Interestingly, the comedy in the film does not come from the “incongruous contrast” of Mother Gothel desperately trying to remain youthful but rather through her treatment of Rapunzel. This creates a complex dynamic between the pair as despite Rapunzel being the one who helps maintain Gothel’s youthful appearance, Gothel treats Rapunzel very poorly. It could be argued that this adds a secondary interpretation to the ‘campness’ of Tangled, as Babuscio argued that “Camp is subversive of commonly received standards” and Mother Gothel’s treatment of Rapunzel definitely subverts the norms of how a supposedly loving parent should treat their child, especially when said child is the reason she is able to remain looking youthful.
However, I believe that it is here that the limitations of Babuscio’s arguments can be seen as he fails to define the parameters of this subversion enough. Viewing Mother Gothel’s treatment of Rapunzel as ‘camp’ may be stretching his argument slightly as his argument is said in reference to the fact that homosexuality is seen as a “moral deviation” from the norm. As such, the subversion in Tangled does not exactly fit this argument as whilst Gothel’s treatment of Rapunzel does subvert the norms of how a mother should treat their child, it does not link back to homosexuality being viewed as unacceptable. If Babuscio were to outline parameters for his arguments, one could more clearly understand whether or not these arguments were applicable to certain films (such as Tangled).
Mother Gothel’s treatment of Rapunzel can be seen in the clip I have included below.
I think this is a really interesting connection; I wouldn’t have thought of ‘Tangled’ as Camp but the way you argue this completely convinced me of the link. It’s really interesting to think about how Camp can be seen in a range of different genres and types of films that wouldn’t immediately come to mind, and shows how influential it is even if we don’t realise it.
I think Mother Gothel is definitely a creative example of camp and she exactly fits the description that Babuscio writes about. It helps that she has a flair for the dramatics. I think this example Babuscio provides is really interesting though and the trope of women not being able to accept that they’re aging is almost certainly related to something other than simply camp…
I would have never thought of Mother Gothel as a camp character but your connection between Gothel and Rapunzel and the young/old contrast that Babuscio mentions is brilliant! I think it is also “ironic” that Gothel is the one who cares about remaining youthful, meanwhile Rapunzel does not even mind losing the magical powers of her hair when it gets cut off.
I agree that Mother Gothel is a camp performance of the narcissistic mother archetype- I think this extends to certain other animated ‘evil stepmother’ characters too. ‘Mother Knows Best’ makes a serious emotional manipulation exaggeratedly theatrical and artificial, which positions Mother Gothel’s role-playing as a performance (one that she seems to be relishing in).