Brave: Creating a modern fairy tale

by Mary Jo

Once upon a time, full length animated movies were largely the province of Walt Disney, and the classics like FANTASIA and BAMBI and ALICE IN WONDERLAND were released ever few years so new generations of kids could enjoy them. 

The advent of computer generated imagery (CGI) has made the category of animated feature films much larger.  The Academy Awards have had an Oscar for the best animated feature since 2001.

I’m seen a sprinkling of the well reviewed animated features of the last decade: SHREK, ICE AGE, FINDING NEMO, TOY STORY, etc.  I’ve found them pretty and mildly entertaining, though a couple so completely failed to catch our interest that we sent the discs back to Netflix largely unwatched.

But over the weekend, I saw the first animated feature that I loved: BRAVE.  It’s the first that really caught at my heart, which may be why I loved it.

I’m often behind the cultural curve, so I expect that many of you have already seen BRAVE, so please excuse me while I burble.  

For starters, the film is visually stunning.  Made by Pixar, it uses newly developed software, and the result is so gorgeous you want to fall into the images and live there.

Spoiler Alert!

For anyone who plans to see the BRAVE dvd and doesn’t want to have the surprises spoiled, quit here because I want to talk about the film and what made it special to me.

As I saId, BRAVE was made by Pixar, and is the first of their films to have a (gasp!) female protagonist.  It helped that one of the principal creators was female, Brenda Chapman.

The film was distributed by Walt Disney, a company which knows a thing or two about princesses.  But unlike charming movies like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, there is no romance!  MULAN is mostly a girl’s adventure story based on an old Chinese legend, but in the end, she finds love, too.

Naturally I love romance, but I was tickled that there wasn’t a shred of it in BRAVE. Instead, it’s a story of a mother and a rebellious daughter, who love each other but have a relationship strained by the daughter’s fierce independence. 

The princess daughter is Merida (pronounced MER-i-da), a teenager with hair that is such a mass of wild red curls that it’s almost a character in its own right. <g>  Her father is King Fergus and her mother, Queen Elinor, does her best to train her daughter to be a responsible young princess.

Naturally, Merida HATES this.  On her rare free days, she tears off into the forest on her faithful horse, Angus, a great beast with the huge feathered feet that one would expect to see in a real medieval war horse—more Clydesdale than Arabian. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more exuberant piece of film than Merida galloping through the woods, practicing her brilliant archery and climbing a famously dangerous pillar of stone.  She radiates life and enthusiasm. 

But she may not be the brightest candle on the chandelier, since she is shocked, SHOCKED <g>, when told that the three allied clans are coming to present their oldest princes as suitors for Merida’s hand.  Merida is Not Ready to settle down, and the potential suitors are, to say the least, unprepossessing. 

The queen’s demands that her daughter behave causes an explosion as irresistible force meets immovable object. Merida roars off into the forest, runs into a witch, and learns a terrible lesson in magical contracts.  Namely, don’t ask for something as vague as “I want my mother to change.”  Because the results can be ANYTHING. 

The spell Merida buys turns her mother into—a bear.  And this in the middle of a castle full of men obsessed with hunting and killing bears.  Bears were symbols of power and danger.  The word “berserker” comes the Nordic warriors who fought in a state of trance like rage and wore bear skins into battle. 

Much humor is derived from the queen’s confusion and embarrassment at her change, and Merida’s desperate attempts to protect her mother and reverse the spell.  But it’s scary, too!  At the end, I was saying, "Nooooooo!  Pooor bearrrr!!!!"

The ending is happy, and has no handsome prince popping up for Merida to fall in love with.  But it’s a very American fairy tale in that independence and the opportunity to pick one’s own mate in one’s own time trumps responsibility to one’s family, position, and society—exactly the values that Queen Elinor champions.  It’s the difference between reading Georgette Heyer, where an elopement is naughty fun, and reading Jane Austen, where an elopement is devastating to the whole family and its position in society. 

As an author, I try to write characters that fit within the mores of their era.  When your family and community were everyone's safety net, responsibility to others is vital.

Nonetheless, I still adored Merida and her spirit and her wild red curls. <G>  Have you seen BRAVE, and if so, did you like it?  How do you feel about animated films in general?  Love them, tolerate them, or hate them?  I’d love to hear what you have to say!

Mary Jo, who loves independent Scottish lassies (of the sort Wench Susan writes about!)
 

Comments

[Isobel Carr]

I wanted to love it. I really did. But I sadly spent too much time gnashing my teeth over Pixar’s obvious refusal to do even cursory research on the correct clothing for the time and place they chose to set their fairytale.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Isobel--

You're absolutely right on the failure of costume accuracy, but I dealt with that by declaring it a fantasy. *G* But I'm not even remotely a costume maven. For an expert like you, it would be much harder to flick the 'costume accuracy' switch' off!

[april]

I haven't seen it yet. I didn't want to see it enough to go alone and my friends saw it separately. I was going to take my daughter, but she was 4 and the trailer scared her so much whenever it came on tv, she'd crawl into my lap. She's 5 now and I'm still thinking it may scare her. I will rent it though and watch by myself. I've heard good things.

[Patricia Rice]

My granddaughter enjoyed Brave and it's on our list to watch, if we could just figure out that this movie streaming business! I do not require cartoons to wear correct costume any more than fairy tales. I just want story and character!

[Mary Jo Putney]

April, the movie might be a bit too intense for a five year old, but it's well worth your checking it out yourself. It's fun, and at some time in the future, she'll be ready for it, too.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Pat. your granddaughter has good taste. *g* Since you can tune out the costume failings, I think you'll enjoy it.

[Hannah Lee]

When we were in Scotland in August, we had tickets to the Military Tattoo and they projected an image of Merida on the walls of Edinburgh Castle. They love Brave in that country!
One young woman told me it was a positive image for redheads, who still have a tough time in some places.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Hannah--

How wonderful that Merida is adored in her homeland! There are plenty of redheads in Scotland and Ireland! I'm surprised that they still run into problems in places. Redheaded heroines are very popular in romances. I've written a few myself. *G*

[Marian Chivers]

I loved Brave. I watched it in a theatre all by myself in the middle of the day. Redheads do have a hard time - we used to call them 'blue' in Australia and rangas in New Zealand. My son is a blue-eyed redhead and he asks how he got all the recessive genes. You don't see many redheaded heroes!

[Mary Jo Putney]

**we used to call them 'blue' in Australia and rangas in New Zealand. **

Interesting that they're called "blues" in Australia, Marian. Rangas is a mystery--does it mean "red" in Maori? You're right about the shortage of red headed heroes (though I've done auburn.) Maybe the fairness of the color is too vulnerable and heroes are supposed to be dangerous looking? Hard to say. I have a vague interest in writing a blog on redheadedness someday, but I'm not sure how I'd do the research. *g*

[Marian Chivers]

I suppose it's hard to present red-heads as tanned as they usually burn easily, you'd think you could have red-headed vampires - they're skin's naturally pale anyway.
I suppose they're called 'blue' because it's the opposite of red. Australians tend to do that - someone chubby will be called 'slim'. It doesn't happen as much these days as we're more multicultural.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Red headed vampires make sense. *g* But I'd have said that the opposite of red is green--at least. they are complimentary colors. Either way, it's good if that kind of singling out is fading.

[LouisaCornell]

I haven't seen Brave yet, but I will probably put the DVD on my Christmas gift list. My niece and nephew usually buy me the latest Stephen King novel or a DVD from my list. I'm rather fond of the Disney Princess movies. I tend to disconnect completely from the accuracy and research and politically correct frame of mind and simply watch them for what they are - cotton candy entertainment. Sometimes that is exactly what I need to get through the day!

[Mary Jo Putney]

Louisa--even the happiest life needs some fantasy escapes now and then! And we who work in romance can appreciate that more than most. I think you'll like Princess Merida.

[Diane Sallans]

The only thing I missed in Brave was a romance - I wonder if they'll do a sequel?
If you loved Brave try watching Tangled - it is wonderful!

[Mary Jo Putney]

Diane, I have seen ENTANGLED and enjoyed it. I did quite like the fact that BRAVE was unconventional enough not to have a standard romance--but I wouldn't mind a BRAVE II where she met the right match. Maybe a forest outlaw....

[Leah Weller]

My mother and I took my nephew who's 7 to see it in 3D when it came out and I loved it too. I even cried at the end. Zach asked me when we were leaving if I cried and when I said that I had, he told me proudly that he hadn't. I'm sitting here smiling remembering..... :)

[Mary Jo Putney]

Leah, I didn't realize it was a 3-D release. That would have been even more dramatic at the end! Zach is very brave himself. *G*

[Sherrie Holmes]

Mary Jo, thank you for the review of Brave! I'm dying to see it. Anything by Pixar is a must-see for me. I believe I've seen everything they've ever done, and loved them all.

I'm a big fan of animated movies. Even the older ones are fun. Have you seen The Iron Giant? It was made in 1999 and is low tech by today's standards, but it's a fun and funny movie, definitely PG and with a feel good ending.

[Mary Jo Putney]

You'll love BRAVE, Sherrie! I'm not such a big fan of animated movies--I find them watchable, but that's well short of being a fan--bit the genre has become increasinly interesting with cGI. Iv'e heard The Iron Giant is excellent. A good story trumps special effects.

[Artemisia]

Have not seen BRAVE. My favorite anime is SPIRITED AWAY. Miyazaki-san said he is a fan of 10-yr-old girls and their spirit.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Artemesia, I'm sadly ignorant of anime, but I do love that anime have become so widespread and popular. A friend of mine's three sons all ended up studying Japanese so they could better understand anime (and Japanese martial arts. *G*)