There's a section of conservative America that still wants "boys to act like boys and girls to act like girls." This was evidenced last night when I was channel surfing and stumbled on Fox News' Bill O'Reilly talking about the teenager who was told to take of his makeup for his DMV photos. His claim was that,"If he's a boy, he should look like one in his photo." While many DMV representatives will reject an applicant with too much makeup or anything that significantly alters their appearance, the teenager was wearing a slight and tasteful amount of eyeliner, mascara and foundation. If he wears it all the time, then that's how he should look in his ID. I don't know if he's LGBT or what and that doesn't really matter.
[political rant] Doesn't seem the least bit out of character for O'Reilly. Seems that he's still pandering to the old, angry shut ins that think any sign of societal change on any level, no matter how small, as some sort of slide into Sodom and Gomorrah. As in the whole "things were better in my day," which really means "I'm secretly scared of how old I am." Therefore, remain scared and angry and don't let progressive thought and politics continue to spread. I'm glad that influence is starting to fade, but it's still out there. But keeping them angry is what the entire network's about, as it gives them political influence and ratings.[/political rant]
So yeah, Brave is really, well, brave for creating a character like Merida. I get your point completely.
The film was well meaning. And I also applaud it for Pixar breaking out of
their comfort zone of "cute thing, preferably one that shouldn't talk, learns a lesson." The film could have been much better if it wasn't for internal politics, but I like what they were
trying to do.
Also, back on to Frozen. Aside from Snow White's Evil Queen, when was the last time a woman ran a kingdom in a Disney film? In fact, a lot of Disney films have a history of making powerful women the bad guys. Wonderfully so, but still, that's kind of problematic.
Depends on how many of them had Kingdoms and regal figures that were part of the story. They haven't done that sort of fairy tale since Beauty and the Beast (didn't see Tangled, so I don't really know). While not entirely related to the conversation, I really wish they had time in the film version to officially state that Ursula was Triton's sister. They supposedly bring that back for the musical. It added a level of sibling rivalry in what would otherwise be just a megalomaniac sea witch.
Actually... getting semi-related to the topic... there was a huge push a while ago (seems to have died down) for a plus sized Disney princess. Now, I don't know how that would work, she'd probably be curvy, sure, but it seems no one can agree to what plus sized really
is. At least on the scale of voluptuous to fat. Then I remembered something I read that really puts out this fire. Broadway from Gargoyles was originally supposed to be a female character, but Disney refused to have an overweight female protagonist. And I actually haven't seen one until Amethyst in Steven Universe. And good for Steven Universe for that.