The Disney movie 'Tangled'

CK

Her act of rebellion, leaving and disobeying the "mother", occurred before she knew her mother was the kidnapper. Her discovery did not occur until much later in the movie. In fact, the first hint the girl may have had that she was kidnapped was when the girl saw a picture of the King, Queen, and herself (as a baby) when visiting the city. She left the tower to see the lights; she deceived her "mother" leave in order to operate her plan. Then, she took the opportunity to leave. It was only later did Rapunzel realize that this mother was truly evil. Even as late as when the thief went across the lake in the boat, Rapunzel did not know her mother's evil ways.

Do you agree, that when she lied, deceived, and left the tower that she did not know her "mother" was as evil as it will later appear to her? If she knew, where in the movie does it show that the girl discovered this evil prior to her initial acts of rebellion and deception?

In other words, the movie shows the "ends justifies the means." Her rebellion ended with her realizing she was justified to be rebellious and disobey. This is a horrific and evil and teaches a morality contrary to Biblical principles. The ends does not justify the means.

The situation Disney placed the girl was far from what most kids will experience and brought forth moral questions that are unrealistic for the vase majority of children. This movie is a sort of a "values clarification" movie, a concept that was introduced in the late 80's and early 90's. The fact is, Christians are responsible for their behavior, even their evil behavior towards evil people. This movie makes complete light of evil, lying, and rebellion and shows such actions can be justified by the end results.

 

I am not saying that confining someone to one room all their life is right. Rather, the situation was dramatically untenable for the vast majority of kids across the nation. Disney put this child in a position to excuse the later rebellion. The worldview communicated was simple, if your parents are too strict, you can be justified by rebelling against this authority. Her rebellion was not because of abuse, her rebellion was because she wanted to see the lights.

Secondly, the fact that a lying thief is the "hero" and "love" excuses his bad morals is horrible. This thief would later marry the Rapunzel. Are we to communicate to our families, our girls, that bad people are okay to marry because we can help see them change? No! I want my girls to marry godly men with good morals. What a horrible moral statement made in that movie.

 

Then ends does not justify the means.

A couple of good actions does not make someone reformed.

When I have done marital and premarital counseling, oftentimes I hear people excuse all sorts of bad acts by a few "good acts." Yes, God can redeem people and change them. However, I would not place a "redeemed" child molester in a room alone with a child. I would also not trust my daughter to a thief because he does one or two good acts. Rather, I would examine his character.

This girl again, was shown "justified" for daring to fall for a thief and "justified" for hanging out with a man of horrible character because "he fell in love" and did a few good things.

Rather, when I discussed this movie with my children, I took them to proverbs where it says that a man is known by the company he keeps. She chose to rebel against her mother by clinging to a thief. Yet, it was all okay because he became a "good person" and her mother turned out to be evil.

The message once again communicated is "the ends justified the means." Since everything turned out okay, they showed she was right in running away with a thief. Because he reformed, they showed she was justified in relying on a criminal. Because he did a few good acts, they showed he now is a man of great character that you should marry. How many people have you known who are now heartbroken because the evil men they married showed a few months of "good character."

No, the ends does not justify the means. It is not right to run away with a criminal, to rely upon him, and to open your heart to such men. Because a criminal does a few good acts does not make all the previous acts good, nor does it mean he is a man of character. The man is a thief and a criminal and I personally do not want my kids justifying a criminal's behavior because he does some good things.\

God redeemed me and changed me, so I understand redemption and sanctification. However, when I was redeemed did not make me a man of character. I still had baggage and God had to work in me for years before I was ready to marry. The type of things we see in this movie are only in fairy tales, and not in real life.

 

You are now going above and beyond in trying to link what I said to submitting to pedophiles. Come on, let us have a philosophical/theological discussion and not this type of discussion. You have introduced a red herring into the conversation.

First, I said in the initial post that I communicate to my children that if I were to give a command different than the Bible, they are to disobey me and obey God's Word (in the other thread).

Secondly, I noted the reason for the rebellion was not the abuse, but the "lights." This is evident in the movie. No one would have criticized her for running away from abuse. I do criticize Disney for making the excuse for rebellion the lights.

I never said Disney wanted a Christian worldview. However, their worldview is extremely destructive with horrendous ramifications.

However, your post condemning WND over this issue was over the top as well. I do not like WND and if I ever get a link to them, I never even read the article because I think they are quacks. However, to take issue with them over this issue of a movie that advances the worldly philosophy "the ends justifies the means" is wrong. Yes, they are not advancing a Christian worldview nor meant to, but as Christians or thinking philosophers, we should call out their horrible worldview for what it is, evil.

You mentioned, "I think the positives far outweigh the negatives." Can you name me the positives in the movie? The only major positive my family received was a Biblical discussion that ensued after watching the movie. The lady lied and deceived, fell in love with a thief and criminal, and everything was okay because the ends justified the means.

Now, I didn't shelter my kids from the movie. Rather, I took them through the movie and we discussed the movie from a Christian Worldview. We discussed what should have occurred and why the main characters were all wrong. There was not a "good" character among the main characters. Disney sought to place such a worldview conflict to justify values clarification.

My question, if you watched it with your children, did you talk to them about the horrible parts of the movie like her rebellion, lying, embracing a thief and excusing his character?

Because something ends in good does not make the means good. It never has nor ever will. Such a philosophy has been used to excuse a myriad of evils in our world and that philosophy is anti-Christian. Packaging it into a nice cartoon does not make it less horrible, but makes it more horrible in that they are concealing the horrendous philosophy in such a form.

 

Not to belabor the point, but as I recall the movie also contained the phrase, "a little rebellion... is good."

Really? That is not exactly what I think is good movie going. I am teaching my kids that rebellion is not good, the opposite of Disney.

 

Depends how you define "rebellion." The term "rebellion" gets tossed around a lot in super-strict, legalistic fundy circles, and usually does NOT mean rebellion against God, but against man-made rules and traditions that have no basis in scripture. Anything but blind obedience or brainwashing is labeled as "rebellion" to keep people in line, to keep them from using their God-given brains to question cultish behavior.

 

ABC,

The context was a thief who is excusing a lady's deceit and lying in order to go see lights in the sky. He excuses her actions by saying that everyone needs a to rebel a little. To young kids, this is not something that needs to be conveyed or supported. If my child disobeyed one of my rules and quoted this part of the movie, we would have some serious talks.

Again, what Disney was trying to do was to make the ends justify the means. The girl gets away from an evil lady and back to her family through deception, lying, and falling in love with a criminal. As I convey to my children, it is never right to do wrong in order to do right. Rather, I give my child the example of people like Betsy in the true story "The Hiding Place."

Betsy and her family did disobey illegitimate laws which contradicted the Bible. However, in so doing, they refused to sin and be rebellious. Their moral compass was to always tell the truth, to be loving even to their captors, and to display a strong Christian ethic. They did not believe the ends justified the means. Rather, they believed the ends could be accomplished by righteous means. As a result, we see the character of Betsy and Corrie as true examples of moral and Christian ethics. We should see Rapunzel not as someone to emulate.

Tangled conveys the opposite viewpoint to Betsy and Corrie. While I certainly agree that locking a woman up in a room for all her life is wrong, this does not justify her later acts. Disney paints a picture that the ends justifies the means, and I think that is horrible. As well, I think conveying in a movie that everyone needs to rebel is a recipe for disaster among young children.

Yes, my family watched the movie. However, we had a serious conversation about this movie to implant true Biblical virtue, not Hollywood's virtues.

 

I'm glad to hear you used the movie as a teaching tool for your kids. I wish more parents would do that!

 

I am curious, Ruiz...

If the movie offended you as much as you say, why didn't you get your family out of the theater after the first offensive part? I mean, you see offenses over and over and then complain to others later. What gives?

It really makes no sense to watch a movie, find offenses several times through it, continue to watch the movie to the end, then to complain about it.

 

Steadfast,

We didn't see it in a theater but at home. However, I do not believe in always sheltering my children from contrary worldviews. Rather, I believe in seeing them confronted with other worldviews and engaging those worldview intellectually and Biblically. Don (D.A) Carson once noted that one of the problems with modern Bible Schools and Seminaries are that they condemn others so much, but never really engage others that when some of us actually meet a liberal (for instance) and find out they are nice people, who do nice things, and are very smart, it disarms us and causes more harm in the long run. Within limits to my children's age and maturity, I want to engage them in such conversations so when they see other worldviews elsewhere they can recognize it, engage it, and not be threatened by it.

Granted, I don't want to expose my kids to pornography or other visuals, but worldviews are oftentimes helpful to helping us understand our views better.

 

Well, troublemaker that I am, I believe the ends did justify the means.

The first thing one should keep in mind is that Rapunzel was 18. She wasn't a small child and she wasn't a rebellious hormonal teenager. She had one simple wish, to see the lights, and she was denied by her trusted and beloved "mother" for reasons that were less than truthful.

And she knew it. Eventually, every child that is abused and taken advantage of longterm begins to question the motives of the abuser. And when they lose their assurance that the abuser can be trusted to teach them right from wrong then they are left to their own devices to figure it out for themselves.

It wasn't "rebellion" for her to leave the tower (thief or no thief) it was survival. She could have stayed. Used 'rebellion" as a reason not to leave even when she suspected strongly that her "mother" wasn't to be trusted. And she may never have escaped, because it takes an amazing amount of mental fortitude to leave an abusive situation. Rapunzel was leaving every single bit of security that she'd ever had behind her with no assurance whatsoever that she'd have any ever again.

And even when she left, even when she was for the first time feeling grass under her feet, she questioned if she dared go on. Because when you've been told you aren't capable, you won't survive, people don't care about you, you'll never amount to anything on your own, you question every step you make. The temptation to return to the abuse is amazingly and unexplainably strong.

Instead of focusing on what Rapunzel did wrong, why didn't you use the opportunity to show your children how she was taken care of in spite of her seeming wrong decision. How the thief was sent just at the right moment to protect Rapunzel (who certainly planned on leaving the tower by herself) as she traveled through the forest. And Who would be a great enough God to care about one innocent girl who'd never left her room? And while He was at it He sent along a man who also needed something.

Aren't these better things to focus on? And aren't we told to focus on what is good?

 

I didn't really see too much wrong with this movie. Seems like a good movie.

 

What is it with all the dead threads being resurrected lately?