Tangled: The Intersection of Commerce, Gender, and Genre

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Recommended: Analysis of rapunzel

In the 2010 film Tangled, a modern retelling of the Grimm Brothers’ story Rapunzel, Rapunzel pursues her dream of seeing the floating lights away from her hidden tower and escaping from her “evil mother” Gothel with the help of a young thief named Flynn Ryder. The film manages to navigate the tension between the traditional fairy-tale storytelling archetypes of the early Disney princess movie-musicals and a modern reinvention of these stereotypes in order to create a harmonious blend between the two. However, both “When Will my Life Begin?” and “I Have a Dream,” with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, employ diverse musical references and techniques that nevertheless starkly challenge the construction of the typical Disney animated musical genre, and that mold musical conventions to be more marketable to a far-reaching audience. Does this movie actually mock the imperfections of its Disney princess predecessors, and if so, how does it commoditize this musical “affectionate parody” by appealing to the “younger, hipper” and even male crowd? I argue that “When will my life begin?” and “I’ve got a Dream” serve as examples of how Disney made Tangled into a hybrid of the earlier princess movie-musicals of the “Golden Age of Animation”(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [1937], Sleeping Beauty [1959]), the “Disney Renaissance” (The Little Mermaid [1989], Beauty and the Beast [1991]), and what it hoped to be a new, modern spin on the genre with its new leadership, its music, and its treatment of gender in order to be commercially successful.

One thing that Tangled did demonstrate was the need for a modern reboot not only for Disney animated films, but to the “musical” genre as well. Some argue that as Disney enters into a ...

... middle of paper ...

...table to boys, it still relied on its commonalities to other films to secure its place within the Disney legacy.

Whether or not in Disney’s quest to be commercially successful, if the film was really able to be a storytelling and musical success. able to satirize the shortcomings of the princess movie-musical genre

sound abandon Broadway style for tween-age pop song.

Both songs establish roots in the formula derived from the earlier Walt Disney films and later Alan Menken musicals, yet neither are without their surprises, their own definitive appeal to a larger, updated audience.

Works Cited

1. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2010/11/24/alan-menken-tangled/

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/movies/21tangled.html?pagewanted=all

3. http://earnthis.net/2010/07/golden-age-1/

4. http://screencrave.com/2010-02-12/disneys-rapunzel-is-renamed-tangled/

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