Movies like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Toy Story are wonderful, but they are also unabashedly stories about boys told in a way that reflects a distinctly male experience. (“I’ll be shooting for my own hand!” was instantly iconic and does not get enough love in the larger Disney princess pantheon.) Instead of a wedding, our final visual is of Merida and her mother literally riding into the sunset together, determinedly rejecting established tradition and looking toward a future in which both women are finally able to truly be themselves with each other in a way they never have before.īrave’s honest depiction of the complicated dynamics that often exist between mothers and daughters still feels like a breath of fresh air-not just in the relatable ways it portrays the age-old struggle between parents and children who don’t understand one another, but because children’s films so rarely look at this relationship through a female-focused lens. Rather than submit to a betrothal she doesn’t want, Merida literally fights for her right to determine her own future. (In fact, the suitors originally thrust at her are all equally thrilled that they will not be forced to marry a girl they barely know. Brave ends with the royal family reunited, the clans at peace and nary a Prince Charming in sight. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Frozen, but Kristoff exists and is technically Anna’s second love interest in the story!)Ī girl who loves archery, adventure and her own independence, Merida not only shatters the glass ceiling of what a Disney princess should be and do, she rewrites what a happily ever after can mean in this sort of story. But this interpretation requires us to ignore that Brave had already done this-and, if you ask me, done this better-over a year before. The more popular (and profitable) Frozen is often credited with Disney’s deliberate swing to familial-based love stories, thanks to its focus on Elsa and Anna’s sisterly bond and its prioritization of it over the more traditional “princess tries to find her prince” plot. Royal by birth and deeply uninterested in the role traditionally ascribed to her by her gender, Merida is unlike any heroine that had come before her and one which few that came after her can match. (So far, so familiar, right?) But although Disney has told plenty of stories about princesses, rarely have they looked like this one, a tale that explicitly rejects the fairytale tropes of marriage and happily ever after in favor of empowering its heroine to not just choose her own fate, but thrive on her own. Set in medieval Scotland, Brave follows the story of Merida, the firstborn of Clan DunBroch, and a princess who wants more from her life than she’s been told she’s allowed to have. Brave broke multiple barriers, yet it is rarely remembered for doing so, remaining one of Pixar’s most underrated and underappreciated gems. It was also the studio’s first-and remains its only-princess film (a familiar staple in the House of Mouse).
Brave disney moie movie#
It was the first Pixar movie to feature a female protagonist, the first to credit a female director and the first to have women credited as screenwriters. (And though Ratatouille absolutely deserves way more respect than it gets, it’s fine if we never mention any of the Cars sequels ever again.) But one of the studio’s best films is not only somehow always left out of the larger conversation about the Pixar legacy, but far too many people also seem to have forgotten it exists at all.īrave hit theaters ten years ago, in June of 2012. Though Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios has released over two dozen films in the past 30 years, mainstream pop culture tends to only really remember a handful: Toy Story’s heartfelt tale of growing up, Monsters, Inc.’s colorful exploration of childhood fears, Finding Nemo’s delicately rendered underwater world, Up’s emotionally gutting opening minutes.
0 kommentar(er)
