These men know so little outside of violent competition that the smallest upset-Merida's unwillingness to be traded in marriage like a baseball card-nearly dissolves the kingdom in war. They spend all their time puffing out their chests and bragging about how tough they are. In the imaginary medieval Scotland of Merida's world, unquestioned male dominance lets men be buffoons. Wall-E seems satisfied to go no further than biting commentary.īrave turns that same satirical eye toward the patriarchy. In the end, no real path to prevent this dystopia is suggested. Wall-E turned its satirical eye on the problem of mass consumerism and environmental destruction the laziness and greed of the human race allows our planet become a landfill while we become formless blobs without any goals higher than being fed more sugary sodas. We don't get much in the way of imaginative alternatives to our current problems, but we do get a scathing satire that doesn't hold back despite being in a children's movie. As with Wall-E before it, Brave is an example of what happens when Pixar gets political. For all its faults, Brave is shockingly radical for a mainstream movie. Still, there's a danger in letting this disappointment blind us. The movie fails to present any alternatives to stifling gender roles the lead character, Merida, is all rebellion, but she never offers any ideas for how to fix things other than a speech denouncing arranged marriages. Tom Carson, while praising the movie's effectiveness, argued that the filmmakers "seem to be playing by rules that don't interest them very much and not making an especially bright job of it." Jacyln Friedman also loved the movie but asked, "If the sparkling minds at Pixar can't imagine their way out of the princess paradigm, how can we expect girls to?" It's hard to blame these critics for feeling a bit let down. Small wonder then that so many critics have emerged from the theater a bit befuddled by what they saw: the story of a young princess and her mother trying to understand each other despite their radically different approaches to life as a woman in medieval society. Feminists as much as anyone imagined that this would be the story, since so much of today's media aimed at girls is about "empowering" young women (as if the main obstacle to women's equality throughout most of history has been a lack of spunk, instead of eons of direct and indirect oppression based on the notion that women exist to be the trophies and helpmeets of men). The marketing for Pixar's new girl-centric film, Brave, suggests it is a movie in which a wild-haired heroine single-handedly conquers the monarchy, the patriarchy, and the myth that there are no attractive flat-heeled shoes. (Warning: This review spoils major plot points for Brave )
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