In a way, the film is structurally anti-feminist, and superficially covers this up by having a girl play the “victim.” This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Elinor is portrayed as well-intentioned but misguided who needs to learn balance, rather than an outright villian.Įlinor does not accept Merida winning her own hand in marriage, and continues to insist that an arranged marriage will go ahead. If we read Merida as a younger, female extension of Fergus, then Elinor is the regressive, anti-feminist figure of the emasculating, castrating woman, a connection that the film mystifies by making her target a girl. The message is that Father is the avatar of unlimited freedom and fun, and Mother represents duty, oppressive restrictions and limitation. This is the result of Fergus’ influence and training.
Her skill at archery enables her to symbolically reject her arranged marriage by winning the archery contest among her suitors that is intended to determine her future husband. Merida’s beloved bow is a gift from Fergus that Elinor feels is inappropriate for a princess. Both have fiery red hair and a wild, fun-loving, independent spirit. The connections between father and daughter don’t stop there. The film hints that Fergus, like Merida, also endures Elinor’s civilizing lessons. Both of these scenes reveal that she is ultimately the woman behind the throne. Later we see Fergus stammer his way through a speech before the assembled clans, and Elinor quietly saves him by giving him the words to say. Arranged marriage stands for the burden of the patriarchy on women, but the film makes a point of showing how awkwardly and reluctantly he announces the plan, casting glances at his wife as if to say “Do we really have to do this to her?” while she eggs him on. The main difficulty with reading the film as a feminist allegory is that Queen Elinor, represents civilization and the social order, while the father, Fergus is a simple, good-natured, innocently-violent man-child, who just loves telling stories and carousing with his war buddies. The tension explodes when Merida’s father informs her that she is to be betrothed to the first-born son of one of the three clans ruled by her father chosen by feats of skill in the Highland Games. The story centers on the wild, energetic teenage princess, Merida, who chafes under the tutelage of her prim and elegant mother Queen Elinor, who is attempting to train her to become a lady. Precisely because they are telling a story with a strong female lead and want it to have wide appeal, they will almost certainly approach the possibility that it would be read as a partisan, political, feminist film with great caution – ironic, considering the title.Īnd this is what they did. Now, even if I put aside my general skepticism, this seems unrealistic to me. Expectations on the internet have been running high: it’s Pixar’s first real female lead, and their (to me, baffling) reputation as a progressive film studio created a lot of excitement. This is what I was thinking walking into the theatre to see Brave today. But the myths that well-meaning, Obama-voting progressives believe are more far-reaching and pernicious because they are universally accepted, rising to the level of ideology in the Althusserian definition of the word of common-sense, unquestioned givens (which is, in a way, the opposite of how it is normally used.) When talking about how inequality is justified, we almost always focus on right-wing bromides, like how poor people are supposedly lazy or stupid.
So as a cultural phenomenon, Pixar is uniquely interesting. They have a tendency to provide ideological support for inequality, a fact that has apparently gone unnoticed by a large number of ostensibly liberal progressive viewers. When they’re not promoting Objectivism and turning equality into a villian ( The Incredibles), they’re subtly stigmatizing the working class ( Toy Story) or overtly blaming them for environmental problems ( Wall-E). Although I enjoy watching the films and I guess I’m glad they’re making pop culture a little more meaningful, I’m troubled by what those meanings are. They produce work that has everything that we want in popular entertainment – smart, compelling, meaningful films with artistic merit that can be enjoyed by adults as well as children – and their enormous success gives us a little hope that popular culture can be more than just empty, superficial pleasures that pander to our basest instincts.īut I’m not a Pixar fan. Pixar is incredibly well-regarded, particularly among white middle class progressive voters, and deservedly so.
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