Thread by @NipahDUBS

A thread about Tangled no one asked for and why I love it

Tangled will forever be my favorite 3D animated movie for its subtle but impactful portrayal of a manipulative/emotionally abusive relationship with your family. I had a less than favorable upbringing, so I relate to this

I've seen people try and defend Gothels character saying she did care for Rapunzel but I really doubt that personally. Gothel is nice to Rapunzel but not specifically to her, she is nice to her hair. When Gothel ever shows positivity towards her it is directed to her hair.

This scene is the more subtle one, where after singing "Mother knows best" and basically scaring Rapunzel into not ever leaving and making her feel awful about herself she tries to console her, but instead of kissing her forehead, she forces her head down so she can kiss her hair

Whenever Gothel hugs Rapunzel her hands never go onto Rapunzels body, never her back and never her shoulders, she always has her hands somewhere on her hair. And most of the time when she does hug her she is stroking Rapunzels hair as well.

Gothel also does what a lot of abusive parents do to their children, they will raise up their self esteem for a second by complimenting them only to point out flaws about them afterwards and make their child feel less about themselves than they did before.

One of the biggest cases of these are at the start with this scene where she says...

"Rapunzel, look in that mirror. You know what I see? I see a strong, confident, beautiful young lady. Oh look, you’re here too. Hahaha, I’m just teasing! Stop taking everything so seriously"

This is the first instance you see this tact that abusive people do, where THEY will do something wrong to you and then blame you for getting upset or offended. Basically them blaming you for not agreeing with their bad actions and trying to make you feel bad for judging them.

Another instance is when Gothel finds Rapunzel as she tells Gothel that Eugene might like her, the first person asides Gothel she has ever met and Rapunzel thinks that maybe the world isn't awful and that there are nice people out there but Gothel quickly turns the conversation.

"Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, that's demented. Dear, this whole romance that you've invented just proves you’re too naive to be here. Why would he like you? Come on now, really. Look at you! You think that he’s impressed?"

One of the biggest parallels in this movie happens at the start/end with Gothel saying Rapunzel has made her to be "The bad guy", another instance of passing blame onto her to make her feel bad when Rapunzel did nothing wrong.

Want me to be the bad guy? Fine. Now I’m the bad guy

I pointed out those smaller instances of passing blame onto another to lead up to this, Gothel stabs Eugene at the end of the movie and tells Rapunzel "Now look what you’ve done, Rapunzel." Saying it is her fault that she stabbed him and his death is all on her.

Parents who are abusive to their children tend to do most of the same things Gothel does, by verbally abusing them it makes the child feel reliant on their parent, due to the constant damage to their self esteem they will believe whatever the parent has said about them.

They become reliant on the parent cause after being told so many times that "You're ugly, no one likes you, your family is the only one you can trust, only your family cares about you, etc" they will believe them and misconstruct abusive actions for affection/love.

The saddest part is, the children will still love their parent after all this (for now) cause well, it is their parent. As seen here, when Gothel falls to her death, Rapunzel reaches out for her to try and save her. Even through all that Gothel did to her she still cared for her.

I see people compare Hunchback to Tangled a lot and while they have similar themes I believe Tangled handles the situation in a way more kids can relate to/see themselves in. with HBOND Frollo is physically and directly abusive, you watch this and know Frollo never cared for him.

No one EVER once doubted that Frollo hated Quasi and was only keeping him around due to his fear of being damned to hell from the warning of the Churchs Priest. Frollo was portrayed as the villain, the ultimate evil in everyway.

Tangled though, people say that Gothel might have cared for Rapunzel because she is nice to her sometimes, Tangled hides the abuse through other actions JUST like how real life parents do to their kids. Parents won't openly abuse their children in public like Frollo/Quasi (1/2)

Tangled perfectly shows that a family can look nice and happy on the outside for people but hide the abuse to their child so that no one will know better and I think the way Tangled did it can alert children of these signs and maybe they can realize that their parents are abusive

Rapunzles character growth is empowering to see and I truly believe has helped people get out of relationships similar to hers. She is first confined by her abuser, realizes their lies later and confronts their abuser and breaks free from them.

Its a story that needed to be told

Tangled means so much to me cause it helped me realize that parts of my family were abusive, they were manipulative and just toxic people over all. Tangled shows that even if someone is family, if they are abusive to you then you need to try and get away.

Now I am going to close of this thread with something I LOVE that the Tangled series showed, in the episode "Pascals Story" you get to learn about him and his relationship with Punzie, Pascal is feeling unloved and goes back to the tower because that is where he felt loved.

Rapunzel frantically is trying to find Pascal and she returns back to the tower to locate him cause she knows he will be there. Upon seeing the place where all the abuse happened to her she shudders and falls back, suffering a small PTSD shock of returning here.

THIS is a real life thing that many survivors of abuse will go through, seeing something that reminds them of their abuser/seeing a place they went with them will trigger a PTSD shock and the fact Disney showed this happening to her is amazing and I applaud Disney for doing so.

Rapunzel then decides to go up the tower alone cause this something she needs to do, telling herself "Okay Rapunzel, don't be afraid. It is just a tower." She talks herself through the shock of returning here, which is something with those suffering from PTSD will do to help them

Tangled told so much that needed to be told in a way that children could realize and recognize the signs and the series adds to it by showing what can happen after moving past your abuser and how to handle it. I adore Tangled as a whole and it means so much to me.

This thread went on for MUCH MUCH longer than I thought it would, but I have such a strong connection to this story and see myself heavily in Rapunzel, I have wanted to talk about it for quite sometime lol. Hopefully you enjoyed my thread on this heavy topic.