Now we’ve come to perhaps the most pointless of all of the episodes in the series; Curses!
Summary: After "stealing" a telescope, which was a present from her father, Rapunzel is cursed by Vigor the Visionary, as she and her companions traverse a mountain pass. Hook Foot gives her clues on how to break it by making a potion from the Source Book of Superstitions while Cassandra and Lance cover themselves with good luck charms. Eugene is skeptical but encourages Rapunzel to make her own luck.
It’s Time to Talk About Racism
If you recall my Vigor the Visionary review I discussed how Madame Canardist is an unfortunate stereotype of Romani people. These stereotypes are widely known throughout the world, yet far fewer people know about the real world struggles that the Romani face; both in the past and currently. Therefor, media, particularly American media, has perpetuated these stereotypes with little understanding of how they affect these very real people, as they are not a large demographic within the US.
Yet, exist they do and with the internet there’s been an increase effort to educate people on these stereotypes and why they’re harmful. So if you didn’t know, that’s fine, that’s understandable, and no one thinks ill of you for not knowing. And indeed no one is trying to call the crew of TTS racist themselves; just ignorant of a systematic problem that they don't deal with on the regular.
However once you do know, it’s then up to you to take that new information into account and try to no longer perpetuate negative stereotypes. Which Chris Sonnenburg failed to do.
On tumblr some fans held a discussion regarding how they found Madame Canadrist, and a few other characters, personally offensive. It’s was very respectful, wasn’t tagged to any of the crew, and didn’t blame anyone for what is a larger problem in media currently. Only for Chris to swoop in and proclaim he was leaving Tumblr because of these criticisms.
You can read the post and notes here.
This is not the proper way to deal with criticism; especially criticism of this type.
Look, I’m not Romani, and I can’t speak for them nor ever fully understand what they go through when encountering such stereotypes. All have are my own experiences with negative stereotypes and, let me tell you they have a profound impact on the wider world and your life in general beyond just getting your feelings hurt now and then. Ignoring that means also ignoring the wider issues that people face on a regular basis.
Hookfoot Oddly Gets a Lot of Screen Time In This Episode
This isn’t even a Hookfoot focused episode; it’s a New Dream episode.
I’ve talked about it before, but it can’t be stressed enough. Hookfoot doesn’t add anything. He’s gone before the season even ends. Spending time on him is a waste. This role could have just as easily been served by Lance instead.
So What Is the Magic System In Tangled?
This whole episode treats Vigor’s cruse as a hoax, the counter curses as fake as well, and how you should not be superstitious, but we have a girl with magic hair. We’ve seen mermaids, cursed artifacts, magic potions, and people turned into birds before now. Why shouldn’t we the audience just accept the curse as real?
This is why you need a clear magic system. Otherwise scepticism like this no longer makes sense within the narrative.
There’s No Real Stakes In This Episode
So we got this ridiculous swinging rock bridge as the climax of the episode.
The threat looming over our heroes is a fucking bridge!
A Bridge!
A stupid bridge that for some untold reason is built in a stupid way, has no alternative safe passage, and clearly isn’t designed to hold the weight of a caravan.
Just leave the caravan behind you ding bells.
This what I meant about forced conflicts back in season one. This didn’t need to be here, we didn’t need a Dumbo rehash of a plot, and we certainly didn’t need such poor world building to create a poor excuse of a threat.
So Did We Really Need This Episode for This One Second of Foreshadowing?
I don't even think it’s a full second.
Yes typically you do need to foreshadow something more than once, and having this point reiterated here and not just in Vigor the Visionary does help to cement the idea into the audience's minds that there’s more to Vigor than at first glance, so that when the reveal happens they’ll be expecting it.
However, the episode has to do something else as well. You can’t waste 20 minutes of precious screen time reinrating other plot points that don't ultimately matter just for a few seconds of foreshadowing. It’s a mismanagement of resources.
Conclusion
This episode is easily skippable and that’s not a good thing. Outside of a marathon like I’m doing I don't know why you would bother watching it. The only episode this season that’s arguably worse than this is King Pascal, and that’s just because it’s even more redundant and boring.
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