It looks like I’ve been living under a rock for a while, because I had no idea that Disney is going to be making a movie based on the classic Fairy Tale, Rapunzel
Here are the specs:
RAPUNZEL (Domestic Release Date: Christmas 2010, Disney Digital 3-D™)
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Directors: Glen Keane, Dean Wellins
Producer: Roy ConliIn this new telling of the classic fairy tale, Rapunzel, audiences will be transported to a stunning CG fantasy world complete with the iconic tower, an evil witch, a gallant hero and, of course, the mysterious girl with the long golden tresses. Expect adventure, heart, humor, and hair…lots of hair, when Rapunzel unleashes her locks in theaters for the 2010 holiday.
Okay. Let’s make a list, shall we? A list of:
Everything That Could Go Right:
1. Kristin Chenoweth will turn in a stunning performance as Rapunzel.
2. People will direct their attention towards fairy tales. And isn’t that always a good thing?
3. I will have an excuse to eat movie-theater popcorn.
Everything That Could Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong.
1. Disney could decide to, once again, make the fairy tale all about marrying the prince. They could sanitize it. They could forget the fact that Rapunzel gets pregnant outside of wedlock, that the Prince loses his sight, and they could, in short, just sugar-coat everything and remove all the meaning.
2. This could re-enforce Disney’s “Princess” myth. That mania that young girls have for pretending to be princesses. Let’s be real, people: people want to be Princesses because Princesses do absolutely nothing. Except look pretty. And that is our ideal. And that is scary.
3. This Princess focus would make no sense because, lest we forget, Rapunzel is a peasant.
4. We could get yet another two-dimensional witch character.
5. I could have a heart attack in the middle of the theater.
However! I will try to be positive! After all, there’s nothing wrong with a few pink gowns, is there?
"See this corset? This is one pink corset!
Oh dear….Lord help us all…
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Update:
According to Disney’s website as listed above, Disney is also preparing a contemporary retelling of The Frog Prince, set in New Orleans. Now that looks promising! Classic, original, and fun…all at the same time! Maybe there’s hope for them after all! Click here to access the page for “The Princess and the Frog.” And unlike its cousin “Rapunzel,” production is far enough along for the film to have its own official website. However, there’s not much there yet….
The Princess and the Frog
Interestingly, most of the content on the Princess and the Frog’s specs page (such as the interviews) have to do with the fact that this movie is being done with hand-drawn animation, old-school style. This is apparently very exciting for the animators, but I wish they’d focus on the actual story…
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January 13, 2009 at 11:45 am
Renee
I’m almost 18, and Although I agree it would be cool to see a movie that isn’t sugar coated, I don’t expect Disney to make one. You have to remember that these are Children that disney is trying to sell to. They have to sugar coat it or else the kids wouldn’t watch it. And if they did show Rapunzel pregnant in a fairy tale, then they would get in trouble for trying to make pre-marital and teen pregnancy look okay. So I’d be glad if they overly “sanitized” the story. Kids honestly think “Well it was okay for princess (Fill in the blank), and everything worked out for her. So why can’t it work out for me?” I know, I babysit. They haven’t fully grown out of the fairy tale stage yet, and their innocence is priceless to me. If Disney edits the story, thats fine by me. They can add a different meaning to it for all I care. There are a ton of other realistic movies out there for me to watch if I don’t want to see a fantasy, sugar coated story.
March 15, 2009 at 4:31 am
Peregrine
It’s unfair to call disney on ‘toning-down’ this one, because the original authors did just that, so you can’t really call Disney on that one.
However, don’t expect it to be completely historically accurate either. It is VERY hard to tell a good story with a completely passive main character. You can bet that Disney is gonna add their own spin to this one.
It is also unfair to say Disney’s princesses are encouraging this sterotype either. Disney has been very good at creating very headstrong/interesting female characters. Belle was a thinker, Mulan was a fighter, Jasmine was a runaway, etc… If you want some distasteful stereotypes, look to today’s teenybopper popstars. I have high hopes for both Chenowith in Rapunzel as well as the Princess and the Frog, because these will bring back Disney’s oldschool musicals as opposed to all of Disney’s pop and glam of miley cyrus and hsm, etc…
Also, you’ve got to remember where Disney is coming from with these stories. These fairytales come from folklore and fables, a lot of which have common origins. Stories back then followed conventions too, you know. There are often many common themes in storytelling, a lot of which, have to do with the conventional villains.
I sincerely hope you don’t have a heart attack, because I, personally, am very interested in seeing where Disney takes this one. I have been following the progress on Rapunzel since before Meet the Robinsons came out. So get out your popcorn, because, in my experience, Disney’s is usually worth watching, simply because of the amount of detail and quality they put into it.
April 20, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Mell
I agree with your observations and concerns. The biggest issue with Disney princess fare is that the females never change in the course of the movie’s action. They are always simply acted upon in the course of events, whereas in the tales (even after Wilhelm’s extreme edits) the girls are forced to make life-altering decisions.
Yes, Belle is a thinker thinking very hard about love the entire film, but she doesn’t do anything about it. Love taking a bookworm by surprise would have been much more exciting and required a revaluation on her part. But Disney females are always denied the ability to think beyond love. Or change. Her feelings transform, but there is no growth. She starts out wanting a prince, and look!, she got one!
And as great as Mulan is, she doesn’t discover anything new about herself in the course of the action. I guess she learns to be herself…but as a man? Also, she doesn’t do it for herself, but for a man – her father. At the end we the audience assume she marries the dude and lives happily ever after as a little wifey. It would have been very easy for them to make her a general or guard or something…