Before watching the latest delight from Pixar, Toy Story 3 , last weekend, I saw the preview for Disney’s next animated-cartoon film, Tangled. It’s the next in Disney’s line of princess films, this time based on the story of Rapunzel. There’s something refreshing about seeing Disney still doing what they do so well—the classic story of prince and princess—and yet, as I watched the latest preview, I couldn’t help but be turned off.
It seems like for any traditional story of prince and princess to fly these days, the princess has to outdo the prince. When’s the last time you’ve seen a princess saved by her prince? These days, she has to win the battle instead of him, or else, well, or else it will look like a patriarchal fairy-tale story that tells girls they’re dependent on men. Or so say many womens-studies departments.
So here we have the charming story of how Rapunzel meets her prince: She beats him up . I don’t know about you, but movies that take the manliness out of men (and the femininity out of females, for that matter) aren’t movies I’m terribly interested in.
And they say they were trying to attract boys to this movie—ha!
