Women in the Movies: BRAVE

I had been excited to see Brave for a while, especially after realizing that it features Pixar's first female protagonist. I had some pretty high expectations going into the theater, as I was honestly hoping for the most feminist animated film I'd ever seen. While it didn't meet those expectations, Brave was a great movie, and in many ways has several stand-out feminist messages for kids.

****There are spoilers here, in case you haven't seen the movie.****

Brave is about a young Scottish princess named Merida who resists learning to become a proper and well-mannered Queen like her mother. She loves riding horses, shooting arrows, and eating as many fruit tarts as she wants. As you can guess, in every instance of asserting who she is, and what makes her happy, she seems to meet conflict with her mother. This is especially the case when her mother expects her to marry one of the suitors from their kingdom, which Merida refuses to do.

In many ways, Merida reminds me of Ariel. She is a young, spunky, rebellious, red-headed princess, who craves adventure and independence. Both of them also happen to make deals with witches, that don't turn out as they plan. Some important differences exist between the two. Ariel knowingly was willing to give up her family, her body, her voice, and even risk being turned into a shriveled seaweed forever for Ursula's amusement in order to have a chance to have a man fall in love with her. Merida, on the other hand, makes her deal with a witch only by giving up a fancy necklace (perhaps a family heirloom), and is aware of no other consequences until later. Also, she makes her exchange in hopes that she will not be forced into love and marriage when she doesn't want to be.

I think it's an important difference from other films that Merida is not only resisting forced marriage, but the desire for marriage in general. For many female Disney characters, one of the main conflicts is being able to choose who they marry (Aurora, Ariel, Bell, Jasmine). To me, this is a tired theme. By the end of Brave, the message seemed to be that we should be able to love who we want to when we are ready. That's a great message, but, it's certainly not groundbreaking.  Although, I believe that the mention of future "love" is much more inclusive for numerous and diverse relationships than exclusively "marriage." However, I was hoping that Merida's desire NOT to marry would be acknowledged and respected by the end of the film. That acknowledgment was sort of ambiguous. While she didn't choose a suitor, and wasn't expected to unless she was ready and in love, it was never implied that she wasn't expected to get married at some point. The ending was refreshing and distinctly different from past princess films, but not quite feminist enough for me.

While I did not expect the film to become a mother/daughter story, I do think that in doing so it addressed significant real-world feminist ideas. Many times, the feminist conflict that women meet in deciding what they want to do in the world is not a conflict between women and men, but women and other women. Instead of the message from the patriarchal father saying, "Do as I say," in this film we are seeing the patriarchal mother saying, "Do as I do."  Merida's instant reaction to this is to claim she never wants to be like her mother. Now, this is the point where she makes the wish with the witch to "change" her mother, and she ends up transforming her into a bear. While it is important to emphasize that we shouldn't wish to force changes on other people, I'm not really sure that was Merida's intent. The "change" that she desired was not necessarily for her mother to see things the way that she did, but, moreso, I think, to change the fact that her mother didn't respect her choices. I personally don't think that seeking this kind of change in others is prideful, as the film suggests. In fact, I was very disappointed that her desire for respect and independence was turned into a somewhat cautionary tale. Although, giving your mother a tart baked up by witches and black magic is not really the best way to go to get respect. I'd say that's more childish naivety and irresponsibility than pride. 

After the transformation, we get to see Merida and her mother bond. First, Merida helps her mother escape their castle where the men are hunting for her life. Then, in the wilderness she helps her eat safe and healthy food, and learn to survive. In turn, Merida comes to understand her mother's concerns better when she learns the truth about the man who wished for the strength of ten men, and his tragic end. She came to understand that her choices can affect others, and that she should make them wisely. In particular, I like the scene where her mother is running through the river, learning to catch fish. It symbolizes her connection with Merida's wild oneness with nature. However, there are a few times in the film where we see this wild nature take over Merida's mother so much that she acts completely aggressive like a real bear, and is forgetful of who she really is. I might be over-analyzing this, but it feels like this seems to be a bit of a warning. Don't be too wild, fierce, and independent or you won't be human (feminine) anymore. Or, this could simply be an element of story-telling to build suspense, and I'm reading into it too much. 

Regardless, after watching the film, I happened to stumble on this in one of my books and saw some parallels:

Trend journalists in the '80s were not required to present facts for the same reason that ministers aren't expected to support sermons with data. The reporters were scripting morality plays, not news stories, in which the middle-class woman played the Christian innocent, led astray by a feminist serpent. In the final scene, the woman had to pay--repenting of her ambitions and "selfish" pursuit of equality--before she could reclaim her honor and her happiness. The trend stories were strewn with judgmental language about the wages of feminist sin. The ABC report on the ill effects of women's liberation, for example, referred to the "costs" and "price" of equality thirteen times. Like any cautionary tale, the trend story offered a "choice" that implied only one correct answer: Take the rocky road to selfish and lonely independence or the well-paved path to home and flickering hearth. No middle route was visible on the trend story's map of the moral feminine universe.

I see a few echos of this trend in Brave, but also some improvements. I still feel weird about the fact that Merida's deviant desire for respect and autonomy from her mother somehow became associated with a prideful desire for her mother to be a different person. In consequence of which, Merida had to pay the cost of this with the anguish of having her mother turned into a bear, and almost murdered. However, I do feel that Brave clearly and commendably sought to create a space between "the rocky road" and the "well-paved path to home and flickering hearth." Perhaps whatever pride the film meant to explore was one where such a place is not envisioned.

I loved the courage that both mother and daughter showed for each other when they risked their lives for the other. There really aren't a lot of female characters that would be brave enough to jump in front of their father wielding a weapon, or attack a monstrous bear. And although Merida obviously does exhibit the bold characteristics of what we traditionally think of as brave, she is said to be brave because she recognizes that her destiny is in her own hands. That is a truly inspiring feminist message that I was happy to witness in this film.