SPOILER ALERT: Don’t let your 5 year old read this review.
My girls love princesses. Princess dresses, princess tiaras, dress up shoes and gloves and hats, sparkles and glitter and tutus—they spend hours playing pretend and dress up and putting on princess shows in which I have to sit on the couch and announce “And now, Cinderella will perform her beautiful dance!” And Dorothy will twirl down the hallway in her princess dress and dance in the living room and wrap it up with an elaborate curtsey while I applaud wildly. Yay princesses!
That said, they have not seen most of the classic Disney princess movies, because, frankly, there is a whole lot of death and evil going on there, and I just don’t want to have a conversation about Snow White being saved from her glass coffin by true love’s kiss from a stranger. Because really, isn’t it just a little bit weird and disturbing that the Prince is magically attracted to her when she appears to be dead? Glass coffins, vigilante mobs with torches (Beauty and the Beast), evil stepmothers (Cinderella, Snow White), octopus witches who steal your voice and/or soul (The Little Mermaid)—it just all seems a little intense for preschoolers, especially when what they are primarily interested in the sparkly dresses.
But Merida has been much hyped as a new kind of princess: she rides fast, climbs tall mountains, shoots a bow and arrow with tremendous skill and accuracy, and is endearingly imperfect. Strong, brave, independent, willing to challenge rules and traditions: you know, the kind of girl we’re trying to raise. So we left Margeaux at my sister’s, tucked a bag of Gummi Worms in my purse, and bought the exorbitantly priced tickets.
MOM! CAN I HAVE A BOW AND ARROW AND A TARGET AND A HORSE AND A FARM FOR MY BIRTHDAY WHEN I AM 6?
Four things we loved about Brave:
1.) She’s focused on what her body can do, not how she looks. Merida is clearly and powerfully present in her body, and focused on what her body can do, rather than how it looks. She rides, runs, climbs, jumps, fishes, shoots a bow and arrow—I’ve never seen a princess move like this, and frankly, it took my breath away. She fights hand to hand with bears (hand to paw?) and men, including her father. (The fight sequences reminded me of Mulan, which I would totally show my girls if I wanted to have a long conversation about war and the military, which I don’t). And yes, she wears a dress, but it’s clear that she’s comfortable in her body and her clothing. My girls play on the playground in their dresses. I don’t want them to think that wearing girly clothes has to mean sitting on the sidelines.
2.) She competes for her own hand, and wins, while wearing a dress. The betrothal plot went completely over my girls’ heads, but I appreciated that it directly subverts the typical princess love story, and that it gives Merida an active role in doing so. She doesn’t run away. She competes for her own hand in the archery contest. And wins. After stretching, flexing, and ripping the seams out of her fancy, uncomfortable, restrictive royal gown so she can shoot her bow. I would love to see many, many movies with heroines whose plot lines don’t revolve around princes at all, but I think it’s useful in this case to play directly with familiar conventions. I don’t want to draw a line between princesses and active empowered girls; I think that just reinforces the idea that femininity is limited and limiting. I want to see strong, brave, embodied girl characters, and I want my girls to know that includes princesses, and to that end, I think twisting the traditional princess plotlines challenges the typical tomboy vs princess dichotomy.
You can see how the dress is ripped out under her arms. Also note the goofy Scotsmen in the background.
3.) No evil stepmothers. Merida’s mother isn’t jealous or needlessly cruel, and in the end, she uses her power to change the system, not to change Merida. Yes, she initially believes Merida needs to choose a prince. But the queen isn’t advocating tradition for tradition’s sake: she’s aware of her responsibilities and invested in keeping peace between the clans. The fact that she has to keep the peace by offering her daughter’s body and identity is deeply problematic, and I think it’s to Pixar’s credit that she doesn’t come off as a monster, but as a powerful woman who is trying to do the right thing in a system that offers her limited options. She and Merida try to change each other (and of course because it’s a fairy tale there is a witch and a spell and an evil bear in the mix), but what needs to change are the rules of the game. And that kind of systemic change frees not just Merida but also the princes who were previously compelled to compete for her.
4.) It’s awesome to be awesome. This could have been a movie about a strong, brave, adventurous girl who realizes that the right prince will love her for all of those traits. It is not that movie. There is no love story. There is no wedding. Merida and her family and her kingdom are transformed, certainly, but by a thoughtful understanding of history and a willingness to let go of tradition, not by the power of love. Compare this to, for example, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog: Tiana has a dream, works unbelievably hard to achieve her goals, and learns that what she really needs in order for her life to be complete is to let herself fall in love. If the message of the Princess and the Frog is, you can be awesome AND find your prince, the message of Brave is, you can be awesome. Period.
That said, there were a few disappointments:
1.) Bumbling, unattractive, stereotypical men. As lots of reviewers have pointed out, the male characters are flat and stereotypical, particularly the princes, their fathers, and the men from their clans. Shakesville has a great takedown of the Scottish stereotypes at play. It’s an easy shortcut to make us feel empathy for Merida’s rejection of marriage by making all the princes undesirable. Because who wants to marry those guys? But how much more powerful would the movie be if those princes were handsome and smart and talented and Merida still didn’t love them because, hey, they are total strangers to her and she’s only 16? If the core of the story is it’s awesome to be awesome, that story can accommodate awesome men and boys as well. Smart girl rejects idiots is lazy storytelling.
2.) Did the marketing department see the movie? Because the Merida dolls at Target are wearing a tiara and the royal blue dress that she bursts out of like The Incredible Hulk to wield her bow and arrow. Pigtail Pals has written thoughtfully about the problems with the toys and dolls and marketing and I had read a lot of the critique before I saw the film. But I was unprepared for how disappointing it was to see the dolls and merchandise. I think Disney and Mattel are underestimating the audience for this film. I think they could have marketed the hell out of Merida adventure ballet flats and bow and arrow sets, and stocking the shelves with will o the wisp earrings and sparkly hair gems to decorate Merida’s hair is shortsighted. Again: Not surprising, but disappointing. Like being asked at Subway if we wanted the girl bag or the boy bag for our Brave kids’ meals. (The girl bags have Merida on them. The boy bags have men or bears.) And yes, as parents we can push back with letters and dollars and polite requests for our kids to see the bags and choose for themselves. But all that pushback shouldn’t be necessary. Merida wears one dress for 99% of the movie: it’s the dress she climbs, rides, jumps, shoots, fishes, explores in. Why isn’t the doll wearing that dress?
**The Disney store has wider merchandise options, including a Merida doll wearing the green adventure dress. But if, like me, you find yourself at Target with your kids clamoring for Merida dolls placed at eye level for 5 year old girls, knowing that you can order a better Merida doll online is cold comfort.
So what’s the bottom line?
No movie can do it all. Brave is one movie. Just one. And from my perspective, though it’s not without problems, it successfully subverts the traditional fairy tale and introduces an awesome new way to be a princess. But one movie isn’t enough. We need lots and lots and lots of movies about brave, strong, adventurous girls, past and present, real and imagined, princesses and not, wearing dresses and pants and t-shirts a size too big with capri leggings, like my girls are rocking these days. One movie can’t do it all. But I appreciate what Brave is attempting to do, and I think it’s largely successful. And the girls loved it, and want to learn to shoot bows and arrows.
If you’re thinking about taking little ones, you should know that the bears are REALLY SCARY.
Did you see Brave? What did you and your kids think?
Best. Movie review. Ever.
Now I guess I need to see the movie.
Thanks D!! I do think it’s worth seeing, obviously, and I’m hoping its box office success means we’ll see more powerful girlcentric films in the next few years.
Plus I’m psyched to use it in my gender studies classes to talk about how systemic change is different from equality
Systemic change is different from equality. Well put. Subverting a dominant paradigm acknowledges and reproduces that paradigm while resisting it. That’s important work, but it’s a different thing than building/living in/celebrating an alternate paradigm. I’m thinking now about Huck Finn. Twain was clearly subverting the model of race relations of his day, but as a part of that subversion, he used language from the paradigm he hoped to undermine, which today many find offensive. If one’s goal is to not expose one’s children to the old dominant paradigm, a movie that attempts to subvert said paradigm doesn’t work, because you can’t subvert what the audience doesn’t know. On the other hand, if one’s children *have* been amply exposed to the old dominant paradigm and one wants to try to rebut it, subversive works can have a much more desirable effect.
Right. I’ve read some reviews that really take Pixar to task for making a fairy tale movie– it’s not original, it’s not of the caliber of Toy Story and Up. I think some of that is straight up sexism (fairy tales are girly, and girly is undesirable, uncool, not as artistically awesome as some original new story about a boy or a robot or whatever). But I also think some of it just misses the point: yes, we’ve all seen a dozen princess movies. That’s precisely why this movie works. Because its almost impossible to escape that narrative. Which means, IMO, we need to begin within it in order to change it.
yes, thank you, Jen, for the best movie review! thank you. i still don’t think we are going to see it as i just can’t get past the marketing and don’t want to support that. but, maybe when it’s on netflix or whatever. thank you. xo
Yeah, the marketing is awful, no question. But I do think it’s a powerful story. And if you watch it on Netflix, you don’t have to be sneaky about bringing in the Gummi Worms
Bringing your own Gummi Worms: your own subversive act. Down with the capitalist system. ☭ Or something like that.
I took my nephews (13 and 6) to Brave on your recommendation–I’d wanted to see it anyway, but was planning on waiting for Netflix–and really enjoyed it. Great story, and an awesome protagonist for Anya and Amelia when they get a bit older, which I’m always on the look out for (on a related note, you might be interested in this post over at the Geek Dad blog on Wired: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/disney-vs-miyazaki/).
Having seen it, I even think you’re a bit too harsh on Pixar in your complaint regarding the stereotypical men (and I’m usually pretty easily bothered by exactly that). At it’s heart, Brave is about the relationship between a young woman and her mother, and guys only have so much of a role in a tale of that nature, without it becoming a different sort of story.
The clansmen were obviously comic foils, and Wee Dingwall was pretty unappealing, but beyond Merida’s father, who was portrayed relatively positively, I thought they were neither here nor there–which is kind of how it has to be given the nature of the story.
The Geek Dad post is AWESOME, and I am excited to check out some of the Miyazaki films with D.
I do like the brothers and the father– they strike me as sweet and funny, and Merida obviously has positive relationships with them, which I really appreciated. (As Geek Dad points out, happy families are basically non-existent in the princess universe.) But it seems like such a storytelling shortcut to have all the clansmen be SO ridiculous. Why not have ridiculous, over the top comic relief fathers, and have Merida’s suitors roll their eyes along with Merida? I appreciate that the core of the story is about Merida and her mother, and you can only develop so many characters in a 90 minute children’s movie, but it seems to me that the conflict around betrothal is so much more interesting if the suitors are desirable, and Merida still doesn’t want to marry them.
But really, it’s a small sticking point for me. I love the movie. And Pixar does avoid the two easiest princess story lines (he’s a jerk/animal/jerkyanimal but her love changes him and/or she realizes she can fall in love and still be feisty), and I think they deserve tremendous accolades for that. It’s a risky move to have a princess story that isn’t a love story: when I’ve used The Princess and the Frog in my WGS classes and I ask my students why the movie can’t just end with Tiana opening her restaurant and the sketchy prince going his own way, they generally refuse to even entertain the possibility of that ending, because she’s a princess, and it’s a fairy tale, and happily ever after means happy IN LOVE. So I think it’s really, really powerful that Pixar tells a different story with Merida, and they definitely deserve credit for that.
Miyazaki DOES throw down any day of the week. My daughter loves “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” and I know several preschoolers who love “Ponyo” (although it is too intense for Wren) so start there. The others, especially “Spirited Away,” you might want to save until they get a little older!
Robin and Holly ADORED Ponyo: I wish I could get them hooked on it again, because I loved it, too. Spirited Away is amazing but intense, and I can’t wait to watch it with them!
I think I’m in a minority but I really like Princess & the Frog!
I don’t mind it, but I’m not in love with it. And the girls just never got into it (although Lucy often says Tiana is her favorite princess.) So far, the movie they have loved the most is the new Muppets movie–which I also love.
I disagree with you completely on the classic princesses. I grew up on those! It’s a real shame that you are tht much of a stickler about every part with out a smile on everyone’s face because there’s not a girl out there who wouldn’t admire Mulan’s courage, or cinderella’s patience or aroura’s kindness or Snow Whites beautiful voice or belle’s intelligence or pochahontas’s bravery or Ariel’s pursistance or even jasmine’s ability to stay headstrong. From the sounds of it they would love them! They teach every little girl life lessons! You blew every little thing out of proportion and that really upset me. And just BECAUSE there isn’t a smile on everyone’s face doesn’t make it inappropriate for kids that’s just a little taste of life for ya! Let ur kids watch a harmless movie about a princess PUH-LEEZ!!!!! Thanks!
-Disney-fanatic4ever<3
Thanks for your comment! I agree that many of the classic princesses have admirable traits. I struggle with those classic films because I feel like the best parts of the princess are often swept away by the way the films and toys are marketed, and sometimes even devalued within the film itself. My girls have seen some of the films, and I expect we’ll watch more of them as they grow up, and I try to emphasize those positive characteristics as we watch. But I don’t think any popular culture is harmless: I think it plays a really important role in how we learn to see ourselves and the world around us. To that end, I think we need to ask questions about the stories we hear and the characters we see, and I try to model that kind of media literacy for my kids. I love pop culture, and I loved Brave. But that doesn’t mean I don’t interrogate it.