Brave

I might be late to the party, but at least I'm fabulous at being late.

Finally, I saw Disney Pixar's Brave.

For those farther behind than me, this is the one where a girl is the main character and she's not involved in some love triangle. At least, not one that she is shown being interested in any of three boys, so maybe it's more like a square. A square with one corner that doesn't want to be a square anymore.

I really liked the way that this movie progressed. I was glad that at the end of the movie she hadn't fallen for any of the boys. Forgive me for sounding like a "femenazi" (this is the term commonly used for women and girls who want to speak out about women's roles that don't all fall into the same loveydovey trope, yes? Hear my sarcasm.) but I was glad that all Mireda wanted to do was be herself and she wasn't interested in finding love. No, Mireda wanted to be herself and find her own way.

Granted, she had to learn a lesson along the way, but at least it wasn't a lesson "you completely wrong" lesson. It was a lesson meant for both parents and their children about compromise. 

I don't exactly like using the term positive roles for women, because not every girl out there is the type to want something like this, some girls want to find the husband and have the family and that is just fine. Instead, I say I like to see more varied types of women role models that cover a range of different personality types. This is something I wish to see more of in men's roles as well. Not every man is the exact same archetype as well, some men want to be the homemaker. That's also perfectly fine.

If I remember right, when Tangled came out there was concern over boys not wanting to see it because it was about a girl. Well, there were boys in the audience when I saw Brave, there were no main "hero" males, and the boys were interested. They stayed interested, and they were excited at the end of the movie. Producers need to be brave (ha, see what I did there?) and take some risks character wise, I think audiences would surprise them. 

When, and if, I ever have a family of my own I am glad that there will be more choices for them to choose role models from.

As an aside, the preview for Frankenweenie came on before Brave. Who else thinks it's ironic that when Tim Burton originally made Frankenweenie as a live action short they fired him because it was "too scary" but now they are producing his feature length claymation version of the same story?

I'm still going to see it.