Brave: new role or stereotype?

After recently getting very excited about watching the first Disney Pixar movie with a female leading protagonist (as it was so advertised), I’m left feeling bewildered as to what this movie means about feminism.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do realise that this is just an animation, aimed at children but it cannot be denied that gendered roles in Disney films have a direct impact on young children. In all the classic films, women are seen as the damsels in distress who need to be saved by men in order to survive and restore order to the kingdom. Pretty princesses that are in need of rescuing. Evidently, with the release of Mulan, Disney were able to present a cartoon about a strong woman fighting in a war, however she was only able to do so by dressing as boy – stereotype or what? Brave was meant to be revolutionary because of the emphasis being on the first protagonist in a Pixar film, not cartoon, since all the Disney princesses are considered protagonists anyway, which is a whole other discussion in itself.

The main character, Merida, a young Scottish princess was presented in all of the advertisements as strong and confident. She stands proud against a dark back drop, holding a bow and arrow, a true depiction of a strong feminine character. So, from seeing this poster and with a film named Brave, I assumed it would be about a princess leading her country into battle. How wrong I was.

The film is centred around a young princess and her pending marriage to a young prince. What makes this story different (apparently) to any other Disney story is that Merida does not want to get married. She in fact wants to enjoy life, she is what some people would term a “Tom boy”; don’t ask me why, I don’t know – it’s just that obscure that a girl would like the same activities as a boy. However, that is beside the point, so Merida being a young girl that doesn’t want to get married finds herself in a predicament as her mother, the Queen, is adamant it must happen to keep the peace of the country. Furthermore, it meant to be completely radical and revolutionary that Merida doesn’t want to get married – is this really that astounding in the modern day 21^st century? To say it quickly, Merida sees a witch, casts a spell, her mother turns into a bear and the story revolves around Merida needing to reconcile with her mother to turn her back human and ultimately is able to change the tradition revolving marriage.

Now, I can see how on one hand this is a depiction of feminism. A young female character going against the trends of the time to break traditions and change history forever. A strong character – I guess – fighting the system. I mean this is what feminism consisted of when we look back to the Suffragettes, Merida managed to single handily (not really) change the opinion of all of the Lords and her mother so she was freed from forced marriage. But do we really want to present an outdated image of feminism to children?

The matter of fact is, that there is yet to be a leading animated story with a leading female character that is not overridden with the message of marriage and a happy ending. Although Brave does come close, she does get out of getting married, her choice is essentially to make sure she can choose her own husband in her own time. It does not consider that she may not want to get married at all. Furthermore, she only has the “choice” out of three boys, the only change being she gets to choose which one and that it is not decided through competition. Is this really something that can be attributed as a success of a strong feminist character, let alone brave?

Now, I did really enjoy the film. It had a lovely undercurrent of family emotion (another stereotypically feminine trait, coincidently underlying this so called revolutionary film). It was funny, Merida was a character that I think young girls of today could relate to. She enjoyed the same things that boys did, despite the fact that activities shouldn’t be gendered anyway. She despised having to wear a tight dress for her proposals (an interesting subject in the film) and she rebelled against her mother’s traditions and sympathised with her father. This does indeed present a lovely picture of a strong girl that knows who she is and what she wants but is torn between staying true to herself and making her mother happy. Indeed, by trying to do what she wants she turns her mother into a bear! The fact the two women in the film couldn’t talk about their issues only reinforces the stereotype of women being irrational and stubborn characters. Granted, however, that Merida is breaking  the stereotype of princesses, her issues revolve around marriage – clearly the only problem that girls have to face growing up.

Furthermore, the issue of despising the tight dress is something I disagree with as well. It may come across as contradictory but it presents the message that a girl cannot want to look good and act how they want at the same time. There is a particular point that emphasises this in the film as Merida rips her dress as she shows off her bow and arrow skills to the watching crowd. Arguably this is to show her emancipation from the restriction of tradition, however I saw it as a division between beauty and “bravery” (as the film so wishes to call it). No division is necessary, for the character to be a truly modern feminist protagonist, in my opinion, she should have been portrayed as both beautiful and strong.

For a film that was taking pride in itself because of its move towards feminism, there was a definite lack of women characters – there were only three. The Queen, essentially the one in the wrong, Merida a “Tom –boy” and a witch that sparked the bear problem. Now, the Queen is a strong feminist in my opinion, despite wanting to inflict tradition on her daughter, she’s a strong character that could evoke silence in a room full of arguing men. She took pride in her appearance and had power, the men were all awaiting her decision before leaving and were beckoning her answer. She was wrong for trying to enforce marriage upon her daughter but only did so to stop a war. Despite this it was her overall compromise and decision for the freedom of marriage which saved the day, not Merida’s. Of course, it’s true that she would not have come to such a decision without Merdia confronting the tradition but her lack of bravery is shown by going behind her mother’s back to resolve the problem, this only makes her seem further irrational and irresponsible – in fact, far from Brave.

So it becomes clear that Merida is not the strong leading feminist character that the posters portray her to be. No. The Queen is, she is even strong enough to admit she is wrong and has the power to change tradition. I guess you can call Merida “Brave” for wanting to break tradition but really this just seems like a teenage rebellion, that the Queen is left to resolve. If anything the Queen is the leading protagonist and is the “Brave” one, and she was a bear for the majority of the film. But, sadly feminists are still left waiting for a Disney film, where marriage isn’t the sole problem, nor resolution, confronting women.