Petrosinella, Rapunzel, and Tangled: Princesses and the Other, Part 1

otherwise known as: 

My Obsession with Tangled: Part One of Infinity

"And the walls that surround her, and hold her back, are symbolic of walls in anyone's life, those things that hold us back from being who we really long to be. Yes, that is feminist and masculinist and humanist."

- Glen Keane, Executive Producer of "Tangled" and Directing Animator of Rapunzel

In this series, I won't only be discussing Disney's adaptation of Rapunzel, "Tangled."  However it was the teaser trailer that inspired me to look up older adaptations and the origins of the tale in general.

Petrosinella Diane Stanley

Rapunzel Trina Schart-Hyman

Disney's Tangled

- In fact directly after seeing the Tangled teaser trailer a google search lead me to watch my first Barbie movie, Mattel's "Barbie as Rapunzel" - so you see how avid I was to find something to get my Rapunzel fix!

  Anyhow, I figure I'll start by telling you how I became fascinated with Rapunzel/Lady in the Tower tales through the release of "Tangled" in 2010, an hopefully you'll become fascinated along with me!

My freshman year in the usual generic way I was asked to write an essay entitles "An Event that Changed Me."  I felt like I'd underwent much change but could not pinpoint any particular "event."  The following was my first draft.  It was trashed because my teacher did not accept a movie as an event.  Anyhow, it is a good introduction to my love affair with the movie, and after this I will elaborate on the feminist themes I touch on here.

The language is especially fanatic here, don't let that scare you.  I was feeling poetic I guess so I flew off the handle.  Don't worry - I am capable of discussing the faults of the movie, and I'm not starting a cult surrounding it any time soon.  I do however like its themes involving women and the human condition, so I thought this especially colorful intro would be nice.  Here goes:

An Event That Changed Me

Normally it would seem frivolous to name a movie as an event capable of changing someone’s life, but even the severest critic knows the impression the Disney© Company has left on the entire world’s culture; and as a member of the world I have been influenced as well.  When the first teaser trailer for Disney’s adaptation of the Rapunzel fairy tale “Tangled” came out, something hit me; something fantastic, infectious: I had to know everything about it.

The energy, the tactile promise of the hair itself, the possibilities of what such a company was to do with the first CGI fairy tale musical ever let alone my second favorite fairy tale – it lit something up inside me, and I haven’t gotten over it since.

It served as a catalyst that called for action, called for questioning all the concepts that intrigued me, called for me to face various conflicts in my life and provided a lens through which to understand myself more and more.  It begged the eternal balance between the relevance and weight between “to do” and “to be.”



My reader might ask whether I am superimposing something that isn’t there on a simple film; and I would say they are both right and wrong.   The film’s unusual artistry and detail, coupled with its outstanding relevance to me at this time in my life and development, caused a level of involvement, expression, and enthusiasm that can even be described as articulate yet boundless.  You might say it changed me so much because it was already so much a part of me.  Self-awareness and exploration is change too.



It started innocently enough; when the teaser trailer came out, and the bright colors, detailed CGI cloth and hair design, and the smart-ass chameleon hit my eyes I decided to do some research, find out more about it.

I have since collected article after article, filled 2 DVDs with information and videos about its development, merchandizing, face characters, technological publications, and staff, and bought “The Art of Tangled,” the only book so far released discussing the behind-the-scenes decisions and art direction.

So far I have as much as 17 GB total of information not to mention my compilation of concept art, advertising, and other Tangled-related imagery currently adding up to about 2.29 GB (5,350 photos).  Even if these figures are a mystery to a layman’s ear, be assured I haven’t managed to read as fast as I’ve been collecting!  I am a person who likes to delve to the very depths of meaning and form and an animated feature is so complicated in the necessary planning and labor involved that there can be no end to the treasures I can find.

With Disney specifically however, all decisions must have thorough research behind them (John Lasseter stresses this in all interviews, and it does appear to be true to some extent); for example, the very shape and contour of a street-cart that only appears on the screen for thirty seconds must first have been decided from a thorough research on different street-cart designs from across history and across the world, as well as with the shape themes found in certain genres of animated films and the specific shape themes chosen for this particular movie (this is a random example of course - but I can tell you for certain they researched in a like manner for animating the aging Mother Gothel).

Being the first CGI film with hair as such a main plot point, all new technology was needed to create realistic hair – but it also had to be stylized, for just as an actress in a movie could not physically hold up so much hair, neither can an animated character – so a stylistic physical world had to be created – the very laws of physics changed, both for immediate simulation and for artistic manipulation at an animator’s convenience.  I’ve always loved physics – though I am by no means naturally gifted in the field – but it was Tangled that made me realize just about anything one is inclined to like can be applied to a work, an opus, a vision.  Such a marriage of process and artistry is in my mind the very essence of life.

Tangled specifically also mirrors the long history of the Disney company, for even dating back to the days of the founder, Walt Disney (with whom I happen to share a Birthday) an adaptation of the Rapunzel story was in development – and saw trials and errors, attempts and failures, all documented in a library, creating a wealth of ideas to draw from; and it is often proudly advertised by Disney that their greatest treasures lie in their past mistakes.  The challenge with the Rapunzel story also mirrored the challenge of life in the sense that the problem always went back to the enclosing and limiting space of the one room the fairy tale Rapunzel is necessarily trapped in.

Can fiction – and, by implication, thought, action, interesting and incentivized life – take place in an enclosed space?  Which – if interpreted metaphysically – could be seen as the human condition’s earth and mortality itself?

These concepts were also layered within the story – not just with the original fairy tale, and the implications of what they could do with it, which was the subject of my constant musings before it came out in theaters – but also with the movie itself, which once it was out in theaters I saw ten times.  – But I’m getting ahead of myself.  After that first trailer, I experienced a whole lifetime of change even before the movie came out!  In particular, the idea of contained then released energy – the “imprisoned” girl, her hair almost representing a compressed spring, and then the release, the liberation.

In the Grimm version the release is first banishment, but the ending is very clear – she was once in a tower, defined by a tower, and now she is out of the tower, and it no longer defines her.  Very identifiable for a 20 year old girl who chose to take two years between high school and college, spending a lot of time about books in her room – not looking out the window perhaps, but looking out into the internet – to the potential of thought and expression.

This image of the girl looking out the window in a sort of wistfulness for the unknown – not just the “Manifest Destiny” concept of literally exploring the rolling hills leading to the horizon – but in constantly wanting to find more, earn more, do more; the hunger born in everyone’s soul.  Conversely, the idea of Rapunzel – her riches in seclusion (for the dim prison of the Grimm story is not accurate to the gilded “cage” of the original story, “Petrosinella”) – coupled with Disney’s Rapunzel – the ultimate expresser, painting the walls “to make them disappear” as Glen Keane, the head of her animation, said – she HAS to express herself.

As Glen Keane also said, “Even her hair is growing" to an extreme length symbolizing all she can and wants to be – attracts a very alluring concept of an private, isolated, and permanent home, a pedestal, the wish to in fact never “escape” – as Freud would put it, the wish to retreat back into the mother’s womb.  But Rapunzel in many versions does the exact opposite, doesn't she?  She becomes a mother herself.

Mother Gothel discovers Rapunzel's Pregnancy
(because her dress becomes too tight)

Rapunzel Paul O. Zelinsky

Nevertheless I knew such feelings must be fleeting, for both heroines got sick of their beloved privacy and broke free, risking everything for the chance to share their world with someone else. And surely I would do the same.  Such thoughts and images feverishly fleeted though my mind as I googled and read forums and papers and interviews and theories, all attached to what some would simple-mindedly call a simple film; or even, a conventional, pandering propaganda machine.

Even such an accusation as I have just made calls to mind the stubborn quest for the idyllic – controversy – denial – debate – hope – failure – independence.  I confess in my exponentially growing obsession I lost much sleep and saw much less people for a while in the contemplation of these terms and the study of these concepts; but Tangled also made me a more involved person.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget too, the Rapunzel Tale starts with a girl - I don't know of one that starts with a princess.  A girl destined to be a princess, of course, but not a girl who was born to be a princess, or knows herself to be one, or to even be destined to be one.  Yes, in the Disney version, possibly to stress her arrested potential, they have Rapunzel a born princess, ignorant of her birthright.  But the truth of the tale remains the same: the tale starts with a girl, just some girl, usually a very common, if beautiful, girl.  In all interviews the Directors and Animators and Developers of Tangled's Rapunzel stress they designed her to be more of a "girl next door," a girl you could imagine meeting, even being - not a distant princess archetype.  So you see this old fairy tale has a very immediate, earthy sense to it.  I'll be exploring that a bit more as well, - if all goes well.  It's a meeting of opposites: the humble girl and the crown.

I'll leave you with those thoughts for now.

Here's A taste of the blog entry to come -

Part 2: Rapunzel Film Adaptations Before Disney Gave it a Go

Hello Again

HELLO AGAIN! !NIAGA OLLEH

It's three months and fifteen days short of a year since my last post! Two New Years ago I posted a photo of Dorothy just stepping onto the yellow brick road as a symbol of my resolve to post more regularly. This time I'm starting out with an image of Dorothy a step further... because I haven't come too far as a person since then but I still like the picture? Whatever it's symbolism.

Ok, so before more excuses, some content.

This fall I am entering college - two years after graduating highschool - and it bears mentioning that my application's personal essay (which I might include here) spoke of my obsession with The Little Mermaid (the ensuing film adaptations, etc.) and its bearing to feminism and multimedia - in short, this blog.

Yes, I have been researching my butt off to find anything on how Hans Christian Andersen's tale has effected our culture in the past 174 years, 4 months and 30 days.

Surprisingly, it's a lot of work. Nothing much organized is out there, apart from e-texts and fan sites for Disney's Ariel. My life-long dream has become to create a user-friendly and informative website about "Little Mermaid" culture and history, but for now, I'll give you an idea of what I've dug up.

Here are the adaptations that almost make the list - but don't:

You see, I figure my research isn't your typical picture of historical archiving. Sure, everyone knows that the amount of documents or projects or evidence ever made throughout time on earth is finite. However, the pursuit of finding and exploring and explaining history is a blissedly impossible art - as is pretty cutely analyzed in this book I've been reading, History: a Brief Insight by John. H. Arnold.

But I figure since film was only discovered in the 1920s or something, I have a real fighting chance of finding all the versions of the Little Mermaid ever made (or of knowing some to be lost). See I figure if my generation is in the singular position of knowing black and white photographs means grandma and grandpa (which will never be true again), then film being such a new expression in our minds is likewise a peculiar imprint on our ways of storytelling, or something like that. I don't know I haven't really bothered to think it through.

Anyhow I think the various little mermaid film adaptations have a lot to say about what film-makers try to do as film itself has progressed. Sort of like the mermaid story is the control and the development of film the variable. And since the story itself is about pushing boundaries and crossing mediums, I figure that film is well suited to the story as well.

It's not that simple of course; when you read Hans Christian Andersen's writing you'll notice, I think, that the Little Mermaid herself is very quiet and thoughtful, and that as much of the story lies in her thoughts as in the avant-garde breaking of bonds from mortal water to temporary human to daughters of the air or what have you. This (her silent thoughts and nature) is a very precious element (haha) of the story that is easily lost in film. But that makes it twice as fun! How does an artist who works with film deal with that?

I have a feeling this is one of the main concerns that led Disney to fundamentally change the personality of The Little Mermaid in their adaptation. Ariel wants the prince as much as Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid does - the unrelenting concept of "want" is still there - but they made her more fierce, more smile, more blatantly an embracing figure, and by far more adventurous and assertive. But I'll discuss more of that later if I ever get around to publishing my entry on her.

Then there's the female question (you've probably been wondering when I'd get around to this, since I keep insisting this is a feminist blog). Is it the woman needs a man, or is it that people think it is unfeminine for a woman to chase a man? Is it a story about becoming a woman - since literally the "little" mermaid was not only young and lacking full maturity, but was in fact inhuman and therefore in-woman for a great part of the story. Is there a latent implication that it is the province of women to dream from the sidelines, or hope without hope, or love without love, or fight without success, or yearn without need? For the last one - you've got to admit she was a princess of the ocean. She had it made. Why did she want more? (Of course there was that whole, "we don't have a soul" thing but give me a minute I'll get to that.)

But how could it be a latent implication that it is peculiarly a woman trait to yearn unecissarily or dream a vapid dream, since this story was written by a man well known to be shy himself, to have gone through unrequited love himself, unfinished dreams himself (lost career as a singer hellooo), to feel he was a stranger in a new world himself (a writer amongst the gentry, however successful, was at that time in that place still to be a serviceman)?

Of course then there is the rumor - or fact, I haven't read enough - that Hans Christian Andersen had homosexual tendencies so some might say he was getting in touch with his inner woman or something, but that's a whole other can of non-kosher non-politically correct worms, indicating that sexual orientation and sex (gender) are somehow related...

What was I talking about? Oh, my quest with the story, and how it effects and has effected film and people over time. And how I think my quest is especially cool because film is new and - I didn't mention this yet - the story itself is one story from one author, unlike other fairytales. (This isn't completely true in the sense that it was inspired from at least two old folktales I can think of right off the bat - The Legend of Undine and Dvorak's Rusalka, - but run with me here.)

Okay so my opening thoughts were I think these ingredients (mermaid, film, history, woman, writing) are curiously intermingled and that's cool and special.

Okay cool! Done with my short opening remarks. haha.

By the way I haven't included the 1987 Shelley Duvall "Fairy Tale Theatre" version because I haven't been brave enough to try watching it yet - the fan effect to make the hair look like it is underwater looked more like the creatures were trying to have a conversation in a whirlpool. However, I have sources that say it's worth watching so we'll see.

Ok so since my opening remarks were so long I'll make my middle and end remarks nice and short. I want these entries to be shorter so I can post more often.

ooo! I promised more excuses. Here we go. Why I haven't posted but still keep proudly calling myself a blogger.

I've continued to obsess and collect all information about Disney's Tangled (and how it's discussed and portrayed in the media of course).

(a revised edition of a Disney Princess book that includes Rapunzel. One of the new 2D designs for her in the Disney Princess consumer product line. I love how all the princesses are dolled up past recognition XD)

(left to right: older, newer)

(left to right: new, newer)

I think I might have mentioned a while back that I find Rapunzel the second most important fairy tale behind the Little Mermaid when it comes to issues with women and issues with the Self. So the most famous feature-length film adaptation has become a source of major fascination. Plus the way it was made, technologically, is about the marrying of artistic vision and technology, perhaps for the first time at this scale ever ever ever, so that as you might suspect is very personal to me.

(concept art by Claire Keane)

Plus I figure every five years or so you should find something to be fiercely addicted to and obsessed with. For your health and vitality or something.

Though I've kind of been losing sleep and seeing less people because of it, so maybe I should rethink that.

(fan poster-thing made by me. funny right?)

Starting September of Last Year, I have been trying to write a comprehensive series of entries on this movie - that was two months before it came out. The first entry was "Tangled - Can I Marry This Movie?" For these entries I uploaded One Hundred and Thirty-Four images - detailed screencaps from trailers to discuss the choice of the depiction of her body, the tower, etc. Hopefully I'll get around to touching those entries up.

Here's an example of the level of detail my scrutiny of Tangled has become.

The top moving image is from the first trailer. The lower image is from the movie (I had to flip the image so they'd be easier to compare). The trailers and choice of promotion focal points or whatever were very controversial, because Rapunzel was barely seen in them and the character Gothel was left a mystery - some thought the main character was going to be a glib theif amongst a shadow of a Shrek film. It was NOT, but the change of title from "Rapunzel" to "Tangled" made it seem like Disney was pandering to audiences to try and lure unsuspecting little boys to watch a princess film. At least that's what lots of critics said.

Anyhow you'll notice annoyed Rapunzel from the trailer's hair is differently shaped and colored from annoyed Rapunzel from the movie, and her lips pout more (perhaps to exaggerate the modern sexiness they wanted to get across?). Trailer Rapunzel's hair frames her face more and there are more distinctive highlights of pink. Not to mention they chose to enhance the color scheme to maybe make the trailer "pop" more. Also movie Rapunzel smiles in a moment of confusion before she raises her frying pan in a huff. Were they shortening the clip for trailer time purposes or did they want to emphasize the "spunk" of the character in the commercial?

Maybe they made these changes because they were still fine-tuning her character. Maybe the hair is different and pinker in the trailer because they were still debating how distracting it would be for 70 feet of screen hair to have pink highlights.

Maybe I should be doing better things with my time. haha.

(concept art by Glen Keane, current desktop picture)

But seriously, food for thought. Some animator made these changes and they did it because they cared, it's a career decision for them. The more I learn about Disney the more I realize how damn seriously they take themselves and their work. And as a non-diagnosed obsessive compulsive and workaholic I like that in an art company.

P.S. - This next moving .gif was always my favorite part of the trailer. It still feels a lot like the finished Rapunzel. A part of me wishes it made it to the movie, but I see why they couldn't fit it in (she'd have to be too comfortable with a strange human's presence in her isolated tower too fast and THAT doesn't fit the character).

By the way I made this moving gif. image to discuss how they squished her body and the use of under-eyelids for expression we are accustomed to see in 2D animation -

- as well as a pontificating discussion of what they might do with her (Rapunzel's) sexuality. yeah.

Of course the eyelid thing for these two characters are especially similar because the animation for both Ariel and Rapunzel were headed by Glen Keane.

- Okay so now I'll classify that as my MIDDLE remark(s). Now for the end remarks.

Um, I like to watch films with tea and pretend they are pouring coffee...

...I've been thinking I should try to articulate why the show Daria is appealing beyond the solidarity for the intelligent female shut-in, not that that's nothing... if you don't know the show, I'll clue you in...

... I've noticed the beginning of the Hobbit (I'm rereading it) makes you quite hungry (all that talk of cold chicken and pickles and seed-cake and coffee and cheese and mince-pie).

... did I forget to mention I've spent as much as $70 in the past week trying to purchase from Amazon Japan certain Little Mermaids I have been looking for, neither of which were what I wanted, one of which was borderline bootleg of terribly done cheap animation? UGH the risks and hardships one takes for the cause... I did find the original audio for one of the Japanese ones so the last month hasn't been a total loss...

... ooo and I've been working on videos. Animated Fan Music Videos. One which I hope will be done very soon, is my attempt to emphasize the darker tones of Disney's Rapunzel and the story of Rapunzel in general through Emelie Autumn's "Lady Shalott," some color scheme changes, and some playful editing... I'll keep you posted on that...

...Futurama's back for another few seasons, which is great. I should do a Leela entry... they really push the boundaries of her likability, which I really admire... those writers have balls... (haha stereotypical male metaphor on feminist blog!)

Futurama Thursdays 10/9c Get The Ball

Bender plays fetch with Mr. Peppy, Fry's alien pet. Video Clip, Airdate 8/11/2011Comedy Central

grrrr I want one of those as a pet.

... and with that cute little tidbit I think I will leave you. A Very Un-Birthday to you! (yeah I went there.)

Hopefully a new post sooner than a year from now! (It's my un-birthday wish.)