Newsflash! The Botkinettes have responded to Rapunzel!!

[Elle]

I think it contains lots of GOOD lessons, including that people can change for the better!

It does! Rapunzel didn't hold Flynn's past against him once he showed remorse. She wasn't going to cast him aside forever. She was willing to sacrifice for him (and he was willing to literally die for her), and because of their willingness to give, good happened in both of their lives. Her willingness to pursue her dreams helped inspire a pub full of thugs to look inside and realize their own dreams, and in the end, they all went non-thug ways. How is any of this bad? Yes, Flynn was a thief. Yes, bad guys aren't always going to turn out good (two of them, the brothers originally with Flynn, likely were hanged). But there is nothing wrong with rebelling when the one rebelled against is abusive and neglectful, as Gothel was.

And shit, most kids are capable of understanding that a story isn't real. Even while believing in Santa or god, most people, whether kids or adults, can tell the difference between fact and fiction (most of the time - I believe god is fiction, but why do Christians find is stupid to believe in ghosts while worshipping a holy ghost?). Who here thought they could literally become a mermaid, or fly by thunking happy thoughts? Who here tried capturing mice to make them pull pumpkin coaches? I was a kid who believed in Santa and still knew that fairy tales aren't real. Most kids do!

Rapunzel isn't going to lead to parental betrayal, hate, and murder. They Botkinettes are too stupid to believe sometimes.

[Elle]

Frankly, I'm impressed they managed to work Hitler into their argument. HITLER.

I actually said, out loud, "Holy shit, they worked Hitler into this." Remind me not to read anything the Bot Flies write when my daughter is in the room.

Two things:

a) the Botkinettes say Rapunzel had no business following her attraction to the stars (I'm paraphrasing) because she was not under God's commandment; and yet, I recall plenty of times in the Bible where people were given signs to follow; after all, these stars were leading Rapunzel to the truth and away from a deceiver... show me once when that would not be something on the God side of an equation

I recall something about three wise men following a star...to the baby Jesus. I suppose I could be getting that wrong, and they received a letter hand-written by god telling them to go north and they pulled out their nifty GPS devices.

b) in the original story, Rapunzel's captor was an enchantress - iirc that was changed somewhat in Tangled, but still she was using what fundies would consider "dark magic" for her purposes; why would God want Rapunzel to submit to this woman and not rebuke her? why would it not be a great Christian story that this girl escaped? do not suffer a witch etc. etc.

Only somewhat. Gothel's power was derived from the flower, then Rapunzel's hair. However the power was youth and life. Even though the magic was good, to use it meant Gothel mentally abused and neglected a child all her life and kept her confined to a tower.

On the upside, I've forwarded this to someone who's worked on a couple of things for Disney. Sharing the wealth. :D

Myhusband has buddies who work for ILM and they just chuckle at shit like this and joke about how they're corrupting kids. :)

[Elle]

Oh, I'm all over this topic because Rapunzel is one of my favorite movies and it's special to me. It's a great film with great lessons and onlymorons would think it's all bad.

See my icon. She's ben my icon since last summer.

[AmyP]

What gets me about this is not their opinion of the movie exactly, but the overwhelmingly smug tone they manage to convey with every word they write. How is it possible for two people who have experienced so little to be the worlds biggest experts on everything?! Do they really think that their random musings are that profound and original? That we all should be instructed by their great wisdom? Bleach.

[MamaJunebug]

I'm working on my iPhone so won't try to paste the 'Nettes' deathless purple prose that prompted this thought -and I should mention that I haven't seen "Tangled"- but here goes.

They're "telling" "a fictional CG character" about all the things she should/n't do to be a true Dominionist Christian daughter and the people reading their "letter" to "Rapunzel" are NOT the girls who watched the film. Those girls are probably 6 to 12 years old at the outside.

What those girls took away from the movie are likely the same things my Juniors took away from "Pocahontas", which was the Disney movie that ultra-conservatives loved to hate back in the early 1990s.

Pocahontas, they said, encouraged children to be pagans, encouraged girls to slyly disobey their fathers. I asked my kids what the difference was between "the circle of life" (which of course was central to "Lion King," another worried-about movie!!-- and Christianity (in which I raised them).

They looked at me w that patented "Are you JOKING?!" and said, "Yes Mom: Christianity is real and the circle of life is a song from a movie.". They added uncertainly, "You KNEW that, right?"

And then one of them said, "you know, the circle if life COULD mean reincarnation, but in Lion King it didn't. Mustafa was dead and Simba was a whole 'nother lion. And isn't Chritianity about A circle of life, since life is never-ending?"

So then I asked them what they thought Pocahontas was all about. Their initial comments were negative -- that no Indian woman they knew ever wore her skirts that stupid-short, or stalk a guy. Then they said that Pocahontas was a hero and strong for helping Smith, and Meeko the raccoon was really funny!

Today, none of those kids is in jail and all are self-supporting members of society who visit their creaky parents about as often as they should.

My kids survived Disney heroines w their morals, religion and respect for healthy authority all intact.

If the Botkins' particular brand of Christianity [sic] were more genuine and focused on Christ and not their hopes for world domination, they wouldn't have to worry about whether Tangled = Triumph Of The Will = sure doom for the world at large.

[Elle]

My kids survived Disney heroines w their morals, religion and respect for healthy authority all intact.

Aladdin did spark an interest in learning about the real Middle East for me (the original lyric in Arabian Nights, "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric, but hey, it's home," which was later replaced by "Where's flat and immense, and the heat is intense..."), and Pocahontas resulted in me spending some days the library.

Or the horror, Disney movies inspiring a girl to go learn about something she knew very little about.

But knowledge for girls is bad, right? So yeah, I guess that's bad. Shame on me.

[Stickers]

It does! Rapunzel didn't hold Flynn's past against him once he showed remorse. She wasn't going to cast him aside forever. She was willing to sacrifice for him (and he was willing to literally die for her), and because of their willingness to give, good happened in both of their lives. Her willingness to pursue her dreams helped inspire a pub full of thugs to look inside and realize their own dreams, and in the end, they all went non-thug ways. How is any of this bad? Yes, Flynn was a thief. Yes, bad guys aren't always going to turn out good (two of them, the brothers originally with Flynn, likely were hanged). But there is nothing wrong with rebelling when the one rebelled against is abusive and neglectful, as Gothel was.

Naa, they weren't executed. They were at Eugene and Rapunzel's wedding, weeping with joy :D

I always thought this movie would strike a cord with fundie types. Rapunzel liberates herself from an emotional and physically abusive situation (Gothel was controlling her body for her own use). One when you strip all the fairy tale elements away, it is a lot like what the fundies do to their kids. So, this rant doesn't surprise me.

I don't think kids owe their parents honor and respect (parents earn it) much less obeying every word they say forever (like the fundies), so the piece flew totally flat with me.

[Elle]

Naa, they weren't executed. They were at Eugene and Rapunzel's wedding, weeping with joy :D

I always thought this movie would strike a cord with fundie types. Rapunzel liberates herself from an emotional and physically abusive situation (Gothel was controlling her body for her own use). One when you strip all the fairy tale elements away, it is a lot like what the fundies do to their kids. So, this rant doesn't surprise me.

I don't think kids owe their parents honor and respect (parents earn it) much less obeying every word they say forever (like the fundies), so the piece flew totally flat with me.

Ah! I didn't see the wedding yet. I guess Disney had people upset thinking someone one executed. :)

I thought fundies would like Rapunzel because she was willing to go quietly in the end and continue living a life of oppression and neglect.

[jenny_islander]

Sounds like it's time to drag out this analysis of Tangled again. This isn't mine--it was gathered from listening to former daughters of patriarchy talk about how eerily well the movie mapped onto their lives.

Once upon a time, there was a community (the Kingdom of Solaria) that drew comfort and strength from a shared faith (the sun symbol). One family (the King and Queen, representing an entire family) was especially sensitive to profound religious experience (the magic golden flower). Their religion gave them life and joy.

But members of that family (Gothel; could be the mother, father, or both parents) cut themselves off from the family and community (tried to keep the power for herself) and dived into a version of fundamentalism that awarded power and status to people whose children, particularly their daughters, performed their assigned roles correctly (the power in Rapunzel's hair). The fundamentalist parent(s) started living "apart from the world" (kidnapped Rapunzel--genetically her child, but now cut off from the rest of the family). They raised their daughter in a carefully designed environment composed only of what they wanted her to see and know (the tower) and told her that the outside world was a deadly place. The girl was content in her role as the list of rules she must obey grew ever longer, but her ability to earn limited recognition also grew (the hair grows ever longer, both entangling Rapunzel and helping her do things--and of course Gothel only speaks lovingly to her hair). But they couldn't cut her off completely from the family (the lights--maybe Christmas cards, meeting on the street, or phone calls). And the environment that could completely cage a child grew stifling and stale for an adult ("When Will My Life Begin?").

When the nearly-grown daughter tried to stretch beyond her limited world, her parent(s) cut her down to size with gaslighting, fearmongering, and outright lies ("Mother Knows Best"). But they didn't know every corner of her mind as well as they thought they did (Pascal) and they couldn't shut out the outside world entirely (Flynn Rider--could be anybody, friend, relative, or romantic interest). Simply interacting with someone not-Gothel brought back blurred memories of the unconditional love of her extended family (the crown). Eventually she made her bid for freedom (leaving the tower--listening to pop music with headphones on under the covers, reading a forbidden book, talking to people instead of just tracting at them). She discovered that the people in The World might look scary and act weird, but were generally nice folks (the patrons of the Ugly Duckling). She realized how capable she really was, and so did other people ("Whoa, momma! I have GOT to get me one of THESE!"). She began to reconnect with the community she had been part of as a small child (attending the festival) and started learning more useful things than her limited upbringing could teach (Rapunzel's "bit of ballet" in the tower ends by her falling over, entangled in her hair, but with the help of community members who get her hair out of the way, she dances like a deer at the festival).

Disaster! The girl's parents realized that their spiritual meal ticket, the status they derived from having a daughter who correctly performed her role (the power in Rapunzel's hair), was slipping away! They lured her back into the fold with a nice big lie (anything a daughter of patriarchy might be conditioned to believe) and prepared to lock her down even more tightly (going away "where they will never find you"). However, the friends she had made in The World refused to give up on her (Flynn and co. to the rescue). The parents pulled out the big guns, threatening her friendship with ultimate destruction (a curse, a "hedge of thorns," an abusive family "meeting" with lots of shouting and browbeating, spurious legal action, whatever). And then, with the help of her friends, she realized--it didn't matter what her parents said. Their belief system was a tiny corner of the real, enormous world. The things they said were all lies. They had no power over her. (The hair is cut off and Gothel dies.) And even though it felt like Death was in the room, she realized that the spiritual power she had been taught to credit to her upbringing was really inside her (magic healing tears).

Years later, the girl-turned-woman, reunited with her extended family, rejoiced with her community, who admired her and considered her to be capable and wise. She had taken the time to grow (remember, this is years later) and found her own way into a relationship in which nobody battened on anybody else (marrying Eugene). And she had unconditional love (the crown).