“Who is Your Favourite?” Contest #1 | Disney Tangled's Rapunzel

This is my entry for @angiechin28's Who Is Your Favorite Disney Princess or Disney Character? contest.

Well, guess who is that in my painting? It's not that hard to guess, right? Of course, it's Rapunzel. I honestly don't have a favorite Disney princess or character. My daughter who is eight years old this year is no longer into Disney princess, unlike when she was 5 years old. I remember at that time she was into ALL of those princesses and she wanted to own every single one of their dresses! Of course, we didn't buy them for her except for a couple of dresses that she really liked. She wore those dresses everywhere - church, weddings, outings, wet market (yes, literally! LOL). She is no longer in that phase now and these days she is more into Lego stuff. She no longer wanted to dress up and these days she prefers to wear t-shirts and pants, and sneaker or flip flops EVERYWHERE. I have a MINI teenager! Help!

Anyway, to honor my girl's "princess phase", I picked Rapunzel as my favorite character because she was also my girl's favorite princess. Now, this is not the traditional Rapunzel from Brothers Grimm but rather from Disney's movie, Tangled. My daughter used to watch this movie over and over again without getting bored. So the storyline kinda stick in my head until now.

What do I like the most about Tangled's Rapunzel?

@angiechin28 mentioned in her post that the Disney princesses need men aka Prince Charming to come save them from their misery. Well, those stories were hundreds of years old when women were seen as meek and weak. I am sure no one ever questions the plot until the feminist movement in the 20th century.

Before writing this post I did a bit of googling about Rapunzel. No one knew who was the original writer and it has striking similarities to the 11th-century Persian tale of Rudāba. My research also revealed that in the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel was pregnant by the Prince Charming and gave birth to twins! 🙄

I digress...let's go back to the original subject - Tangled's Rapunzel.

There is NOTHING weak and meek about this version of Rapunzel. Yes, she did fall in love with Flynn the Thief but that was not the main focus of the story. The theme of the story is about chasing after your dream and in Rapunzel's case she longs to see (in person) the mysterious sky lanterns that appear on her birthday every year. She is brave and very determined to fulfill her wishes to see those lanterns and she is willing to risk being punished by the evil Gothel for doing just that. She doesn't fall in love with Flynn at the first sight and she sees him as an enemy and not her rescuer. She is a smart girl too because she demands that Flynn escort her to see the lanterns in exchange for the return of the crown. (He is a thief on the run after stealing a royal crown. He stumbles upon her tower and climbs up. She knocks him cold and hides the crown).