The Adoption-Abduction Dilemma in Disney’s ‘Tangled’

By Barsha Mondal

The battle between “malevolent stepmothers and darling step-daughters” has always been a staple ingredient of Disney films. Cinderella, Snow white, Happily N’Ever After and others serve as classic examples of this cliched trope. However, with the growth of media and awareness and a wider perspective and interest towards the field of adoption studies and fairy tales, modern Disney adaptations have consistently attempted to play with this binary, and while the films do not completely break away from this stereotype, they have certainly questioned the prevailing notions. Tangled, Disney’s classic rendition of Grimm’s fairytale Rapunzel, encapsulates this dilemma through the figure of Mother Gothel.

The montage at the beginning of the film reveals the backstory: A magical flower was once born out of “a small drop of the sun.” Gothel had been hoarding its miraculous powers to keep herself young for generations. Once it so happened that the pregnant Queen of Corona had fallen sick and only a miracle could save her. Thus, the hunt for the magical flower began and against Gothel’s attempts to hide it with a cover, they found the flower due to the latter being accidentally toppled over while she escaped. The healing properties of this flower cured the Queen and thus was born Rapunzel, a healthy baby girl, whose hair was bestowed with the same magical qualities. Gothel, now deprived of her own version of an anti-aging cosmetic, had to sneak into the castle room of the King and the Queen. Upon finding the baby she attempted to snap some strands of her hair for herself. However, she discovered that the blonde hair of Rapunzel lost its miraculous properties as soon as it was cut and turned brown. Therefore, she kidnapped the child for her own selfish desire and brought her up in isolation in a hidden tower, grooming her with the belief that the “outside world is a dangerous place filled with horrible, selfish people.” The backstory ends here, and time skips to eighteen years later, when a teen Rapunzel, expresses her desire to her Mother Gothel, to see the “floating lights” which occur each year on her birthday. She is refused and made to believe, “Mother knows best” as “One way or another, something will go wrong.” Despite this, when Gothel goes away again, she meets Flynn Rider. He was a thief who had stolen the lost princess’s crown along with his partners, and after betraying them as well, he managed to evade and escape the eyes of the Palace Guards by climbing up the isolated hidden tower. Rapunzel knocks him unconscious with a pan and hides him in her closet. After sending her mother Gothel away for three days to bring her new paint as a gift for her birthday as against Gothel making her favourite hazelnut soup, Rapunzel strikes a deal with Flynn to return the crown he had stolen, in exchange for him to take her to see the “floating lights.” Thus begins the epic adventure. Though she feels a dilemma regarding her decision, Flynn further provokes her anxiety, by asking “Would this break her (Gothel’s) heart and crush her soul? Of Course.” However, Rapunzel does it anyway. But to her ignorance, Gothel follows them and taking the opportunity of Flynn Rider aka Eugene Fitzherbert being away for a moment, she answers Rapunzel’s query regarding how she found her and tries to induce guilt in her by stating that she “just listened to the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that.” Moreover, she calls Rapunzel “demented” for thinking that Flynn may like her. But here, just as she was about to sing “Mother knows best”, Rapunzel refutes and Gothel challenges her by warning “If he’s lying, don’t come crying” and re-emphasizes her previous stance. Gothel then hatches a plot with Eugene’s partners who were betrayed. As a result of the success of this conspiracy among the three, Eugene was caught, and Rapunzel was brought back. However, in a moment of sudden realization she connects the symbol of the sun of her kingdom, to her paintings and deftly speaks out to Gothel, “I am the lost princess. Aren’t I? Did I mumble, Mother? Or should I even call you that?” A fight ensues between the mother cum kidnapper and daughter cum lost princess, which leads to breaking of the mirror, upon which Gothel used to check upon her youth and beauty. Time was up for Gothel for being good: “You want me to be the bad guy? Fine, now. I’m the bad guy.” She ties up Rapunzel and sets her up as bait, for Eugene who had escaped death with the help of “ruffians.” But as soon as he enters the tower he is stabbed. Rapunzel promises Gothel that if she let her save him, she would never try to escape from her but as soon as she was about to heal Eugene, he cuts her hair with a shard from the glass of the mirror. Gothel is terrified, she runs amok, strangling the hair, looking at herself in the broken mirror, covering herself with her cloak, while Pascal pulls the hair on the ground with his feet, leading to Gothel stumbling, falling off the tower and turning to dust. Eugene is once again saved, this time by the magical healing properties of Rapunzel’s tears. The kingdom rejoiced that the lost princess had returned, Eugene was pardoned, the dreams of the ruffians were fulfilled and finally the hero and the heroine got married. Thus, ensuring the ending of the story to be a ‘happily ever after.’

This entire plotline, though deceptively simple, hides within its core several important aspects. First is the problematic position of Mother Gothel herself. Is she a “Mother”? Clearly no, because she kidnapped Rapunzel. But the narrator does mention at the beginning of the film that she had “raised the child as her own” and in several places throughout the film, she is referred to as “Mother” as Rapunzel does believe her and loves her as her real mother. Unlike the typical nasty fairy tale stepmothers who are all work and no play, Mother Gothel displays both physical and verbal affection towards the child as is reflected by her referring to making Rapunzel’s favourite hazelnut soup or bringing her paint. The daily chores that Rapunzel does is also done by choice so that she could keep herself busy while on the other hand Rapunzel is called upon as “darling” or “pet.” But at the same time Gothel also more endearingly refers to her as “flower.” This stance problematizes her position by reinforcing the fact that her love for her adoptive daughter exists only because of her hair. The following photo from Pinterest of Mother Gothel and Rapunzel, reveals this quite clearly.

If one notices carefully then one can see that the place where Gothel kisses is also mostly Rapunzel’s hair and she is obsessed with it, constantly consuming the magical tendencies of the girl’s hair as an addiction. Therefore, in this manner Gothel confirms our cultural discourse about the commodification of adoption, in which adopted children become, according to Julie Berebitsky, “commodities to be consumed and adoption merely another way to satisfy personal needs and desires.” It is to be added here that along with this aspect, Gothel constantly degrades and chides Rapunzel for being too slow or having gone chubby under the façade of “I’m just teasing. Stop taking everything so seriously.” Karen E. Rowe points out that such behaviour is typical of fairy tale stepmothers who “habitually devise stratagems to retard the heroine’s progress.” Such regular self-deprecating grooming was meant to trap Rapunzel emotionally, destroying her sense of agency, and any stance she might take regarding her own life. Such a position of Gothel blurs the distinction between her and other step-mothers of traditional fairy tales. To further reinforce her message, Gothel’s pleas of “Skip the drama, stay with mama” transform quickly into veiled threats: “On your own you won’t survive,” and “Don’t forget it, you’ll regret it” and finally forces orders upon her, “You are not leaving this tower, ever!” Therefore, although Gothel’s relationship with her adopted-kidnapped daughter seemed fine earlier, she is gradually aligned with the slew of evil Disney stepmothers: egomaniacal, narcissistic, and arrogant. Secondly, the question arises, then ‘what’ is Gothel and what is her role? Here it is to be remembered that although Gothel strategically degrades Rapunzel and thrives upon the magical powers of her hair, she is no witch but just an “old woman,” who has lived hundreds of years and wields a “big knife,” as one of the ruffians points out.

Unlike the traditional witch of the fairy tale wherein the witch only visits Rapunzel in her tower, Gothel lives and cares for her. This stance of hers can be seen as a move to save herself from being branded as a useless old haggard with no family or role in the society and therefore the consequent dependence upon the mercy of the young. This sets Gothel apart from the rest of the female Disney villains. She is neither the evil stepmother who has married Rapunzel’s father, usurping the real Queen’s position nor is she the witch of Grimm’s fairy tales. She is just a woman who is clever and manipulative, caring selfishly just for her own survival and while Rapunzel refers to her as “Mother Gothel” yet this phrase also denotes that this is not a natural motherhood, as most children do not use their mother’s personal name as an appellation. Thirdly, it is important to note that in order to accentuate this subversion in the relationship of the traditional notion of the mother-daughter bond, Gothel is painted in a very different manner to Rapunzel. With the hair as the chief symbol, Gothel’s hair is black and curly and moves as a mass while on the other hand, Rapunzel’s is blonde and straight and instead of moving it flows as a stream, the result of being brushed regularly. Added to this, Rapunzel is Anglo with wide green eyes and pale skin. The difference between Gothel’s physical attributes and Rapunzel’s is clearly established, further clarifying that Rapunzel is indeed not Gothel’s biological daughter and can never be successful in blending in the position of the adopted daughter.

Therefore, after portraying Gothel as a vile old woman who bears no resemblance with Rapunzel, depriving her of her freedom and keeping her away from her own family for self-interests, the only thing that remains is eliminating her from the concept of ‘happily ever after.’ The potential of any loving mother-daughter relationship between Gothel and Rapunzel, had already been destroyed. Hence it does not come as a surprise when Rapunzel questions whether she should even call her “Mother.” Once this recognition happens, Gothel degenerates both in appearance and function. Her mirror of vanity breaks and no longer was she “the fairest of them all” as she chained up Rapunzel, till the prince cum thief saves her by cutting her hair. As her hair turns brown, Gothel turns white displaying the cultural horrors of ageing, as she looks at the broken mirror, wailing and moaning, hiding her shameful appearance behind her cloak. Nothing motherly remains of her in these final moments of her horror and villainy. As she falls off the tower and turns into dust signifying that she was not really living, not truly human, she evacuates her position as mother to the maiden Rapunzel, leaving the maternal role empty, ready to be filled by another. The film, therefore much like traditional literature, creates social polarities and thus “splits women between the exalted and degraded.” Its earlier attempts to work against some of the stereotypes of adoptive parenthood, by allowing Gothel to be loving and affectionate, even protective, suggest that, yes, if there is no biological mother, adoption may be a good alternative. But once the biological mother is known to exist, the film requires the adoptive mother not just to step aside but also to degenerate, so that the true family can be reunited without the possibility of future interference from the Other(ed) mother. Hence the hugging scene in the end, is important because it establishes the reunion between the birth mother and the lost daughter as a mark of recognition of kinship, familial bond and biological blood as Flynn narrates to us, “Rapunzel was home. And she finally had a real family.”

The adoption-abduction dilemma in Disney’s Tangled therefore exposes cultural stereotypes and reflects upon the differences between the birth mother and the adoptive mother, further destabilizing the position with the adoptive mother being a kidnapper. Such issues concern the society at large. By bringing these concerns into the public eye, Tangled offers a wider perspective about the Western cultural beliefs on the inadequacy and, in some cases, the malignancy of the adoptive mothers and at the same time, asks its audience to reevaluate upon its ideological and social stance regarding the notions of motherhood and adoption.

Photo: Pinterest

Works Cited

DelRosso, Jeana. “De-tangling Motherhood: Adoption Narratives in Disney’s Tangled.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 48, no. 3, Wiley-Blackwell, June 2015, pp. 520–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12281.

Greno, Nathan, and Byron Howard, directors. Tangled. Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2010. DVD.

Bio:
Barsha Mondal is currently pursuing MA in English Literature and Language at Calcutta University. Reading, writing, and painting has always been an inseparable part of her life. Her research interests include studies on Border relations, Holocaust and Crime fiction.

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