Feminism as shown differently in the two movies: Tangled and Pride and Prejudice

Have you watched these two movies, Tangled and Pride and Prejudice? This article of mine was written last July when my English teacher asked me to differentiate Feminism based on these two movies. For my friends here, are you one of those who candidly speak that men and women have equal rights in the society or shall I say it this way If he can do it, so am I.

Before we proceed, what is Feminism? It is when you speak for equality for everyone's sake. Not minding one's social status, gender, race, sexual orientation and the such. It is about everyone's opportunities and rights equal. Also, Feminism was made to boost every woman's rights towards men that, just because you're a woman doesn't mean you cannot do what a man can. In here we're going to differentiate how Feminism was shown in these two different movies, Tangled and Pride and Prejudice. These two movies are popular up until now, if you haven't heard of it, then this article may catch your interest.

In Pride and Prejudice, women's most important part in their lives is marriage, especially if you're poor, women are supposed to marry men whose part of a wealthy family to gain monetary and social stability. In their time, marriages aren't caused by romantic feelings or attachments, it does happen - but rarely. It is mostly because of a greater social status, financial guarantee and for a better life, of course. Women have only two options, to either get married and raise a family or became an unmarried woman for the rest of their lives. There's nothing else more. Women are supposed to be given knowledge especially in drawing, embroidery and in playing piano, that's what their standards are for a woman to be suited in becoming one's fiancee. In short women are seen as inferior to men. On the other hand, in Pride and Prejudice,men are somehow depicted as someone dominant and superior than women, especially when they have a good social status, because usually it is mostly men who could give a woman a good life, someone who owns a large estate and a fine garden. Men could do as they please, but in accordance with their social status and appearance. There are lots of characters in Pride and Prejudice, let's give a little detail for the others and focus on its main characters. So basically, the Bennet family is composed of five daughters, which their mother, Mrs. Bennet planned to arrange her daughters to be married into wealthy families, no romantic attachments - just for wealth and a good life. Mrs. Bennet even arranged her daughter to one of its cousin Mr. Collins, well it's quite normal in their times but if you've heard about it just now, it does sound weird. However, in this family, Mrs. Bennet's husband shows that he doesn't always have full authority over his daughters, especially in Mr. Collin's case, wherein it'll benefit their family if they let Elizabeth marry him. Let's proceed to Mr. Darcy, he is a wealthy man, but with an attitude. He looks down on people with of course, low social status and is inferior to him. But that's something Elizabeth Bennet didn't like, Elizabeth is someone who just doesn't want to get married unless she has feelings for that certain someone, even though she knows it won't be a good decision for her not to get married. She also doesn't rely on men and does things on her own, a complete opposite of women in her times.

In Tangled, it first implies that a certain woman is incapable of doing or let's say saving herself in a situation unless she has a man because they're too weak and submissive. It also implies that women has to be saved by a man or they would live a miserable life. On the other hand, in Tangled, most men are supposed to be brave and adventurous. But of course, it changes throughout the story. In Tangled, let's focus with it's main characters, first off, of course, Rapunzel. She is but a beautiful, sweet, innocent and a submissive girl. Grew up in an isolated place with no one to talk to but her mother (which is the witch). Rapunzel is also clueless when it comes to the outside world, she has no idea in detail. She also didn't get a really stable education aside from the things she's learning on her own. Not until she met a man named Flynn, she literally knocked Flynn unconscious using the frying pan - which is not a natural thing for a woman to do. But in here, Rapunzel breaks all the gender stereotypes there is, naturally, women are the one to be saved by men all the time, but in her case, she's the one who's saving the male lead all the time. Let's proceed to Flynn, unlike your typical male protagonist, Flynn is nothing alike them. He isn't very muscly and good looking, he also shows a lot of emotions unlike other male protagonist who just usually glare or do something except that one. Throughout the story Flynn has been the one needing Rapunzel's help and he's also the one to always be in difficult situation.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

These two movies shows different ways of how women and men acts, on the other movie it is shown that women has to rely on men, while on the other one, women can just go on by themselves - not being saved like a princess by a man. So if you're a woman, where are you in these two?

PS: Thank you so much for reading. I am grateful that you spare some of your time reading my articles. Many thanks.

• Lead image is from Unsplash

• Pride and Prejudice picture is from imdb.com

• Tangled picture is from moviesanywhere.com

• Tangled is a Disney movie while Pride and Prejudice is from BBC.