A great deal was made out of the fact that Brave is the first Pixar movie with a female protagonist. Since Disney has had female protagonists from the beginning – Snow White was released in 1939 – Pixar isn’t exactly breaking new ground. If anything, Brave is the first major American animated film with a feminist female protagonist.
Belle in Beauty & The Beast and Mulan were the closest before, and they weren’t very close at all. Merida, unlike previous Disney princesses, does not need a prince to save her, either through swashbuckling or a kiss of true love.
Merida is self-assured, bold, courageous and outraged by the sexist double standards of medieval Scotland. Merida’s story is not about which boy she will love, and what hurdles she must jump to be with him. Instead, it is about what her refusal to be married off to a random prince does to her relationship with her mother.
Brave is an action-adventure tale about how a traditional mother and a rebellious and visionary daughter reconcile. It is the sort of movie that a lot of progressive parents of young daughters will find as thrilling as their daughters do.
Even if the film doesn’t have the emotional depth and cinematic wonder of Up or Wall-E, it’s a delightful movie with a laudable message; a combination quite rare in a children’s blockbuster.
