Reviewers were complaining that unlike other Pixar films, 'Brave' didn’t feature a fully fabricated, fantastically unexpected world it seemed to be treading old ground.įor example, Todd McCarthy wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that 'Brave' is “familiar” and treads “startlingly well-worn territory.” He also complains that it is “laden with standard-issue fairy tale and familiar girl-empowerment tropes.” But is it, really? It’s a story about a mother-daughter relationship.

When Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe and I talked about 'Brave,' she mentioned that a lot of early reviews complained the film was unoriginal – ”just another princess movie,” she said. There are two strands of criticism that I would like to address: 1) that the film is unoriginal, and 2) that Merida is a brat. With all that in mind, since the release of 'Brave,' I’ve been reading reviews and commentaries of the film with interest. Can’t a girl who is supposed to be strong not be a loner? Finally, having studied girl power media for several years, it bothers me that Merida is presented as isolated, an anomalous female, without a community of female peers her own age.The storyline itself features such unappealing would-be suitors that Merida’s disinterest in romance is undercut: What if the three young men who must vie for her hand were more like Prince Charmings than doofuses?.The film’s marketing, which essentially ignores that 'Brave' is a tale of a mother-daughter relationship (presumably for fear that such a story wouldn’t be a box office draw), is insulting.I saw Disney- Pixar’s ' Brave' the day it debuted in theaters, and I’m glad that Merida is a different kind of princess – one who can be read as a critique of both the trope that princesses are passive and the trend to tell their stories as romances.īut I also have some mixed feelings.

Images of brave characters