Tangled

The movie we decided to watch and analyze is Tangled. We choose this movie because there are many things that happen in the movie that if children watch it and don’t discuss it afterward can affect their development. The first thing that stood out to us was how unrealistic the movie made love to be. Love is a concept that is crucial to any Disney princess movie and most of the movies have an unrealistic view on how characters fall in love and Tangled is no expectation. Younger children the ones who for the most part are watching these movies for the first time have a difficult time telling the difference between fantasy and reality. There is a fuzzy separation between what is real and what is not. This connects back to Tangled and love because in this movie the main character Rapunzel meets her future love interest Flynn Rider and after what seems to only be 2-4 days they somehow fall in love. At the end of the movie, they get married and there is not a clear timeline on how long they waited until they got married. The unclear timeline is another thing that younger children will have hard time understanding. This unrealistic expectation of love can be very confusing to young children because after seeing this movie unless someone talks to them about how this is not how love and getting married works in real life they will start to think this is the reality. This is probably common for many children because many parents don’t think about the fact that they may need to talk about what is wrong and not real in a Disney movie because they are made for children. But in reality we all need to be talking to children about the unrealistic expectations of love that these movies set up for all children, so they don’t grow up thinking this is how their love life will start.

The second thing that stood out to us was the violence portrayed in the movie. There were several scenes where Rapunzel would hit Flynn Ryder (her counterpart) with a frying pan and the character would pass out but wake with no injury. This would need to be explained to young children because this act of violence is seen as okay to copy in reality because it is glamorized and sanitized. According to Wilson et al (2002), kids programs have more prevalent and more concentrated violence which is more likely to be glamorized and sanitized and which then violence is more trivialized. Because the action of Rapunzel hitting Flynn with the frying pan has no consequence or result due to the violence perpetrated, children will thus then have a perceived reality of the situation and may try to use a frying pan to hit someone or an action of similar violence, and expect no injury at all but the person to pass out. Additionally, when children watch this movie they may become desensitized to the violence seen. There are several scenes of the frying pan being used in combat along with bar brawls and chase scenes which portray characters being knocked off horses, thrown into canyons, and their bodies just being thrown or hit in a way that establishes that they have been defeated. These scenes additionally desensitizes children but further shows kids that violence is alright as long as you’re the good guy. The characters that are considered the ‘good guys’ are the ones who perpetrate the most violence, but it is seen as okay because they are rewarded, more liked by the audience, have no serious consequence for their violence, and thus are modeled into a figure that promotes violence. Lastly, the violence shown in Tangled could persuade children to have less control of their aggressive behavior because of the viewing of aggression according to Cognitive Neoassociationist Theory. Children who view aggression in their media and/or daily life become less likely to control their own aggressive behavior because it is seen as a norm in reality. Overall, the violence shown in Tangled is completely glamorized and sanitized leading to a violent perceived reality for young children.

The third thing that we noticed while watching Tangled was the stereotypical gender portrayal of the characters.  Rapunzel is a young, wide-eyed, innocent girl locked in a tower awaiting the day she is free.  While she keeps busy in her tower from day to day, she doesn’t make much of an effort to escape.  That is until Flynn Rider comes along and he becomes her protection to the outside world.  Even though the story is about Rapunzel, Flynn Rider has a much more prominent role than she does, often offering comic relief to situations and ultimately, being the hero of the film.  Research shows that kids like active characters, and the majority of the time, those characters are male.  Flynn Rider becomes the most active character in the movie and Rapunzel falls into the role of damsel in distress, even when she is sticking up for herself.  Rapunzel is certainly spunky and has her quirks and independent attitude, but without Flynn, she may have never left the tower.  He is the character who has life experience and knows what they are doing; the smarter, more capable one.  The idea that a woman needs a man to go out into the world is problematic.  Rapunzel is painted as a very naïve girl who is saved by a man and because of the magical powers she possesses while Flynn uses nothing but his own skill to save himself (and Rapunzel) on multiple occasions, including cutting off her hair at the end of the movie. This scene sparked debate amongst those concerned with the message that Rapunzel wasn’t ultimately able to save herself.  Disney had a great opportunity to show young girls they can take control of their own destiny and be their own heroes but missed the mark by having Flynn Rider be the one to sheer it off.  Young children are easily persuaded by gender in the media because they are motivated towards self-categorization (Bem, 1983).  Their limited cognitive processes are responsible for how they frame gender.  Because of this, they are more likely to link similar traits together and will group “boy things” and “girl things” together.  If young children see a young, female Disney princess behaving in a naive way and being rescued by her male counterpart, they are more likely to believe that that’s the way it should be.  They don’t know any better and don’t realize that both boys and girls should be powerful and strong, it shouldn’t be limited to just male characters. Children who watch Tangled and other movies like it, are absorbing this information and forming their own perceptions of gender expectations.  It is crucial to set higher standards for portrayal of gender in children’s movies so that kids grow up knowing all genders are equal and anyone can be as strong and independent as they want to be.

Sources:

Sandra Lipsitz Bem , "Gender Schema Theory and Its Implications for Child Development: Raising
         Gender-Aschematic Children in a Gender-Schematic Society," Signs: Journal of Women in
         Culture and Society 8, no. 4 (Summer, 1983): 598-616.

         DOI: 10.1086/493998

Jordan, A. B., Strasburger, V. C., & Wilson, B. J. (2014). Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Los
         Angeles: SAGE Publications.