Watching a Disney princess movie is a vastly different experience for kids than it is for
adults.
When you're young and innocent, you don't have to worry nearly so much about logic and
consistency.
But for adults, these things kind of matter, which is why fans have been a little bit bugged
by some of these things only adults notice in Tangled.
What about the baby?
You would think that the heir to an entire kingdom would be afforded some protection,
especially because she's only an infant.
So how was Mother Gothel able to saunter into the palace and kidnap Rapunzel?
Did she cast some sort of spell to put everyone to sleep?
Or is the palace really that lax on security?
Hey, mom and dad, wake up, there's a witch singing to your baby four feet away!
All in the accent
The difference between Rapunzel's accent and Mother Gothel's accent makes absolutely no
sense.
Mother Gothel sounds like she's speaking with a Mid-Atlantic accent, the favored accent
of old school Hollywood stars, which The Atlantic described as a "phony-British Announcer Voice."
The inflection works for Mother Gothel's character, but it does raise the question of how Rapunzel,
who's lived in a tower for her entire life and has never spoken to another person, has
a completely different accent.
Since Mother Gothel taught her how to talk, Rapunzel should have the same accent, right?
"Speak up, Rapunzel.
You know how I hate the mumbling!"
"I am the lost princess, aren't I?"
"Did I mumble, mother?"
Where are her shoes?
One of the most bizarre things about the movie is that Rapunzel doesn't have shoes.
It might make sense that she'd be barefoot in her tower, although you'd still think she'd
have socks or something to keep her feet warm.
But how does she not acquire shoes at any point in the film?
Even at the end of the movie, when she meets her parents in the palace, she is shown to
be barefoot.
Couldn't Flynn, the professional thief, have stolen her a pair?
Say all you want about Flynn reforming his ways — his failure to acquire a pair of
shoes for the woman he loves proves that chivalry is dead.
Unhappy birthday
Considering it's a massive clue to her true identity, why did Mother Gothel tell Rapunzel
her real birthday?
Is Mother Gothel just overly confident, not believing that there's the slightest chance
Rapunzel will ever meet another human being and learn that she and the missing princess
are the exact same age, with the same birthday?
This seems like a huge slip-up on Mother Gothel's part.
The adaptation
Disney is notorious for taking liberties with their source material, but Tangled isn't even
close to the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
In the original story, Rapunzel isn't a princess.
She's born to a woman whose husband steals food from a neighboring garden to appease
his wife's pregnancy cravings.
When he is caught by the enchantress who owns the garden, she lets him go but demands that
she be given the child to raise as her own.
It's not quite so clear who the bad guy really is in the original, now is it?
"Everything I did was to protect you."
Where's Mother Gothel?
Does Rapunzel live by herself?
If so, how long has that been going on?
She wouldn't have been able to live by herself as a defenseless baby, but she's clearly on
her own by the time the movie takes place.
In the original fairy tale, Rapunzel isn't locked into the tower until she's 12, which
makes sense since even magical hair would take time to grow long enough to pull someone
into the tower.
Even if Mother Gothel did actually live with Rapunzel throughout her childhood, Rapunzel
has been alone for a while.
It's clear from Rapunzel's opening song that she spends most of her time in solitary confinement,
which is pretty depressing.
The missing tower
People have been searching for the missing princess for the better part of two decades,
but never find her.
It seems pretty odd, then, that Flynn stumbles upon her tower so easily.
Given that he found it while fleeing from the castle, it can't be that far away from
the city, so how has no one else in the kingdom ever found this tower before and reported
it?
Stockholm Syndrome
It's one thing for Rapunzel to obey Mother Gothel when she thinks the woman is actually
her mother, but even after the truth about her history is revealed she still seems to
be under Mother Gothel's spell.
This seems to indicate that she's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, which, according
to the dictionary definition, is
"...a psychological response wherein a captive begins to identify closely with his or her
captors, as well as with their agenda and demands."
In the film, Rapunzel happily reunites with her parents and presumably lives happily ever
after, but in real life, Rapunzel's time in captivity would have had long-term psychological
effects.
Here's hoping Maximus doubles as a great psychiatrist!
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