Brave

Since my youth I was one of the children that due to low resources, was babysat by the television and video-games. Popular children's culture shaped most of my beliefs, since most the first images of people other than me I saw on that magical box. In the late 80's and 1990's nothing was bigger than Disney and their movies and in my neighborhood if you were one of those families that could afford to have the Disney channel your house was the one we all tried to visit. I learned a lot about my beliefs from Disney culture and always put myself in the shoes of the princes. especially Aladdin. (the only prince that somewhat resembled what I looked like) I learned how grieve with the Lion King, (but I also learned that there are places that you shouldn't go and not to trust people with dark hairs), With Aladdin I learned that being poor was remedied by a magic lamp and three wishes and that the more successful I became that a princess would be waiting for me. They played a huge role in my life as I learned to interact and learned about beauty and how the princess involved in most films were "model" skinny and always seemed to be needed to be saved by the prince.

The film Brave challenges all of the things I learned from watching animated movies as a child. The protagonist Merida's mother is often trying to teach her daughter how to be a princess and how to do things in a way that princess should be doing them and her daughter Merida is always questioning that. If you were to replace the word princess with woman, or lady, or girl, the movie would become more direct at delivering its message. The protagonist in this film is not your stereotypical Disney princess. Merida is interested in challenging the status quo. She does not want to be waiting for her prince. In fact when her suitors comes she even beats them in an archery contest. The most symbolic scene comes when after beating the suitors in an archery contest, the dress that she has one, essentially becomes too tight for her and she says something to the tune of "it doesn't fit anymore" and the dress rips. What doesn't fit is her assigned gender roles. In the movie most of the time that her mother is trying to get her to conform she is making her cover up her hair and wear a dress that she can barely move in. This is the film maker's way of showing female containment and showing through metaphor how females are expected to be conformed in society.

Another thing that the movie did really well with the plot is the concept of perfection in the movie. Women are expected to be perfect and to be compassionate beings Merida isnt that.  I think with the plot of turning her mom into a bear and the fact that Merida was the one that made a mistake and she was the one that had to fix it was very important. This goes against the princess stereotype of having to be saved by a prince but it also goes against the stereotype of the perfection that we expect in women.