Brave: Not Quite the Feminist Film I Imagined

I'm not going to lie. I was disappointed by Brave. I liked Merida as proto-feminist heroine but the rest of the characters were really just tedious gendered stereotypes. The men, including the king, were all irresponsible and prone to violence. Merida's younger brothers were incredibly badly behaved but rewarded for it. I find the "men are all stupid and violent and irresponsible" cliche tedious and dull. The maid was silly and prone to hysterics. The kingdom itself is held together by the Queen who suppresses her whole personality and needs into ensuring that the others don't kill one another in an orgy of violence. Yep, that tired old "women have to be extra special good to compensate for the men being arseholes" trope so beloved in victim-blaming. 

I really, really wanted to like Brave. As a heroine, she is one of the best Disney Princesses; possibly second only to Mulan but the rest of the film lets Merida down. And, that's without getting into the way Merida saves her mother by learning to darn. I mean, seriously, what's with that? Yeah, darning is an important skill to have and no doubt has saved many a soldier but when you're trying to stop gendering fictional characters for children, a girl saving someone through darning isn't a step in the right direction. Merida is a warrior queen. Warrior Queens do not save people by fixing tapestries. And, the end isn't really a brilliant one for Merida. After all, she winds up weaving with her mother which isn't what she wanted. It was an unnecessary compromise that should never have been required because Merida's demands weren't unreasonable. Everyone else needed to learn to compromise [and the father to actually act like one instead of being a drunken bore] but Merida herself should not have had to change.

Plus, the love story is still there. The last scene is of the "ugly" laird kissing her hand. The implication is that Merida ends up with him which isn't really losing the princess marries the prince storyline so much as holding out for a sequel a la Tangled.