SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE!
Let’s be clear. I’m not critiquing Brave’s technical achievement or it’s entertainment value.
So. I was really really hoping this movie would have some female characters.Let’s count up, shall we? the mom, Merida, screaming boob joke lady, 2 screaming female servants, witch, and some screaming swooning lady fans in the festival scene. very, very disappointing. Let’s get real here. The clans get together for this big important event and didn’t bring their queens? their daughters? whyfor? Let’s just SHOW SOME FEMALES FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Have them doing anything, please, except screaming there was already plenty of that. There was a whole hall full of men being manly and comparing dick size where was the hall filled with women bemoaning this new generation of girls who want to control their own lives or something. FEMALES! WE HAS THEM.
The mother is portrayed as a nagging controlling fishwife stereotype. Do I need to elaborate why that is fucking stupid and annoying? Basically the whole movie and all this shit happens because MOMMY IS A BITCH and TEENAGE GIRLS ARE PETULANT.
The father doesn’t seem to even give a shit about the whole betrothal thing. in fact, it seems like the mom basically forced it to happen. so.. clearly there was not even an urgent need to secure peace in this way. so the male clan heads had some whiney dick fights and the only thing that can placate them is some FREE PUSSY? please. It doesn’t even make any sense in this case if she marries into one of the other clans that would just cause two clans to be allied. what about the others? In the throne room the clan heads talk about how they are ALREADY bonded from past experiences.
Technically this movie passed the Bechdel Test but only by a bare minimum and there are some problems. Merida and mom talk to each other about not a man and Merida and the witch talk to each other about not a man. BUT. They are mostly talking about how Merida is ALL WRONG the way she is and how she must always remember her gender. And she only seems o be all wrong to the mother, no one else seems to care what she does, it’s not like there is a kingdom full of ladies all acting prissy and bridling at her saucy tomboy behavior. No one bats an eye.
Also, how did she get to be such a great archer if she spent all her time being bullied by her mom into doing girly shit? She specifically says she only occasionally makes it out of the castle to ride and shoot.
This is NOT a movie about a girl having an adventure. This is a movie about a girl who is desperate and forced to do something underhanded and horrible just to have anyone bother to listen to her.
The mom saved Merida from the bear 3 times. Once as a little girl, once from the old throne room and again at the end of the movie. I guess Merida saves the mom from the ravening hoard of men driven by bloodlust that one time by locking them on the roof, oh wait, but actually it’s her little brothers do that. damn.
Where was the Braveness? So she’s Brave for daring to have a vagina and wanting to control her fate? and fate? really? She’s Brave for standing up to her mother? The moral of this story could just be something like: use nonviolent communication techniques when talking with your loved ones. AAAEEEEEIIIIIII That’s so boring!
Merida collapses crying in a heap 3-4 times. Many of her actions are driven by a very frantic and desperate fear. It’s brave to keep on looking for a solution even when you know you’ve royally fucked up and turned your mum into a bear and you are scared as shit, I suppose. However, this leaves me highly unsatisfied.
Up until the very last second she is still unsure, tears welling in her eyes, waiting to see if her SEWING (for realz, y’all) and COMPROMISE will be enough to undo the spell that caused her mom to become a fucking bear. Super brave. I know I can craft a halloween costume out of that one! whheeeeee!
I might think of more to say.
If you would like to comment with an actual comment that might forward this as a discussion feel free to. If you want to comment to bring up instances maybe where a man in a film cried or ‘but in real life men blahblahblah, too’ or you want me to justify my conclusions then DO NOT comment, if you do I will delete it. Instead, write your own rant or go read a Feminism 101 FAQ.
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This sounds so amazingly Boomer-tastic. Haven’t we moved about a billion light years beyond this sort of annoying story? But no. THIS sort of nonsense is what is held up as a great breakthrough in positive storytelling for girls! SO ANNOYING. Beyond annoying into pathetic and laughable.
I’m sure it was very entertaining though and lots of people will love it without it occurring to them that there is some other way to tell stories with female heroes.
I say boomertastic because I do think of the 1,000,000 movies about father-son “relationships” in which the big payoff is that there is one microsecond where the son realizes the dad is proud of him. Do we need 1,000,000 movies that are equally stupid and annoying with mother-daughter non-relationships that take place in a weird void? Auuuugh!
I ws thinking that this would have been justifiably lauded as ground breaking only if created in the 70′s or something. As it is the movie was muddled. at least they didn’t kill the mom in the first 5 minutes or before the story even started.
you know, why did the mom have t be turned into a bear? it seems very weird. I remembering being really annoyed in the disney black princess movie that the prin ess spends more time being a FROG than being a person of color.
my take away is that it is somehow NOT OKAY to be female. we always have to be CHANGED and then changed again.
what about in Cars? the boy car spends almost the whole movie being a douche but everyone ends up loving him anyway once it dawns on him that he’s an ass. all men have ot do is have a tiny moment when they realize they have ot be nice to other people.
whos dick do i have to suck to get a movie that goes past 1st wave feminism?
Oh btw
http://mediatedlife.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/brave-well-maybe-a-little/
OH MY GOD YES THIS. Merida’s whole story is the DRAMA OF THE GIFTED FEMALE??? Bleah! She is a femaley female and has female troubles! What does her mother even WANT? What does she care about? Fergus, eventually, and maybe her tapestries? We never get ANY sense of who Elinor is she is just all Stock Conformist Mother character… I felt judged as hell. I roared at the kids as we left the cinema! I AM A BEAR, GRR.
nice review. well reasoned and written. that’s how I imagine my reviews in my head but really mine always just come out being angry and sarcastic. ah well….
http://www.shakesville.com/2012/06/brave.html !!!
Yes, let’s take a step in the right direction and make sure to call it not enough. That’s always the way to make progress.
Seriously, I think it’s shocking Disney made what they did. Is it perfect? not by a longshot, but it’s not Snow White either is it.
So, what you’re saying Lasivian is that when things are a slight improvement we should sit down and shut up a bout it and be grateful we got at least something? that makes no sense to me. if we aren’t striving for better than wtf is th point of doing anything?