[Wamvan] Disney’s Racist Stereotyping and Gender Roles Remain Un-Tangled

[Tami Starlight]

http://www.alternet.org/story/149045/disney%E2%80%99s_racist_stereotyping_and_gender_roles_remain_un-tangled

Disney’s Racist Stereotyping and Gender Roles Remain Un-Tangled

By Natalie Wilson, Ms. Blog
December 4, 2010


The good news is that Disney’s new animated feature Tangled is funny,
fast-paced and visually stunning. The bad news is that it re-hashes
the same old story: As a woman, you can either be a princess awaiting
her prince or an evil stepmother/witch; as a man, you get all the
action (in many senses of the word). And beauty, of course, equals
white, blonde, thin and young.

Keeping in mind Disney’s recent announcement that after Tangled they
won’t be making any more princess films, one can see Tangled as a
transitional movie, an indication of where Disney’s future is headed.
And as Margot Magowan notes, Disney putting the kibosh on princesses
could have been a good sign: “Great! No more damsels in distress who
end the movie by landing a man.” Alas, as Magowan and others report,
Disney’s stated goal isn’t ending the helpless-princess theme;
instead, it’s making sure the movies have big enough audience appeal
(read: appeal to boys and men, not just girls and women).

To this end, Disney brought in a new directorial team in 2008 to
overhaul the planned Rapunzel and “wring the pink out of it,” as the
Los Angeles Times aptly put it. The resultant Tangled, with a
non-heroine title, more action and a platoon of mega-muscular-man
characters (in contrast to only two key females -- Rapunzel and the
evil Mother Gothel), bodes ill for Disney’s post-princess era.

While one blogger has called this a “gender neutral makeover,” it
seems to me more of a masculinist makeover. The privileging of men in
the story is apparent from the first image in Tangled, a zoom-in on a
wanted poster of the male lead, Flynn Rider, as he narrates, “This is
a very fun story and the truth is, it isn’t even mine.” The “fun”
story involves the kidnapping and imprisonment of Rapunzel. Even
though Flynn claims the story “isn’t even mine,” the story becomes
very much about him and less about Rapunzel.

As noted by the film’s producer during production, “We’re having a lot
of fun pairing Flynn, who’s seen it all, with Rapunzel, who’s been
locked away in a tower for 18 years.” Ah, pairing a man of the world
who has “seen it all” with a woman who knows nothing as she has been
“locked away” -- how egalitarian and gender neutral!

In addition to Flynn, Rapunzel has the requisite animal sidekick: a
male chameleon named Pascal. And, once she escapes out into the real
world, she encounters a plethora of other males -- the horse Maximus
(how’s that for a testosterone-fueled name?), the thugs that serve as
Flynn’s former thieving buddies and the many light-hearted ruffians
from The Snuggly Duckling pub. Additionally, Rapunzel’s father, the
King, takes the spotlight in a few scenes meant to emphasize how much
he and the Queen still miss their daughter. In these scenes, his
hulking, bearded figure dominates the screen, his face torn with
sadness, while his diminutive wife stands below and beside him as
comforting helpmate.

As for Rapunzel, imprisoned within the tower since a child, she is a
waif-like female with big eyes and a teeny-tiny waist who sings about
doing chores with the refrain, “wonder when my life will begin.”
Rapunzel is stereotypically overly emotional, swinging from one end of
a mood swing to another as often as she (and others) swing from her
long golden locks.

By films end, she has lost these magical locks after Flynn cuts them
to save her life, and her remaining hair -- no longer magical -- turns
brown (talk about latent color symbolism!). Her “happy ending”
involves being returned to her real parents and marrying Flynn, who,
the movie makes a point of emphasizing, proposes to her, not the other
way around.

Admittedly, there are moments where Rapunzel is portrayed as brave and
heroic, as when she tells Mother Gothel, “For every minute for the
rest of my life I will fight,” or when she heals Flynn, saves them
both from drowning and enables their escape from the Snuggly Duckling.
She is an improvement on Snow White, who could only sing to animals
and happily clean up after seven dwarves. Yet, as critic Scott
Mendelson points out, her bravery is of a “condescending ‘girl-power’
punch or two” sort -- it is the exception to her character rather than
the rule. While Flynn is all masculine adventure, power and cunning,
she is all long blonde locks with a hint of you-go-girl attitude to
appease a 21st-century audience.

Since the media giant Disney makes these representations, they carry
inordinate cultural weight. As Magowan writes, “because this boys club
completely dominates kidworld, [Disney's] privileging of males over
females with no care at all, their disregard for half the population,
is really sad.”

Obviously the (male) execs at Disney wanted to stay true to the
fairytale roots, and thus kept Rapunzel white and blond, kept the evil
witch character and kept the rescuing prince (though admittedly amping
up his role). But even keeping to this narrow white- and
male-privileged script, could they not have thrown in some female
animals or patrons at the Snuggly Duckling?

And what possessed the filmmakers to have Flynn immediately call
Rapunzel “Blondie”? Yes, it’s so funny when we identify women by their
looks and body rather than bothering to learn or remember their names!
(Not to mention the cultural associations with being called “Blondie,”
such as the assumption one is dumb, “over-sexed” and good for no more
than a pretty appearance).

Moreover, as Renee of Womanist Musings points out, the glorifying of
blond hair, yet again, is problematic. She writes:

As a Black woman, I know all too well how complicated the issue of
hair can be. Looking at the … image [of Tangled’s Rapunzel], I found
that I could not see beyond her long blond hair and blue eyes. I
believe that this will also become the focal point of many girls of
color. The standard of long flowing blond hair as the epitome of
femininity necessarily excludes and challenges the idea that [women of
color] are feminine, desired … and therefore, while Disney is creating
an image of Rapunzel that we are accustomed to, her rebirth in a
modern day context is problematic because her body represents the
celebration of White femininity.

The fact that Tangled is coming on the heels of the first African
American [Disney] princess is indeed problematic. It makes Princess
Tiana seem like an impotent token, with Rapunzel appearing to reset
the standard of what princess means and even more precisely what
womanhood means.

On the other hand, Mother Gothel, Rapunzel’s evil abductress, has dark
hair and eyes and non-Caucasian features. According to Christian
Blaulvelt of Entertainment Weekly, “Mother Gothel is a dark, dark
character. I mean, she’s a baby snatcher.” Ah yes, and she is dark in
more ways than one, her dark skin, hair and clothing contrasting with
the golden whiteness of Rapunzel.

Alan Menken, the musical composer for the film, similarly notes that
“Mother Gothel is a scary piece of work. Nothing she is doing is for
the good of Rapunzel at all. It’s all for herself.”

Emphasizing her manipulative relationship with Rapunzel, Menken
admits, “I was concerned when writing it. Like, will there be a rash
of children trying to kill their parents after they’ve seen the
movie?” Wow -- how about worrying if there will be a rash of children
who will see dark-skinned mothers (and non-wedded ones) as evil and
sinister?

In addition to carrying on Disney’s tradition of problematic
representations of race, the film also keeps with the tradition of
framing females’ beauty obsession as evil and “creepy” (Flynn’s words)
rather than as understandable in a world of Disneyfied feminine norms.
A mirror worshipper to rival the evil queen in Snow White, Gothel is
presented as a passive-aggressive nightmare -- the tyrannical single
mother so overbearing the Rapunzel must beg for the opportunity to
leave the tower.

To sum up, we have a film dominated by male characters that focuses on
the magical golden hair of a white princess who must be saved from an
evil dark witch. Yes, it’s funny, with strong dialogue and good songs.
Yes, it’s a feast for the eyes. Yes, I love the fact Rapunzel has more
verve and spunk than her princess predecessors. But, leading into
their commitment to stop producing princess films and create films
that supposedly appeal to a broad demographic, Disney still has not
cut its ties to a white, male-privileged view of the world. Not even
close.

A longer version of this appears at Girl With Pen.

Natalie Wilson is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger,
and author. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if…? and
Seduced by Twilight. Dr. Wilson is also part of the collaborative
research group that publishes United States Military Violence Against
Women and is currently working on an investigative piece on
militarized sexual violence perpetuated against civilians.

© 2011 Ms. Blog All rights reserved.
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