Tangled

First, I absolutely loved the movie. I laughed, I cried, I laughed and cried together. I'm impressed that they managed to take a very problematic fairy tale where EVERYONE conspires to keep the girl locked up in her tower doing their bidding, and turn it into that movie.

But.

D'ya think Disney will ever make a movie that a) passes the Bechdel test (this one does) and b) doesn't do it by invoking Stockholm Syndrome or some other element of villainy in the second female character? I mean, in some ways invoking Stockholm Syndrome with a male villian is much more problematic, but, well, I'm tired of this one.

I will also admit that several other Disney films were playing through the back of my head as I watched it. In no particular order, I got strong vibes of Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid (half a dozen times) Hunchback of Notre Dame (again, repeatedly) and a little bit of Finding Nemo and Cinderella. Fairy tale tropes FTW!

Also, they managed to leave the mom in place, unlike so many other Missing Moms of Disney - but neither she nor the dad actually says a single word.

All in all, it gets a B+. It never got past its tropes or did anything substantially new with them, but it did exactly what it set out to do, which was create a fairy tale movie that appealed to little girls and offered some fun bits for the parents too.