Speaker 1: Everyone.
Speaker 2: Since we published our own version of Rapunzel Rapunzel and
the Evil Queen, I thought it'd be interesting to think
a little bit about the movie Tangled and how it
differs from the original Rapunzel story, how it's the same,
and what those differences mean. It's interesting because Tangled, in
some ways appeared at a moment where Disney was slowly
pushing towards more and more kind of ideological ideas, but
had not yet fully embraced it. And so what you
have with the story Tangled is a massive change in
the original fairy tale. But at the same time, because
it is well written, the jokes are funny, there's a
lot of good stuff in there. The movie still is successful,
even though now looking back at it from the point
of view of the Disney collapse, you could call it
or you know, Disney becoming incapable of telling these fairy
tale stories. You can already see the glimmers of all
of what would happen in the future and lead to
them now basically have given.
Speaker 1: Up on fairy tales. This is Jonathan Pegel. Welcome to
the Symbolic World.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, we are finally announcing our Paradiso class. We
have done two already. We have the Inferno, we have
the Purgatory, and now we are moving to Paradise.
Speaker 3: That is right, Dante himself says Inferno that we prefer
hell to Paradise, and similarly, most of us prefer to
read Inferno, but when we come to reading Parodiso, we're
very confused. So we're going to be actually taking you
through that poem line by line like we did with
Inferno Purgatorio, and actually looking at how Dante very carefully
reconciles some of the contradictory traditions about the heavens in
the Christian apocalyptic tradition and does that through the persons
of the saints.
Speaker 2: And so this is truly important for us right now,
with the re enchantment of the world happening, we have
to be able to look at those that that did
it in the most powerful way that we're able to
reconcile the ancient pagan traditions with Christianity, with his modern understanding,
the most modern understanding of the cosmos that he had.
And so this is the work that we need to do.
So we need to learn from Dante. So the course
starts November fifth to December third, right, is that what
I've got five weeks two to five on Wednesdays.
Speaker 3: So the cost is going to be one hundred and
ninety dollars US. But we do have an early bird
sale through the month of October, which bumps it down
to one hundred and sixty one. You can use to
Code Earth early Paradiso and that is good through the
end of October.
Speaker 2: And the Inferno and the Purgatorial class are also on
sale at the same time, so you have fifty percent
off during the month of October Code Dante fifty and
you know that means you have no excuse.
Speaker 1: So if you.
Speaker 2: Haven't taken the first classes, now is the chance to
scoop all that up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you don't want to watch live or
it doesn't work for your schedule, you'll be able to
follow along at your own pace.
Speaker 1: Just like with all of our courses.
Speaker 3: You'll have access to lecture recording, slides, additional readings, and
you can still ask questions and interact with your fellow
classmates in our circle forums.
Speaker 1: And so join us.
Speaker 2: After all of this suffering through Inferno and Purgatorio, the
Symbolic world finally goes to heaven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, join us.
Speaker 2: And so the story Tangled is actually quite a loose
retelling of the story of Rapunzel. You know, the basic
esthetic of it is there, but they've changed several things.
The first thing that they've changed is, of course, in
the original tale, Rapunzel's plight happens because her parents have
made a deal with an evil witch in some ways
that they have traded cabbages for the child, because the
woman who's pregnant, she's hungry for cabbages. So the husband
accepts this very weird compromise where he takes the cabbage
and ultimately accepts, even though not totally believing it, I guess,
accepts that the witch is going to take their the child.
And it's funny because you could see how you would
want to change that part of the story, because it
seems improbable that parents would trade their child for cabbage,
that someone would trade their own, their only child for cabbage.
Speaker 1: But if you back away.
Speaker 2: A little bit and you look at the original story
from a little bit of a distance, you realize that,
in fact, this is something that is happening all the time. Now,
you know, with of course, the the the huge amount
of abortion, and you can see that many people, in fact,
are willing to give up their child, you know, for
the pleasures of the belly, you could call it right
for you know, and in terms also of contraception, all
of these types of behaviors that the modern world has taken.
It's in fact quite normal for people to give up
their child, or give up a child for the pleasures
of immediate pleasures, you could say. And even people who
sometimes decide not to have children, couples who get married
and decide not to have children, they usually frame it
as children are you know, a weight or something that
would get in the way of their aspiration of their
own personal aspirations. Of course, usually is not framed as
let's say, superficially as something you want to eat or
the desire.
Speaker 1: Of the belly.
Speaker 2: But in the story, this is really the best way
to represent it. It's the idea of sacrifice, true meaning
for a more immediate pleasure. Now in the Tangled story
they change that where in fact the witch.
Speaker 1: Gothel, mother gothel.
Speaker 2: She is using this magical flower in order to stay
young and to remain beautiful. And when they use the
flower to heal the queen who is sick, so that
she can have her child. Mother, Gothel is angry and
goes and steals the child away from the mother. Now,
although it's different from the original story, it's a quite
beautiful and powerful image to help us see what it
is that's going on that in some ways Gothel is
using beauty in a superficial way. She is not she
doesn't seem to have children, she doesn't seem to be married,
she seems to be obsessed with keeping herself young, and
so she wants to capture this power of beauty for
that purpose. But in the case of the Queen, this
beauty you could say, or the power of this power
of youth and the power of beauty, all of this
idea is actually put in service of her being able
to have a child right and to have a family.
And so you can see how, although it's different, it's
quite subtle and quite smartly similar to the version of
Rapunzel from the original fairy Tales that it is again
a choice between something like artificial, superficial beauty and youth
compared to beauty and youth at the service of something higher,
which is of course a child and to have a family.
So it's pretty smart and what they do, of course,
which is not in the original tale, is that they
make the Rapunzel flower. Because it's not clear whether Rapunzel
is a cabbage or a flower. In the ancient story,
there's like versions where it seems like it's either either one.
Speaker 1: They make the flower.
Speaker 2: The source of this youth, can say, the source of
this uh, this capacity to stay young and to stay beautiful.
And so then what happens, of course in the Tangle
story is that the reason why Gotha wants to keep
Rapunzel in the tower is of course because she is
a tool, right, She's a tool. She uses this child
as a way to get her own desires, right, as
a way to make sure that she stays young. And
now Rapunzel, with her long golden hair, she now becomes
the source of the magic which will keep the witch young.
So she keeps her in the tower, and she has
her singing a song, and this song is what will
will keep her young. Now. Again, like I said, it's
different from the original story, but it is quite powerful,
you know, because you could say that it's again in
some ways, the idea of having a child, or protecting
a child, or having a child for the wrong reasons
or using them for your own glorification or your own,
your own purposes, but then also youth itself as a
tool in order to remain powerful and to have influence
on others, because that is of course Gothel. You see
the way that she acts with Rapunzel, that she is manipulating,
she is controlling her, and so she also becomes this
image of the devouring mother in the union sense, which
is there in the original tale. For sure, that the
witch is really this devouring mother, like she wants to
overprotect Rapunzel, and the original story it's not clear her
motivations aren't spelled out.
Speaker 1: In our version of the.
Speaker 2: Book, we tried to make those coherent, you know, we
try to dramatically explain why the queen is trying to
protect Rapunzel in the tower. But I think Disney also
saw that there was this narrative problem in the story
or in terms of our modern narrative sensibilities that you
had to justify, like why would this witch want to
keep Rapunzel in the tower, And so they kind of
worked all of this out in order to find a solution.
The biggest difference between the two stories is, of course,
in the love story. In the story of Rapunzel the
original fairy tales, in some ways you have this trope
of the overprotective mother who is refusing for the girl
to develop herself fully and be able to go out
into the world obviously and find a husband, found a family.
So the witch is trying to keep Rapunzel for herself
and so and also not preparing her for her growing up,
for her becoming a woman. And so what it sets
up is this opposition where she guards her too much,
and because she guards her, the prince comes to encounter her,
and then they fall in love, and she gets pregnant
in the tower, which is what you see in the
original stories. So there's a kind of you know, it's
a kind of two extremes on the one and because
she protected her too much and didn't you know, prepare
her for becoming a mother, for becoming a wife, then
you know, she plays around the fire and then she
gets pregnant in the tower without being married and without
being with the prince. And this of course, now in
the Tangle version, like none of this is there. Now
the story of Rapunzel is reduced, I think in this
case now is reduced to this idea of self development.
And so Rapunzel is trapped in this tower. She wants
to go out, she wants to explore, she wants to
discover the world, you know, And that is what the
story ends up being about, is some way she has
to break free from the stricture of her devouring mother
in order to fully realize herself. And interestingly enough, in
the in the Tangled movie, that love story becomes very
secondary in the story. It's almost almost like tagged on
at the end, you're not even sure, you know, at
the end they kind.
Speaker 1: Of get married.
Speaker 2: But it even in the way that it's described as
if this is really not that important in the thrust
of the story, that Rapunzel and I ever get married, Well,
I'm pleased to tell you that after years and years.
Speaker 1: Of asking and asking and asking, I finally said yes.
Speaker 2: What's mostly important in the thrust of the story is is,
in some ways Rapunzel's own self development. And when you
look back at it now, when you see from the
point of view of you know, twenty twenty five the Tangle,
you already see all the girl boss motifs that are
there Entangled, that were burgeoning. And so I remember watching
it before and kind of and liking it, you know,
and thinking it was funny, and thinking it was it
was well done. But now you look back and you
realize that the Flint character is absolutely useless. The Flint
character all through the story is only a kind of
obstacle to the development of Rapunzel. He is lying, you know,
he's doing all these things. He's trying to get her
give him the crown right up till the end. You know,
when they get stuck in the tavern, she's the one
who helps them escape, etc.
Speaker 1: Etc.
Speaker 2: She's always kind of saving him, finding the solutions. And
of course at the very end of the story you
realize that all of this is a setup so that
she saved the prince. Now, in the story of Rapunzel,
the original story, it is Rapunzel that saves the prince.
It's actually a very powerful example to know that these
stories don't always go one way, that in fact, the
stories have all kinds of different possibilities in them. In
the story of the early story of Rapunzel, Rapunzel cries
on the blind prince and then makes him see again
and reintegrates him into his family that he in some
ways that has been alienated from you know, because of
him falling in the thorns. But in the Tangled story,
the hair is an image of this external beauty, right,
It's the idea of something that is on the outside that.
Speaker 1: Is made making you beautiful.
Speaker 2: That is of course there in the original Rapunzel story
as well, and that's why it's the tool by which
the Witch is able to remain externally beautiful. Why, being
you know, internally ugly and becoming more and more horrible
on the inside, She's still able to maintain this external beauty.
So you can imagine the hair as a kind of
outer shell that could be represented as you know, makeup
or surgical transformations, you know, facelift or whatever knows job,
all of these external things that we do to our
body to stay young or botox, and in some ways,
you know, that is what it manifests at the It
has several symbols in this story, but that is definitely
the main aspect of what's going on, and it's very
precious for that reason.
Speaker 1: It's her youth, it's her.
Speaker 2: It's an image of this kind of this this youthfulness,
but youthfulness as this this outside representation of beauty, and
Flynn she's willing to kind of sacrifice everything, ultimately the
thing that she wanted, which is to be free. She
is willing to sacrifice that in order to save Flynn
at the very end of the movie, when Flynn is
dying and then Flynn realizes that he also has to
sacrifice himself. It's a beautiful image at the end, and
it's a great idea to have Flynn cut her hair
instead of the witch in the context of the story
that is told. And then what happens is that as
he cuts off her hair in ways, as he is
willing to sacrifice her external beauty and the externals of
her beauty, then she discovers that the true beauty right
is inside and that she has chess changed, she has matured,
and because she was willing to sacrifice herself for Flynn,
then she in some ways the magic has moved inside
her heart and now she can heal Flynn with her
tears that well up from inside. And so it's actually
a very powerful, beautiful image. But it is quite different
from the original Rapunzel, and the original Rapunzel, what you
have is instead of this being mostly a journey of
self discovery, although like I said at the end, there
is this beautiful moment of kind of self sacrifice on
both sides of the fence with Flynn and Rapunzel. In
the original Rapunzel, it's mostly about their union. That is
what's the most important thing about it. So you can
understand that in the original Rapunzel, Rapunzel's hair also acts
as this external beauty. So think about the prince coming
and seeing this beautiful hair and being attracted by this
beautiful hair, and then in some ways, what is his
motivation for coming to see Rapunzel in the tower? And
I think what's intimated in the story is that he's
not going there for the right reasons. He's going there
because of her external beauty and also because obviously of
the romance that he develops with her in the tower.
But in the story of Rapunzel, he never takes her
out of the tower, right, he never saves her. Why well,
because he's not completely clear and what his intentions are
and what is the reason why he is trying to
get Rapunzel. And the power of the story is that
when the witch and somebody uses the hair to trick
the prince, you can think that he you know, he
has been tricked that is, he has been too attentive
to her external beauty and to the things that it
procures him in, including pleasure and sexual pleasure, that he
has not been paying attention to her voice, you could say,
or to her inner self, and to the true Rapunzel
that is behind the hair. So that now when he
goes up the tower and he encounters the evil witch, you.
Speaker 1: Know he has been tricked.
Speaker 2: But there's something deeper going on in the original Rapunzel story,
which is that any man, right, if you enter into relationship,
any man that enters into a relationship with a woman
for only those reasons, only the reasons of external beauty,
only the reasons you know of the pleasure that comes
from those from that external beauty, will one day wake
up and realize that that woman is now old, you know,
And if you haven't been able to transfer that interest
to the real person, right to the person that is
on the inside, then you will be alienated, right and
you will become blind, just like in the story of Rapunzel.
So in the story of RAPUNZELI falls and he's blinded
by the pricks, blinded by the thorns, and he wanders
for several years until he's able to hear Rapunzel's voice again.
And that is something that sadly happens to many men
who when their wife starts to have children. Obviously, having
children will change a woman's body, will will change her,
let's say, her priorities, will change all kinds of things
about her. And if that relationship isn't strong, then it
can be a moment where men are alienated, and sadly,
some men might leave like this. These are the stories
of men who abandon their families. And then some men
might wander for a while until they're able to see
the goodness that is behind it all and the true
purpose of all of this, which is the creation of
a family. So, although the story of Tangled is very
powerful and beautiful in the way that it brings together
these two self sacrifices, in the end the story of
self realization, I think is weaker and not as strong
as the story of true union, right, the story of
moving towards something that completely transcends you and joins you
together in the creation of a family, And sadly, in
the Tangle movie at the end that is treated almost
like a detail. As Rapunzel returns to the castle and
is joined with her family, and so I hope this
was a little bit of an interesting meditation for you
to consider the difference between Tangled and Rapunzel. I'm curious
to know what all of you think. Did you notice
the things that I mentioned in the Tangle movie? Do
you think that it was already a beginning of these
these kind of tropes? And I say that really now
in retrospect, because when I watched the Rapunzel movie, the
Tangle movie, uh, you know, I think I was probably
in my early twenties when it came out. I thought
it was well done. I thought it was great. I
was curious about why they had changed the elements that
they changed. I think I now I understand it more.
But obviously, meditating on all that is what guided us.
You know, obviously the original story and why it was
changed and how that affects the story is some of
the things that I meditated on when I wrote our
own version of Rapunzel and Evil Witch, which you can
get now on Amazon, folks.
Speaker 1: We are finally on Amazon.
Speaker 2: If you're in the United States, you can get it
prime shipping and all of that. So if you haven't
gotten a Punzel yet, and our other fairy tales.
Speaker 1: Please go and do that.
Speaker 2: So thanks everybody for your attention and talk to you
very soon, bye bye. If you enjoy these videos and podcasts,
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