FROM "TANGLED"
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
If you've read my review on "Tangled" than you already know that I'm not as crazy about the film as everybody else is. With
that said, there are many things that I do admire and enjoy about the film and
one of those things is the villain. When I first heard about her, I heard that
she was one of the most realistic Disney villains (Realism in an animated Fairy
Tale Disney film with magic hair; animals with human personalities; and
characters surviving almost every abuse without a scratch like a classic
cartoon) mainly because how she acts like a real Mother towards Rapunzel,
despite not really caring about her; and that she’s one of the darker Disney
villains. After hearing those interesting things about her when I was planning
my list, I've decided to see the movie for myself and for the most part, this
villain met up with my expectations.
The motivation for this villain is perfect writing! Instead of being an old and powerful witch that keeps the Princess locked into the Tower to only serve her by being a servant, she's actually a regular old woman who wants to live forever by using a magical healing flower that can make her turn young whenever she sings a song to it. When I first saw Mother Gothel appear in her old lady form as she sings to the magical flower, I was (And still am) pretty creeped out by her. Just seeing this old and frail creepy old woman sing so beautifully and yet so menacingly to this beautiful flower as she slowly changes into her young self as she smiles evilly in a darkly lit woods is pretty unsettling. Granted, her design is nowhere near as scary as the Wicked Queen in her old hag form in "Snow White", nor are those moments all that unsettling either since the narrator kind of ruins the creepiness of the scene with his comical comments; but for the most part, those scenes with her singing to the flower are in my opinion her best creepy and unsettling moments in the film.
Once her magical Flower is taken away from her to be feed to a dying queen who later on has a baby with golden hair that can heal people but can't be cut of else it'll turn into regular hair; Gothel goes to the extremes of stealing the baby; locking her up in a Tower deep in the woods; and raises the baby like a Mother. Mother Gothel in a way is almost like Frollo from "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame". They're both powerless human beings that raise a unique child since birth for their own personal gain while also keeping their child shut-away from society telling them (And even singing) how dark and cruel the world is. However, what makes Mother Gothel really different from Frollo in terms of raising a child for her own selfish needs is she actually acts like an actual Mother towards Rapunzel than Frollo does as a Father figure towards Quasimodo. I mean granted, you do sense the connection between Frollo and Quasimodo which is interesting, but let’s be honest, Frollo always acts firm and intimidating towards Quasimodo. He hardly cracks a smile; never hugs him, or even says that he loves him. With Mother Gothel on the other hand while still maintaining an intimidating side towards Rapunzel to keep her away from the outside world like Frollo does towards Quasimodo, she still acts more like a loving parent towards her hostage than Frollo does. She smiles; jokes around; gives Rapunzel plenty of things from the outside world to keep her happy (Even if she has to go on long trips to do so); cooks her, her favorite meals; hugs and kisses her; and even tells her that she loves her. She really only gets mad when Rapunzel won't stop asking her about going to the outside world, and most of the time when she tries to ask her, she interrupts her by either joking around; asking her to do her a favor; or pretending not to hear her. While she does a really convincing job at pretending of being a loving protective Mother towards Rapunzel, in the long run, we all know that she only loves her only for her magic hair and cares only about herself. In fact, if you watch the scenes where she acts all loving and caring towards her, you can see some subtle details of her obsessing over Rapunzel's magic hair; like when she expresses her love towards Rapunzel while touching Rapunzel's hair and kissing her on the head for example. She even lovingly calls her, her "Little Flower" as a reference to the original flower that gave Gothel her youth. However, despite only using Rapunzel for her own personal gain, she’s still the best Disney villain that I've seen by far to play as a convincing Parent/Guardian towards the person she’s keeping hostage.
After talking about how great of a job she does of pretending to be Rapunzel's Mother; I guess now might be a good time for me to talk about her villain song. One of the weaknesses that the film has in my opinion is the songs. I don't hate them since a good half of them do a good job telling the story, and on one or two occasions would capture that old traditional Disney Fairy Tale spirit, but as a whole they're pretty bland and forgettable, as well as some of them being either really obnoxious or sounding like songs you'd hear on the radio than in a Disney Fairy Tale film; and sadly the villain's song "Mother Knows Best" suffers from the problems that I have with the film's songs. Don't get me wrong, it does a good job explaining why and how Gothel keeps Rapunzel in the tower by telling her exaggerated stories of the outside world, while making drawings and shadow puppets to scare her away; and I do think Donna Murphy (The actress voicing Gothel) really gives it her all when singing this song, but that being said, I still find it to be a very forgettable villain song, that gets really obnoxious at times with the quick visuals that are supposed to be humorous along with Murphy's over the top delivery. Granted, I don't think the song is that forgettable compared to the other bland and forgettable songs in the film, but it’s still sadly one of the weakest Disney villain songs that I've ever heard. That’s one thing that Gothel fails at doing with keeping a hostage compared to Frollo; Frollo has a much better song.
When Rapunzel finally leaves the tower with the thief Flynn and Mother Gothel thinks something's wrong after seeing the horse Maximus without a rider in the woods and discovers that Rapunzel is nowhere to be seen in the tower, but finds a bag containing a stolen Tiara that belongs to Rapunzel and a wanted poster of the guy who stole it, that's when this villain really starts to become really threatening as her scheming, manipulation, and determination is really put to the test. As she goes searching for Rapunzel and Flynn, she carries a dagger that she uses both for protection and for her own personal evil gain and man does she really look intimidating when she carries that dagger. Considering how desperate and crazy this woman is to get Rapunzel back, this woman seems like she would be willing to kill anyone in her path that comes across as a threat towards getting her hostage back. Look at how she threatens that tiny drunk dressed as Cupid as she laughs happily to then pressing the dagger up against his nose demanding for answers, its a short scene, but man does it really show how crazy and dangerous that this villain is to get what she wants! She also stabs Rapunzel's love interest Flynn in the climax by luring him to the Tower by using Rapunzel's hair to get him to climb to the top just so that she can kill him. That's actually pretty sadistic, as well as the scene itself being pretty violent despite that we don't see any blood on the dagger.
Even though Gothel has a dagger, she uses it very rarely and instead uses her brains and manipulative skills to achieve her plan of getting Rapunzel back and the way she carries it out is ingenious. She persuades two of Flynn's old allies before he crossed them by just willingly giving them the Tiara to persuading them to help her by offering them the chance to get revenge on Flynn for his act of betrayal and use Rapunzel’s gift to heal people to their own greedy advantage. While coming off as persuasive, Gothel's over the top happy persuasive behavior in that scene is pretty goofy (And not funny goofy either). As for the henchmen she hires to help her out with her plan, I really like that they have a past with Flynn which does make you feel their determination to get revenge on Flynn, and the personalities that these thieves have are so tough and cold that in all honesty, they're actually more threatening and intimidating than Mother Gothel is, mainly because they don't usually act as over the top as she does. I actually feel bad that I didn't talk about them or even mention them in my review because they really are a cool pair of henchmen.
With the henchmen on her side, instead of just having them capture Flynn and kill him, she uses the Tiara and the henchman to teach Rapunzel a false lesson of why she shouldn't be in the outside world. After a tender moment between Rapunzel and Flynn, Flynn leaves for a few minutes and Gothel suddenly appears out of nowhere wearing her hooded cloak in a dark and foggy environment (Which the environment fits the scene perfectly since Gothel is clouding Rapunzel's mind in this scene) and tries to take her home, but when Rapunzel refuses, Gothel starts singing a powerful reprise of "Mother Knows Best" (Which is better and less annoying compared to the first time when she sung the song, but is still forgettable just the same) as she sings about how Flynn only wants the Tiara from her and will ditch her once he gets it. She then gives Rapunzel the Tiara to put Flynn's love to the test, and ends the whole number by quickly covering the screen with her cloak while hitting that powerful note at end the song, where she's suddenly gone in the next shot. When Rapunzel gives the Tiara back to Flynn later on in the movie as the henchmen watch, they knock Flynn unconscious as Flynn decides to give them the Tiara as an apology for betraying them, and tie-him up on a boat with the stolen Tiara as he drifts towards the Castle where the guards see him and plan to hang him the next day. When Rapunzel meets the henchmen wondering where Flynn is, they tell her that Flynn has left her and used the scheme of sending a tied-up and unconscious Flynn to the Castle on the boat where he’ll be hanged to make it look like he's leaving Rapunzel. When the henchmen then try to take Rapunzel away to make money off of her, Gothel screws them over by knocking them out, while making it look like she never met these thugs by acting all worried about Rapunzel being on her own and sad for what happened between her and Flynn as she comforts her with opened arms to take her home. Her whole entire plan of bringing Rapunzel back by using her skills of manipulation on Rapunzel with the henchmen she conned to do the dirty work for her, is so clever and well thought out that it’s really the perfect scheme!
The last thing I have left to talk about her is her death. After chaining up Rapunzel once Rapunzel has figured out who she really is, and stabbing her lover for escaping from the Castle and returning to the Tower to rescue her; she lets Rapunzel heal Flynn after promising Gothel that she will go with her without a fight and won't ever leave her again. Gothel chains Flynn up to make sure he doesn't follow them and before Rapunzel can heal Flynn, Flynn takes the opportunity to cut off Rapunzel's hair with a piece of glass from a shattered mirror fearing that it'll be too late to save Rapunzel after she heals him, and Gothel suddenly starts aging rapidly to her old herself (Which I'm guessing that she forgot to use Rapunzel's healing power to make her young after she got her back). This death scene has got to be one of the darkest death scenes that has ever have happened to a Disney villain. Just seeing this woman dying of old age after the many years she has spent of cheating death that are now finally catching up to her as she screams her lungs out from the pain and suffering that she’s going through while we gaze at her wicked and hideous old face that she hates and fears is really an extremely intense and horrifying death scene. The scene gets even more intense as Rapunzel's pet Chameleon uses Rapunzel's detached long hair to make Gothel trip (As revenge for Gothel kicking him earlier in the scene) and fall out of the Tower, and instead of hitting the bottom like any Disney villain would, nor would seem plausible since we saw Flynn and Maximus surviving a drop from a cliff where they managed to survive how Indianan Jones or a classic cartoon character would survive that type of fate (Which by the way isn't a bad thing, since it seems fitting for both characters to survive the way they did); she turns to dust before her cloak reaches the bottom. This death is not only dark and disturbing, but it’s also a very poetic way for this villain to go. She dies from a fate that she has been trying hard and desperate to keep away from all her life; trips on the powerless hair that used to give her, her youth; and falls out of the Tower where she has kept her hostage and herself for all these years just so that she can stay alive.
You can already tell after reading this why I didn't put Mother Gothel higher on the list. It's not just because she can be over the top obnoxious with her humor and personality, as well as having a very forgettable villain song, but comparing her to other Disney villains that go to extreme and sadistic lengths to get what they want (Like Frollo, The Wicked Queen, and Gaston, for example) she's a pretty tamed villain. Still that doesn't at all make her a lame villain because there are plenty of things that I do admire about her. Her motivation of keeping herself alive is great writing; the way she plans things out to get Rapunzel back to the Tower is devilishly clever; she has a decent amount of intimidating and creepy moments; the two thugs she hires are cool; and her demise is incredible. But what really impresses me the most about this villain more than anything else I've just mentioned about her is how manipulative she is towards the person she captures for her own selfish needs. Gothel’s manipulating skills of pretending to be a loving and protective Mother towards her hostage Rapunzel is so convincing and interesting to watch that she's indeed the best Disney villain to have ever pulled that kind of charade to a shut-in hostage.
"You want me to be the bad guy? Fine. Now I'm the bad guy"
-Mother Gothel
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