Therapist's Analysis of Tangled

For years, I've been hearing the term "gaslighting" but have not understood what it means. Then I ran across this video, and it explained the concept in a way I perfectly understood it.

The video is from the channel Cinema Therapy where a therapist and a filmmaker combine forces to analyze concepts in movies. The movie they chose for this video was Tangled.

They analyze how Mother Gothel constantly gaslights Rapunzel to control and manipulate her into doing whatever she wishes, and it works in the beginning, but as the video shows, Rapunzel slowly understands the wider world and what Mother Gothel has been hiding from her.

Watching this video also helped me understand a lot about my own childhood. I now understand a lot of how my father controlled and manipulated me: gaslighting. I discussed it with my mom after watching this video, and she agreed with me, saying he did it to her all the time.

It's a common tool for controlling manipulators, and when used well, it often works. Breaking free is hard, but it can be done. If you're suffering under a gaslighting manipulator, don't give up hope.