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Watching the enjoyable animation “Tangled” tonight with our kids and my daughter was full of questions and emotion. She is now old enough to (usually) understand plot and comment on what’s happening and get deeply affected by what is going on. At one point things became mildly scary and she moved from her seat on the sofa to hiding behind it. It was slightly amazing to see that happen organically for the first time. No one has ever suggested to her that that is a good place to hide and logically it seems unlikely that you’d be any safer behind a sofa than on it, if you were worried about something on the TV. And yet it’s seemingly a universal human reaction. I remember doing the same to 1970s Doctor Who and now my child was doing the same (though at least Doctor Who was really scary and not just about a woman with really long hair). My son, seeing his sister behind the sofa, also elected to go and view the film from there. His was a less organic reaction and more to do with being keen to copy everything that his adored big sister does (and so maybe I too didn’t make that decision but just copied my own siblings), but it was still cute to see him peeking over the back of the chair. His sister’s whole head was above the barricade, but only the top of his was visible.
Oh to be able to be as surprised and moved by a film as my daughter was today. She was genuinely heartbroken that Rapunzle had been separated from her family. She cried when (spoiler alert) Rapunzle’s hair was chopped off. She was far more upset about this than Rapunzle’s boyfriend being stabbed. I am not sure she even really recovered from her upset when things resolved happily. Phoebe would rather have magic hair than a boyfriend (or possibly even freedom) and so the breaking of the curse did not make her happy. We asked her her favourite character afterwards and she said, “The film was sad so I’d have to say none of them.” She was glad the witch got killed because this meant that no kid would ever be taken from their family again. I thought about correcting her and letting her know about how awful the world (and the President of the United States) was. But I let her live in ignorant bliss. Because I wish that was true too.
But we’d let her stay up late to see the end and though she was a bit worried she’d have scary dreams as a result, she appreciated that this was special and it was great to share this with her. Though when I said the film was about the importance of family and how we should all love each other, she hugged her mum but wouldn’t hug me. So thanks a lot Walt Disney you head-in-a-jar prick.
How much will that cube go for? If you got one via the Kickstarter then I hope you are pleased with your investment.
