Masculinity In Rapunzel

Ostensibly, the story of “Rapunzel” is the tale of a young girl, locked up in a tower by a wicked witch, the real concern of the story, however, being lust and the dangers it represents to girls as they enter the rites of passage of puberty. Symbolism pervades the story of “Rapunzel”, as in all fairy tales, giving rise to diverse interpretations. While a great deal of the symbolism is commonly found in fairy tales, the Grimm’s infuse the tale of “Rapunzel” with much from the biblical stories with which their audience would most likely be familiar. In the final version of “Rapunzel,” the Grimms add a moral message, based primarily on stories taken from the Bible, in order to demonstrate the

So ingrained is the image of women's beauty in fairy tales that it is difficult to imagine any that do not highlight and glorify it.” (722). Therefore, each story uses beauty to draw in a bigger audience because no one wants to see an ugly duckling. This is how the media portrays women today, that they should be skinny and beautiful and if they are not then no one will want to be like them; the young beautiful women get more rewards. What that shows girls is that they must be a fairy tale character just to be noticed, but what they do not understand is how naïve Rapunzel is to her surroundings because mother Gothel will not let her out of the tower.

In the article, “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar,” written by Gillam and Wooden, they argue that Disney's line of animated movies depict a “new man.” Their argument is based around three movies: Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Cars. Gillam and Wooden then state that all three of the movies start with a traditional alpha male character who, throughout the movie, begins to accept his more “feminine” aspects. The idea that the two present is that the lead characters show traits of “acute loneliness and vulnerability.” From there, Pixar emasculates the character through some type of disempowerment that then leads to the overall maturing of the characters (Gillam and Wooden). Throughout the article they bring up many great arguments of which I agree to. However, Gillam and Wooden only cite the three movies mentioned above, when in fact Disney/Pixar has continued with the trend of having an “alpha male” character who throughout the film becomes more mellowed out and less dominant. The idea of emasculation can be carried into the Pixar movie “Up,” where the viewer can witness acute loneliness, slight depression, and eventually the admittance of defeat, where the character is forced to take on help and accept the “emasculation”.

Stephen King uses metaphor, telegraphic sentences, and desperate diction in his novel The Shining when describing Jack’s anxious reaction to the wasps’ reappearance to illustrate how Jack’s inability to maintain stereotypical masculinity threatens his family’s safety, future, and structure. Through metaphor that depicts Jack’s animalistic response to seeing the wasps, King establishes that Jack’s efforts to carry out a traditionally masculine response are counterproductive. When he initially processes the wasps’ return, King captures Jack’s reaction with “‘Shut the fuck up and kill them!’ he roared” (King 191). With the use of the word “roar”, King compares Jack to a provoked tiger. Tigers are ferocious creatures that do not help with caring for and protecting their families, and the metaphor reflects this fact; despite his controlling facade, Jack is nervous when the wasps reappear, and he can only yell for his wife to protect the family.

Where there are hyper-masculine men, there are beards. Where there are beards, there are characters carrying masculine traits willing to demascluinize and as a result feminize men of whom they perceive to be superior to. In the realm of King Arthur and his court, King Arthur has to set the standard of masculinity. He must be the man that other men, under his rule, aspire to be. With that, there seems to exist a checks and balancing system where the demasculinization of other men results in keeping the realm at ease. I’d like to divert your attention to the beard cloak and, as an extension, also the first initial moment that the Green Knight rode into court. These moments seem to be the most important because of their connection to beards--seemingly a symbol of hyper-masculinity.

In Rapunzel, an attractive young female must wait inside a tower until a princess comes to saves her. The theme that is repeated in this story is that it takes a prince, some of high power and wealth, to save a beautiful lady from a misfortune.

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm also known as the Grimm brothers are historically known for their uniqueness both in their styles of writing and the exceptional illustrations of their works. Their age old literature has been told and retold with the essence of gothic architecture and contemporary children's stories for decades now. This essay will contrast the Grimm brothers story of Rapunzel and Disney's story of Rapunzel, it will also include comparing their illustrations with Molly Bang's theory.

The girls dressed it up with a dress but Rapunzel ran away. Their father told them that she will come back because when you feed a cat they will know you and they will keep coming back. He also told them that he knows everything about cat. Without knowing it, their Dad killed Rapunzel because she is hiding under their car and when their dad starts the car they heard something like a chain saw cutting a wood. After their dad went away they saw the dress that they put on to Rapunzel with blood. After that incident the girls decide to escape away from their father because their father is bad and killed Rapunzel.

The story of Rapunzel is filled with problems. A majority of these problems are either moral, biblical or legal problems. This paper will explain most of those problems, like for example, is what the Witch did in the garden okay? Also is what she did in the tower and what Rapunzel’s father did okay?

In 2010, Disney released Tangled a film based on the Grimms’ tale, Rapunzel. Despite several commonalities, the stories of Rapunzel and Tangled are not as similar as one might think. After taking a deeper look into the two tales, I have formed an analysis on both tales from the view of femininity and power relationships in fairytales. Tangled present a vision of a femininity that is more powerful and independence than that presented in Grimms’ Rapunzel

Continuing in her position as the moral control, the witch tries to protect her Rapunzel by locking her up. This attempt to preserve the girl's chastity ultimately fails because a prince discovers her when he hears her singing. Song is a symbol of

Disney is one of the most successful and largest companies in the world. They have their hand in nearly every form of entertainment as well as media, and broadcasting. Disney is best known for their animated films, unique cartoon characters, catchy musicals, and fairy tales that most of us were first introduced to as children. They are one of the few entertainment companies in the World whose primary demographic is children and teens. Nearly everybody is familiar with the Disney name and its brand, and its realistic to suggest that nearly everybody has experienced a Disney film and animated character at some point in their lives; which may have helped to influence them or their behaviors or even their

Tangled is an empathetic and wonderful movie because I myself, am able to approach the movie and relate to it and compare it with my own life.

The male characters in Disney films have evolved with today’s society, in which male and female counterparts are equal. In the era of Walt Disney, the prince saved the princess, as seen in Sleeping Beauty. The prince possessed masculine or hypermasculine characteristics – strong, muscular, broad, tall, ambitious and hard. However, in later Disney the male characters began to soften, as seen in Hercules. In Masculinity as Social Semiotic Identity Politics and Gender in Disney Animated Films, Robyn McCallum discussed how the male protagonist in films such as Mulan, Hercules and Tarzan transformed into a “new man”, a man that possessed stereotypical female traits (McCalllum, 2002). However, it can be argued that although the “new man” has mentally changed they have physically stayed the same since Sleeping Beauty.

Walt Disney's 1980s movies reflected that the neo conservative preoccupation with personal mortality in the idea of family values. Most of his movie plots consist of family dramas that are based off of the idea of achieving proper heterosexual couple bonding despite the odds that they may face throughout the entire movie. When looking into family values and genealogy, I found that The Lion King gave true representation of this idea. In this movie, there is a notion of the patriarchal family that follows of leadership. All of the mammals, the Lions, who had ruled pride rock, Mufasa, Scar and Simba, were all males. Although Scar was a little more controversial than the other male lead characters, they all represented male dominance. The female