
Speaker 1: and he's something a which put a curse on him
Speaker 1: and now he's really bad at his job. But um, anyways,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen to Del Toro. All right, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it two and a half nipples as well.
Speaker 1: I think that this movie pushes some boundaries an interesting ways.
Speaker 1: I think that it like actually kind of regresses the
Speaker 1: princess genre in certain ways by giving Flynn so much agency.
Speaker 1: I think that you could accomplish the same thing by
Speaker 1: having Rapunzel. She should cut off rapunzelan action hero, she
Speaker 1: should cut off her own hair. But also it's like,
Speaker 1: did Princess Fiona not learn like Karate well trapped in
Speaker 1: the tower? Yes, Like, I think that there were ways
Speaker 1: to even if you're going to have Flynn be a
Speaker 1: bigger character. Okay, but like you know, there are ways
Speaker 1: to make Rapunzel more of an action character. If you
Speaker 1: worry that there are demographics that aren't going to be
Speaker 1: interested in a princess movie where the princess is not
Speaker 1: action e make the princess even more actionally. I think
Speaker 1: that they went partially that way with Rapunzel, but they
Speaker 1: would always fall back on like Flynn had to be
Speaker 1: validating that she was good at combat. He had to
Speaker 1: validate that a pan was a decent weapon like he
Speaker 1: and he's the swashbuckler. Why couldn't have she been? She? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had all the time in the world to learn
Speaker 1: swashbuck I mean, it's like, and we can go back
Speaker 1: and forth on that because I was like, she couldn't
Speaker 1: have technically, but like whatever, Princess Fiona did it. Okay,
Speaker 1: not to pin two women's again against each other again
Speaker 1: two women? Okay, this has to be over. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I did like the movie. I think it's really sweet.
Speaker 1: I would kill off the horse, so horse isn't getting
Speaker 1: any nipples from me, that's for damn sure. Like how
Speaker 1: your solution is kill the horse, not just like right
Speaker 1: him out of the story. No, I think he should
Speaker 1: fall off a cliff. In the first two minutes. He
Speaker 1: does fall out of a very high up tree, but
Speaker 1: somehow survives. But he's fine. I was watching some horses yesterday.
Speaker 1: Don't ask as well. I was just spying on a
Speaker 1: little ranch and I was watching some horses rough housing
Speaker 1: and it was honestly very scary. I'm becoming a horse
Speaker 1: girl and thinking about taking a horse lessons, so of
Speaker 1: course I'm going to be observing horses. Wow. I did
Speaker 1: see the movie Nope recently, so it's a big year
Speaker 1: for horaces. I can't explain why, but something is going on.
Speaker 1: Horses are back in a big way. Um. I saw
Speaker 1: Nope for the second time yesterday and I was like,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, horses they're back. They're back, Um, but not
Speaker 1: this one. This one should die. Um. I do not
Speaker 1: share this feeling, but go on. I'm pro horse. I'm
Speaker 1: anti Maximus having a whole ass arc when Rapunzel doesn't
Speaker 1: even get to kill the villain. Hello, Mr, So okay,
Speaker 1: one nipple to Rapunzel. I'm also going to give one
Speaker 1: nipple to Gothel because she's a solid villain and I
Speaker 1: think that there should have been a little more done
Speaker 1: with her. If we're gonna flesh out trophy characters, let's
Speaker 1: flesh them all out. Don't go halfway, And I'll give
Speaker 1: my last half nipple to what was the chameleon's name, Pascal.
Speaker 1: I loved Pascal, um, so I'm gonna give it to him.
Speaker 1: And oh last thing. Obviously this movie not obviously, but
Speaker 1: you could guess that this movie was written and directed
Speaker 1: by men. Men, men, men, men, men, so many men. Um. However,
Speaker 1: one of the there's two male directors, as there usually
Speaker 1: is on animated movies, UM, but one of them, Byron Howard,
Speaker 1: is an openly gay man. UM. He has been out
Speaker 1: for many years, which is pretty huge in the entertainment
Speaker 1: industry of that time in general, and also in animation
Speaker 1: as well, because animation is double prejudiced in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. I don't know why, but I know it's true.
Speaker 1: And he also would go on to direct Zootopia and
Speaker 1: um Encanto, which we will be covering on this show
Speaker 1: rather soon. UM. So you know there's that. Also Dan Fogelman,
Speaker 1: who wrote the screenplay and I think had a hand
Speaker 1: in UM casting. Mandy Moore later created This is Us,
Speaker 1: which Maddie Moore is the leader. So without Tangled, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have that really famous show I've never watched. Wow,
Speaker 1: the same makes you think in conclusion, this movie is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I think if you're just watching it to
Speaker 1: watch a movie, I really like it, Like it's a
Speaker 1: fun rob of a movie. If you're watching it for
Speaker 1: factal cast purposes, it's a real mixed bag. But as
Speaker 1: a movie, I think it's really fun and I would
Speaker 1: probably watch I think I will watch it again. Same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I concur so here we are ruining another movie. It's
Speaker 1: kind of our thing. But also if you like it
Speaker 1: and you just want to watch it for fun, that's
Speaker 1: in the future. UM. So that's Tangled. We hope that
Speaker 1: everyone who's been requesting it for over half a decade,
Speaker 1: UM is happy. I hope you're happy. I've actually kind
Speaker 1: of probably waited to do it because I feel like
Speaker 1: we are we are, we now have better you're better equipped. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I could see a twenty seventeen version of this episode that,
Speaker 1: UM I would stand Yeah totally. So, as always, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. We really hope you enjoyed this. Um,
Speaker 1: we've got an exciting let's say rogues gallery of movies
Speaker 1: and guests coming up in the fall. We're sort of
Speaker 1: laying out our fall schedule and it's exciting. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be smiling, laughing, crying, learning, gasp. Also very soon on
Speaker 1: the Matreon that saw episode that we kept hinting at,
Speaker 1: So damn scoot on over there too, Patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash specktel Cat. I think we are kind of in
Speaker 1: our golden era of the Matreon right now. Um, we're
Speaker 1: really turning out some bangers I mean here, and they're good.
Speaker 1: Golden hair, golden standard, Golden era boom. Look forward to
Speaker 1: the Pinocchio Wars over there and all of your favorite
Speaker 1: movies and past over here on the main feed. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. You can catch us on
Speaker 1: the worldwide web on Instagram and Twitter at Bechtel Cast. Um.
Speaker 1: As Caitlin just said, you can join our Matreon five
Speaker 1: bucks a month for to bonus episodes and a backlog
Speaker 1: of over one hundred episodes. Hello, wow, impressive much Now
Speaker 1: that's what I call content. Um that's five bucks a
Speaker 1: month over at Patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast. And
Speaker 1: then of course you've got our merch at t public
Speaker 1: dot com. Slash the Bechtel cast, where you can get
Speaker 1: such classics as wet scabs or dry scaps. I mean
Speaker 1: team Beetle Juice. Need we say more? And maybe and
Speaker 1: and we I this fall, I am going to be
Speaker 1: making some new merch designs for the holiday season. Not
Speaker 1: holiday themes, but for you to purchase for the holiday season.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the wheels are turning in income. Um,
Speaker 1: that's my idea. Maybe think about that. Uh as far
Speaker 1: as I've gotten um, but you know, mensa, we'll come
Speaker 1: up with something. I have a master's degree. We we
Speaker 1: we got this, mensa, master's degree. It's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: come together. Um, okay, A game over, you know, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, okay, not that, not that Tangled isn't a
Speaker 1: great movie, But no movie ends better than Saw One
Speaker 1: Game Over, Sam, Bye bye bye