O Mother, Where Art Thou?

When Disney released the DVD for Tangled, a selected few Disney stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom were selling a Limited Edition Mother Gothel Doll. Unlike the princesses that are made into the lovely collector's dolls, Mother Gothel did not have a large series (1,500 dolls versus Rapunzel's 5,000 and Wedding Rapunzel's 8,000.) Her release was kept quiet, or at least it was attempted. She was accidentally leaked to the public, but Disney tried ti pretend she did not exist so that they could keep their surprise release. Needless to say, she sold out almost instantly in both countries.

I had no idea that the doll was even around until I saw someone with her in their collection online. When I looked into it, I was so crushed. 

Mother Gothel is my favorite Disney villain. I think that is so because there is so much depth to her. She is a cruel person, let's not pretend she isn't. For her own selfish needs, she stole a baby and kept that child prisoner for years while feeding her lies about the outside world in order to scare the child into staying inside. There is a lot of verbal abuse that Mother Gothel dishes out to Rapunzel, who has no idea that mothers should not talk to their children in that manner. However, there is some  kind of love there for Rapunzel. I will agree that the main reason she keeps Rapunzel around is her hair, but I don't doubt that Mother Gothel did love the child she raised even a little. Sadly, her greed clouded that emotion and corrupted it into something terrible.

But there is more to Mother Gothel than that. Mother Gothel seems to represent, in part, what the modern Western culture is like for women. In the mainstream, women are set up to want to buy and use everything under the sun to keep themselves looking young and beautiful no matter how old they get. Their self-worth is tied to their appearances rather than their knowledge and wisdom. (Yes, the same can be said of men but the pressure on them is a drop in the bucket compared to women are raised into.) Some women will do anything to retain their youthful appearances:  surgery, injecting deadly bacteria and jellyfish toxins into their skin, taking harsh drugs, and using cosmetics that has a lot of harsh chemicals as well as odd ingredients; like bat guano. I do not doubt that there are some women who if they discovered that a child had magic hair that would heal them and keep them young forever that they would not also follow the same path as Mother Gothel did with Rapunzel. Thus, Mother Gothel is not just some cruel and sarcastic woman with good looks and an incredible singing voice, she is an artistic comment on older women in Western cultures.*

Since I learned about her existence, I have searched eBay and other sites for her. I literally watched for her for years, and hardly ever saw her price drop below $800. I had already decided I would never pay that much for her. Nope. I love her, I love the character, but that was far too much. That was money that could be health insurance, gas, a school payment, and other things that had to come first.

Tired of the lack of decent prices on eBay, I did a craigslist search and found someone that was selling the three Tangled dolls (Rapunzel, Wedding Rapunzel, and Mother Gothel) for a combination deal of $700. I did not want to pay that for a doll that I wanted, though the two other dolls did offer me the ability to do what I want to do with the wedding version of the doll. Anyways, I was just not comfortable spending that much for one doll. The person said he was able to split the dolls if needed, but since Mother Gothel was so much rarer, that he would be expecting a lot. Needless to say, my offer was not accepted.

As I was checking on some auction I had won on eBay, and seeing if it had been shipped when I noticed something in the lower part of the screen. There is a scroll bar there that shows what other items are for sale that are similar to the recent purchases and searches you have done. There, I saw a Mother Gothel doll. I looked at her price, and it was low. Really low for her. I clicked on the image to check it out. There were seven people already watching the auction and the price for her was a buy-out price. I felt butterflies spawn in my stomach. I wanted this doll so much, but would I actually buy her? I talked to my fiancee and he reminded me that I had gotten some money for my birthday from relatives and that he still owed me a gift. He offered to help me pay for her. When we came back from dinner, I got back on eBay and looked at her. She was still there. I was beside myself with that to do, but I had the finances to do it, and I knew I would never see her for a price this low again. I bought her.

Waiting for her to arrive was not as painful as I thought it would be. Before she got here, I cleaned off a space on my shelf next to my Rapunzel doll for her to be. Given also that I had to work, the time passed a bit more quickly. When she arrived, I was so excited. At last. Mother Gothel. She was here and she was mine. I opened her box carefully so that I could see which number in the series she was. Honestly, I was surprised I got a number lower that 1,000. My doll was registered as number 162. For some collectors, the lower the edition number the more valuable they see her as. For me? I was just happy that I had her at last. She could have been number 1,500 and I would have still be so happy to have her.

There are a few things about the doll that are different than the screen version of the character, but that is to be expected. Some of the major things is that her hair is a lot poofier and her eyes are green instead of the gray-blue that they were in the film. This kind of makes me a little amused since often times I can find Rapunzel depicted with blue eyes instead of green. There are some costume differences, but Rapunzel's gown was also changed a bit to make her more fancy as a doll. 

I stared at my collection of dolls, thus far, and smiled. Only one doll is missing now, the wedding doll, and I am going to un-shamefully fix her when I do get her. My only thoughts now are if I should give her the long blonde hair or long brown hair. Further, I need to find someone who will reroot her hair for me. I have never been too adept at doing that myself and usually use make permanent wigs. With a doll that nice, however, I want her rerooted so she is similar to what she was when she released by the Disney Store; just with that horrible mistake of a hair cut fixed. I am sure Mother Gothel would agree. 

*As with any discussion on large groups of people, there is a lot of variance! Some women who take pride in their appearance do not go to the lengths that others do, and other women accept that their aging bodies represent the time they have spent on this planet and the wisdom they have gathered throughout their life. There are even, of course, many multi-cultural meanings to aging and not every culture views it the same way. This comment is just a general over-statement and not mean to encompass woman as a whole unified group.