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Warning: The above picture may contain content that boys won’t like, including a female and that female’s really long hair.
Last week I attempted to figure out why, exactly, Disney decided to change the title of their upcoming animated film ***Rapunzel ***to Tangled](Tangled (2010) - Movie | Moviefone). After sending a couple emails to Disney, the only response I received was that it was “a filmmaker decision”. A filmmaker decision … to change the title of a film from one that immediately has a familiar, built-in audience to one that, in all honesty, is kinda boring? I originally figured the title change may have had something to do with them altering the traditional *Rapunzel *story enough that it warranted a completely different title, though Disney’s weird “can’t say anything about that, sorry” reply was just too odd. So I figured, eh – why make a whole lotta something out of nothing, and I dropped the idea for a story … until today.
Looks like The Los Angeles Times was in the mood to do a little more digging, and what they found out was that Disney changed the title because they wanted it to appeal to more boys. Not that *Tangled *immediately shouts out, “Hey boys, there are boys who do lots of cool boy things in this, so come see it!” … but after the Mouse House apparently blamed Princess and the Frog’s box office failures (yes, $222 million worldwide is not good enough these days) on the fact that boys were turned off by the word “Princess” in the title, a move to strip Rapunzel of her identity was commissioned … because, ya know, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid never really had much success with their girl-ish titles either, right?
Says Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios: “We did not want to be put in a box. Some people might assume it’s a fairy tale for girls when it’s not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody.”
Continue reading The Real Reason Why Disney Changed ‘Rapunzel’ to ‘Tangled’