Mother Knows Best (song) songs. While the majority of "Tangled"'s music was inspired by the work of Canadian musician Joni Mitchell, Menken envisioned Gothel's song as "classic" Broadway. Before writing "Mother Knows Best", Menken and Slater researched appropriate moments in the film during which its main characters could potentially perform, ultimately determining that "Mother Knows Best" "flows directly out of the conflict between" Mother Gothel and Rapunzel. Menken observed similarities between Gothel and Claude Frollo, another Disney villain for whom he had written songs while working as a composer on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996). Menken described Gothel as "a scary piece of
Mother Gothel felt that Gothel could possibly pioneer "a new kind of Disney villainess," introducing "the undermining, passive-aggressive, guilt-trip-inducing witch." "The Village Voice "wrote that, as a villain, Gothel "is Disney’s first villainess whose chief crime is being an underminer," warning Rapunzel that she is simply "too silly, too uneducated, too unsophisticated" to survive life outside of the tower. The "Los Angeles Times" referred to Gothel as "A guilt-tripping, overprotective, super-manipulative parent from hell." One film critic observed that "Gothel is one of the most understated villains Disney has used in a long time. She harkens back to the wicked step mother