Pixar Releases Poster for Next Feature: ‘Brave’
by John Nolte
Synopsis via Collider where you can see stills from the film — which debuts next summer:
Brave is set in the mystical Scottish Highlands, where Merida is the princess of a kingdom ruled by King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). An unruly daughter and an accomplished archer, Merida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom. In an attempt to set things right, Merida seeks out an eccentric old Wise Woman (Julie Walters) and is granted an ill-fated wish. Also figuring into Merida’s quest — and serving as comic relief — are the kingdom’s three lords: the enormous Lord MacGuffin (Kevin McKidd), the surly Lord Macintosh (Craig Ferguson), and the disagreeable Lord Dingwall (Robbie Coltrane).
Huffpo is all excited over the element that means the least; the protagonist’s gender:
But there’s one place the fearless studio hasn’t gone: for all their strong female characters, the studio has never had a lead female protagonist. That’s about to change.
Pixar has released the poster for their next film, “Brave,” the tale of a warrior princess from Scotland. First appearing at Entertainment Weekly, the film is about a tough Scottish princess who eschews royalty for her dream to become an archer. Voiced by Kelly MacDonald, the film is due to hit theaters June 22, 2012.
No doubt the movie will be better thanks to the lead not having a penis. And if she were an American Indian lesbian paraplegic with a learning disability, the film might be an outright masterpiece!
ADDED: I’ve just been informed “Toy Story’s” Woody had no penis. I think my point still stands.
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125 Comments
I'm just glad they took out all Christian elements… that would just be too offensive!
I have two daughters. I know I am going to wind up seeing this film.
Happily, thus far the only Pixar movie that hasn't impressed me is Cars.
Female warriors were one of the first signs of the gradual feminist takeovers of the fantasy genre. I hope this isn't the sign of a trend. An archer, yet. Not too many female archers in ancient Scotland, for obvious reasons.
Couldn't they have done a movie based on Queen Boudicca, instead?
So Arianna's little site is huffing ideological smoke about how pleased she is an animated film exalts the power of women? Excuse me if I'm mistaken but in real life didn't she just rip off more than $300 million worth of 'power' from her unpaid female bloggers – and give them bird afterwards when they complained? Arianna, blow that smoke in your own face.
Because if HuffPo has taught us anything (and it hasn't) it's that girls, sorry…women, are smarter, braver, nicer and generally better all around than mean ol men.
And they can do ANYTHING
Good PIXAR stories are all about defeating your expectations. Hopefully, this will be the case for BRAVE. If this is another MULAN, it will be an indication that PIXAR is marching along the same road that utterly destroyed Disney animation in the aughts.
Sounds a lot like Mulan.
Mulan was so horrid I didn't even bother finishing it. Great setting, and they totally killed it.
Sooo… it's a *bad* thing that Pixar is finally making a movie with a female protagonist? What?
Computer animation destroyed Disney animation in the aughts. You can trace the studio's downfall in a straight line from the release of Toy Story.
"I’ve just been informed “Toy Story’s” Woody had no penis. I think my point still stands."
Yes, but for the feminists in Womyn's Studies, "Woody" is still a sexist name.
It looks like it will, at the very least, be a beautiful film. That's one of the many reasons I love Finding Nemo so much – it's gorgeous.
I didn't like "Mulan" when I saw it in the theater years ago. My opinion softened quite a bit as my daughter loved it when she went through her Disney movie phase — it got as much play as "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast" did.
"And if she were an American Indian lesbian paraplegic with a learning disability, the film might be an outright masterpiece!"
Whenever I read or hear anything like that, I always think of the movie "Get Shorty". The part where Travolta first meets Devito and they're discussing Devito's character's great movie career. Travolta says, "You were great as the crippled, gay guy who climbed Mt. Whitney".
I'm still shaking my head over the fact that Big Oil is the "uber bad guy" in Cars 2. How absurd.
Look, I don't care if the protagonist is male or female, as long as it's a good story that doesn't try to preach Leftist propaganda. I've always been a huge fan of Pixar films. Although their studio is ensconced in the heart of Lefty Land, they've managed to keep their distance from political themes. Their stories have always been about emotional connections among compelling characters. It looks like that's about to change.
Who knows, maybe Pixar can remake some of their original movies to better fit with a left-leaning agenda. Here's a few ideas for them to consider:
Muy Story – The tale of an illegal Mexican immigrant who sneaks into the U.S. and steals identity of a U.S. citizen just so he can vote for Obama in the next election.
The Liberals – A family of super-human Leftists who use their abilities to fight Republicans, corporations, and U.S. global hegemony.
Up – The story of a brave U.S. president who saves the world by raising tax rates on the "rich" to 99%, while increasing the national debt by $37 trillion.
Gangsters Inc. – A bio about Obama's political machine, and his use of Chicago-style politics during his meteoric rise to fame and power.
Thug's Life – Sequel to Gangster's Inc.
Finding Soros – Barack Obama is lost without his Socialist overlord. Can he find him in time for the 2012 elections?
Not too many stories in the ancient period had happy endings for all involved, but that doesn't mean you can't make a good movie (Sparticus seems a good example of this). Any time you set a film in pre-modern times you are going to have to deal with things which would horrify and/or outrage a modern audience. You can sanitize this (Disney route), or you can pick the villians and heros, and focus on the bad of one and good of the other, simply by telling the truth in selevtive ways. Hollywood does this all the time.
So…Woody couldn't get one?
Well, if you're referring to traditional 2D animation, then you are (partly) correct. But you're forgetting that Disney now owns Pixar, so anything Pixar does now is technically Disney animation.
Apparently, Pixar is planning on doing some traditional stuff. Also, Frog Princess performed respectfully, grossing a worldwide total of $267,045,765.
Bottom line, if it's a good story people are going to like it. But I'll grant you that 3D has far overshadowed 2D, which is a shame.
meets Highlander.
It's sort of a significant thing, though, right? It's somewhat jarring that no Pixar movie heretofor has featured a female protagonist (Mrs. Incredible doesn't count), especially given Disney's Princess legacy.
That's true. They'd have to really sanitize Boadicea though. The first part, the thing with the daughters, the razing of Londinium, and somehow get the savages er… I mean "good guys" to win out against the evil Romans.
It could be done of course. It's been done before.
Tangled was a great Disney animation film. I think it should have been up for, and won, the Oscar last year. In my family's opinion, it was much better than Toy Story 3.
Why doesn't Mrs. Incredible count?
Pixar movies have always been about the interaction among a cast of characters. Other than Wall-E and Ratatouille, no Pixar movie has focused on one single protagonist. And even in those two movies, the main characters are nothing without their supporting cast.
The problem with politically correct storylines is that the whole thing comes across as a blatant attempt to promote a particular character simply by virtue of the fact of what physical traits they happen to possess. It doesn't matter that Nemo is a fish, or Sully is a monster, or Wall-E is a robot, or Woody is a toy – what matters is how they relate to their world and the characters around them. It's taking human themes and placing them in fantasy contexts. Audiences relate to Wall-E and Eve despite the fact that they are robots, not because they are male or female or whatever. If Wall-E was just about celebrating the "robotness" of a robot, then it would have fallen flat. Similarly, if Brave simply is a story that celebrates the gender of its lead character, then it will indeed fall flat. Something tells me that that won't be the case. Regardless, like I said, I don't care about the main character's gender; I just want a good story that appeals to the better aspects of humanness in general.
Sort of an "ensemble cast." Not a true protagonist.
Then don't watch Cars 2. I liked the first Cars and was disappointed by the bad story and 'evil big oil' message in the second. Also, if I had known it was a story from Mater's perspective I would have stayed home.
Pixar looks as if it's about to follow the same path parent company Disney took after their string of late 80s-early 90s animated film successes, when they decided their films were so popular nothing could hurt them, not even adding a lot of political propaganda into the main story line.
Disney bent to the politically correct crowd after "The Lion King" and produced "Pocahontas" a movie with a ueber-strong female lead, evil white guy/ anti-environment protagonist and a script that cared more about getting a political message across than entertaining the audience. It bombed, and Pixar swooped in the following year with "Toy Story" to claim the mantle as the company that best knew how to make animated films with audience appeal, because they actually focused on a strong story and characters the audience could care about, not issues the audience should care about.
Judging by the reviews, and director John Lasiter's screed about how he wanted to target the evil oil companies, "Cars II" is headed towards being the studio's first critical bomb because it's more interested in indoctrinating than it is in entertaining. We'll still have to see if its box office holds up following the opening weekend's expected big numbers, but if it doesn't, it will be interesting to see which way Pixar decides to go with "Brave", since if the HuffPo is excited about it, that's normally not a good sign that a movie cares more about people enjoying the film than whether that film can be used as an 'educational' tool.
Wasn't "Elastigirl" a lead in the "Incredibiles"?
I guess, but aren't most Pixar movies alike in that way? They're mostly an ensemble of heroes. Granted, many of them are primarily an ensemble of male characters, but I'd definitely count Mrs. Incredible as much the protagonist in The Incredibles as Woody is in the Toy Story movies.
Just my humble opinion.
Well, I enjoyed Cars. But then again, I love my summer Sunday's drinking beer and watching cars drive over 160mph while making consistant left turns. Now Ratatooie (sp?) I didn't like. But to each is own. It's what makes this country great.
What are they going to do if the protagonist doesn't bemoan the glass ceiling that keeps her from achieving her goals? Decry it as a Palin biopic? "This isn't what feminism is all about!" My guess is before you go getting excited about a film like this, make sure it wallows in the filth of your liberal ethos.
Yes. But she doesn't count because she just raised children and did laundry and washed dishes. Pffft, don't you know that's not a real woman? Just ask liberals. They'll tell you.
>>>Merida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom.
They can have there vaginal protagonist, but this here sounds like a conservative message.
Naaah, you're right, far far better to present a feminist hero in total fantasy, where they can truly embody the fantasy world most feminists live in
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that. Maybe it's done in a more tongue-in-cheek kind of way.
But I don't agree about there being a dearth of story ideas at Pixar. They are masters of story telling. They don't need to depend on gimmickry or politically correct ideas. Leave that nonsense to Dreamworks!
Indeed, Elastagirl embodies everything feminists hate about conservative women. Capable, intelligent, and willingly sacrificing for her children and husband, rather than herself and her own fulfillment. Call her kind of a feminist anti-hero. Had that movie been made by a feminist, Elastagirl would have left the repressive life to go find herself, leaving Mr. Incredible and kids to fend for themselves.
Uhm… Are you blind or do you just have a complex?
The heroine of every Katherine O'Hara movie, redhead. Heroine of every Rita Hayworth movie, redhead. Hero of every Van Heflin movie, redhead. Hero of every Danny Kay movie, redhead. Star of I Love Lucy, redhead. Hero of every Johnny Whitaker film or tv series, redhead. Hero of AMERICAN GRAFFITI and Happy Days, redhead. Heroine of Little Mermaid, redhead. Star of NYPD Blue, redhead. Star of CSI Miami, redhead (hello again, David). Shall I go on?
And the redheaded vilains are…?
Warner cartoons did a skit on Disney's cookie-cutter female leads in Animaniacs (maybe Tiny Toons). This was before the "Princess" abomination. Disney's movies got flatter as the cup sizes got fuller.
The review you linked to could almost have been a review of the original Cars. Visually delighful with an uninspired plot and an over-reliance on gags and schtick instead of an interesting story. And, really, how is criticizing Big Oil qualitatively different from criticizing the homogenizing interstate system?
Why would defying sacred custom and bringing turmoil qualify as "conservative"? Rebellion isn't considered conservative, nor is selfishly defying custom.
Not interested.
To date the only Pixar train wreck has been the anti-capitalist Wall-E, which tries to portray all consumption as overindulgence.
I'll see this one for the Scottish Highlands lore.
I read the Táin Bó Cúailnge not too long ago. (I know it is an Irish mythic poem, and not a Scottish one, but same basic area/time) In that story, the strong hero protagonist was male, but he was trained by a fierce female warrior. The celtic tribes all had a huge female warrior fixation.
So this isn't a modern feminist thing. In fact, it feels very authentic to me.
Here's my take: Pixar hasn't been stealthily seeking to become successful enough to one day insert liberal propaganda into their films. No, they've been in Hollywood long enough to become influenced by the liberal cohort.
They had no compunction about offering their own homespun wisdom 20 years ago, borne of their parents' 1500 sq ft post-War ranches, their earthy middle-American values worn proudly on their sleeves. Why would they have any compunction about offering up their more recently acquired, liberal-tinged wisdom borne of 15,000 sq ft. eco-friendly mansions in the Hollywood hills?
Going after the interstate system is a little more vague, as far as going after a specific target (is it the federal government for building it? People and businesses for using it?) Targeting big oil by making gasoline-power the villain in a movie featuring a bunch of gasoline-powered cars is more specific on who you're trying to make the kids in the audience think are the bad guys.
It also shows that at least with this movie, Pixar's decided getting a message across is more important than offer a coherent plot, to the point that even some of the most pro-Disney people in the movie reviewing business think "Cars 2" stinks. In a way, Lassiter's kind of following the Steven Speilberg route in that he and Pixar have had 16 years of pretty much non-stop positive publicity, in large part because what messages have been in their movies have been pretty ones with pretty universal themes. But once you start believing that you have to use your influence to change people's minds on specific political issues — as Speilberg came to believe a little over a decade ago — that's when you start losing the audience, and not just because you're trying to indoctrinate them, but also because you end up either irritating and/or boring even those in the audience who are not that ideologically focused.
Hopefully no annoying talking animal sidekick, though. That in itself remains a breath of fresh air.
Well said!
Yeah, except why do feminist fantasy worlds have to be ugly? It's fantasy, why can't it be all pretty and have unicorns, fairies and ladies fair. Instead we get butch man-women in skank-like outfits usually battling the metaphorical male dominance.
OK, it's not really THAT bad but it seems like it doesn't it?
All they needed to do is show her out hunting moose and they would have considered her the villain of the story.
Yeah, that sounds like another case of Leftists attempting to modify people's natural behavior in order to accommodate their perception of how humanity should be.
I really enjoyed "A Wizard of Earthsea." It made no difference to me that the author was a woman, and it was only in retrospect that I gave any thought to the fact that the characters in the story were all non-Caucasian. I think both of those facts are neat, and I respect LeGuin for deliberately writing a fantasy story featuring non-white protagonists (since there was such a dearth of them), but the fact of the matter is that I enjoyed it for being a good story.
And you're right – it's not so much that they care about true diversity; it's that they care about having the Proper Attitude about diversity, and making sure everyone knows that they do. And the Proper Attitude cares more about inherited genetic traits than a person's imagination, thoughts and character, apparently.
Why do they call themselves "progressive" again?
To anyone worrying that this story and its female protagonist are something to do with feminist influence, allow me to repost something I said above in relation to a similar statement:
I read the Táin Bó Cúailnge not too long ago. (I know it is an Irish mythic poem, and not a Scottish one, but same basic area/time) In that story, the strong hero protagonist was male, but he was trained by a fierce female warrior. The celtic tribes all had a huge female warrior fixation.
So this isn't a modern feminist thing. In fact, it feels very authentic to me.
Yes, that was Animaniacs you're thinking of. In fact, have a snippet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-V4KEnbYo0&fe...
The 105 pound female lead beating a group of 250 pound thugs with her bare hands is a major pet peeve for me. I get that films are fantasy and things happen in them that don't happen in real life but when they do that I think, "Why didn't they just hire Russell Crowe and strap some boobs on him?"…and then I remember his moobs…
I'm wondering where HuffPo got this part — "… the film is about a tough Scottish princess who eschews royalty for her dream to become an archer."
Now, no matter how unHistorical, the glamor of the Highlands is that "royalty" amounts to "clan chiefs" and is expected to be a hands-on sort of affair… and by hands-on I mean hands on a sword. Also, as someone has mentioned, "The celtic tribes all had a huge female warrior fixation."
Just how culturally myopic does a person have to be to see a fantasy of "Scottish Highland Royalty" in necessary opposition to "a dream to be an archer?"
And if it's actually in the movie and not in a HuffPo fever dream, I'll be profoundly disappointed.
Women have been doing awesome things since the dawn of time–crossing plains, burying babies, forging civilization…So a movie about awesome chicks is okay with me. But why can't it feature women doing things that women did? Why does she have to go out and do a guy thing?
(P.S. And because bows actually do require quite a bit of strength to pull back (think of that classic end to The Odyssey), the more lethal ones (the only reason you'd operate a bow in Celtic Scotland) would possibly be more suited to a man–or at least a full grown woman.)
well i hate say it but this was a long time coming. Look at some of the behind the scenes choices that have been made along the casting lines.
tom hanks – uber liberal
bernard shaw ( voice of rex)- radical socialist
david foley & ellen degeneress – darlings of the LGBT community
paton oswalt AND Janeane Garofalo in Ratatouille
9/11 truther ed asner in UP
and of course atheist evangelist randy newman as most used music supervisor/ performer.
I think pixar finally got to the point were they feel they have made enough money now they can start pushing social issues because they feel bad they've made so much money.
I fail to see how you could possibly misunderstand what I wrote. It's a conservative message precisely because of what you just said– defying sacred custom (which is what the Left stands for) ends in turmoil and ruination.
Exactly!
Based on what we know so far, "Brave" isn't being brave. It's just a chick desperately trying to do guy things. How is that female-empowering?
Seems like the opposite to me — a tacit acknowledgement that the only way to have status in the eyes of the politically correct is to do what guys do. (I'm not saying I agree, I'm just deconstructing what it means.)
One more thing: Isn't it kind of weird to name an action movie set in the pre-modern Scottish Highlands "Brave"? Doesn't it just beg to be compared to that other action movie set in pre-modern Scotland with "Brave" in its title?
Are they trying to tell us something? Is the protagonist supposed to represent Oksana?
Maybe because what you wrote was taken out of context — and because when "Merida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom" is resolved, the king and everyone else will have decided Merida was right to tear down institutions, customs, and respect for authority out of her own selfish motives. Everyone else will have learned from her "brave" example.
Having the "Proper Attitude" is a good way of summing it up. One author (male) went so far to put up a condescending post that essentially said to the men– just give them what they want already as if he were some benevolent kind of father granting us little women a boon. He totally didn't see the irony in what he was doing or the attitude he carries. Mind boggling. Again they project their own sexism and racism onto others.
Oh, well never mind then! I'll pass.
To be fair, Ellen Degeneress is about a million times more wholesome than the rest of those people by comparison.
Well if you going to base it on voice actor, John Ratzenberger, who's written for BigHollywood, has voiced for every Pixar film
For being "multicultural", they really go out of their way to be ignorant about cultures and history.
Celtic women have a looooong history of fighting next to their men.
In fact, a fair amount of early celtic and pictish tribes were matriarchal as I recall.
Anyone familiar with Disney's TV show GUMMI BEARS? Check out the episode "Girl's Knight Out" and see if you spot any similarities to BRAVE.
Good point! Ironically, feminism has always been about the masculinization of women coupled with the simultaneous feminization of men. How does a girl acting like a boy serve the cause of feminism? Because secretly it is about the coveting of power by feminists. They do not want to celebrate femininity; rather, they want to deprive men of their perceived power by taking it for themselves. Society is a lot worse off because of that.
The same is true about sexual attitudes. Instead of women serving as a counter-balance to the sometimes boorish behavior of men, feminism encourages women to act in just as boorish a manner, if not more so.
i have a little theory about that also, pixar makes it a point to have enough leftist in there film so they can still claim street cred in hollywood. But since klavan mentioned TS3 as an allegory for conservatism they need to ramp it up just a bit to the left for the next couple of films so they can keep working.
Plus in hollywood land ratzenber gets a pass because he's more libertarian than republican.
also i find it ironic that lassiter came up with the original cars story after a cross country trip in a RV. Talk about giving to big oil. Though that might explain why he decided to go after big oil. He felt guilty for using so much gas and contributing to green house gases.
The Scots are white. They care nothing about white cultures or history.
Honestly, I think it's all other cultures. It's about self-identifying as the enlightened, cosmopolitan sort instead of the parochial, inward-looking sort. No one needs to actually know anything in order to self-identify as being part of the group that supposedly knows so much.
I'm with you there. Toy Story 3 was decent, but I left feeling unimpressed. The story wasn't too much different than the previous films, and Pixar let sappy outcomes carry things a bit too much. The previews for Cars 2 really didn't thrill me at all.
Tangled was far better and in all honesty they main characters were more interesting than a large amount of Disney leads in a long time.
I'll make a prediction now: The feminists and HuffPo cohort will not be satisfied with a female Pixar hero. Recall that these are the people who thought that UP didn't have a strong female presence when the woman in it was so overwhelmingly influential that she drove *all* of it, even after she was dead.
This hero isn't going to be the right sort of hero. The plot will not be focused adequately on female concerns, but will be a girl doing boy things… such as valuing military arts and going on a quest. Thus she will only get protagonist status by conforming to the patriarchy's expectations and playing a man's game.
Wait for it.
I've no doubt that some of the crowing at HuffPo and bizarre focus on the gender of the hero is directly related to the fussing over the male dominated UP. They made Pixar listen! They effected change in their world!
But if there is one thing that the professional feminists are, it is that they are professionals. They are *good* at what they do, which is to find and point out sexism in all it's forms. People have made it their life work.
So make a note, because I'm right about this.
The heroine of Brave will be only "a good start". But she will lack true feminine status on account of having *only* been able to *be* on account of bowing to the patriarchy by taking on a male narrative.
Its so funny that most conservatives wouldn't think twice about the ramifications of the lead characters sex, because we are actually over race and gender, but the gender-obsessed, racialist liberals keep taking us back to the dark ages with their refusal to let racism and sexism die out.
Let's hope this one doesn't become as big a car pile-up as "Cars 2".
You rule, dude. Superior Roman tactics indeed!
It wasn't just the fact that it was computer animation. It was also the fact that Pixar was creating original and compelling stories while Disney was cranking out the same old sh*t with a different name.
Amen to that. Pixar's run of creativity has been amazing, but all good things have to come to an end someday.
That's a good point.
Youve nailed it.
Totally off topic, but one Disney movie I wish they would remake is one that came out back in the 70s called Child of Glass.
I hope Merida's just an awesome girl, not a girl who would be awesome if she wasn't such an in your face feminist.
Also, yay Scotland!
Both Braveheart and this new Brave are riffing on… "Scotland the Brave".
Take two haggis and an Irn Bru, and you'll be Scottish in the morning.
Wise women, men comic relief. Yup, gonna be in line to see this one. No feminist ax grinding here…
I thought that Rosie O'Donnell was Dori.
Granted, defying customs doesn't always have to be such an ugly thing. Isn't that what the Colonies did when they defied Britain?
Conversely, they might also have had the sense (if they indeed held those Left leaning beliefs before marinading in Hollywood) to keep their politics out of their stories. And that has served them well. Possibly too well. I've never seen any sort of objection to anything Pixar has done and that success might have led them into a false sense of security. "Oh, well, everyone loves what we do here, I guess it wouldn't hurt to weave a little bit of a lesson in this movie. People will still love it!"
Well, obviously the girl's name is supposed to be Mhairi (Mary) or Molly as in Molly Whuppie, the famous Scottish fairy tale heroine who tricked giants into killing themselves.
But "Merida" doesn't make much sense as a Scottish Gaelic name, much less a girl's name. You might convince me it was Pictish or really Northern British/Welsh (like the Morfudd, Morud names with notional Morvida). What's more, many of the possible derivations for such a name are pretty darned unsuitable for a family movie, like the word derived from Latin "meretrix" (if you know what I mean and you know you do). Now, "merda" means lively (or animated! ha!), but there's no way in heck you could sell that in any French- or Spanish-speaking country. I bet they inserted a syllable for just that reason….
I might buy a standard Gaelic given name, nickname formation, or a two-part name like Mer Ide. There's a female saint named Ide, and it's basically the feminine counterpart to the name Aidan; it means "torch" so it goes with her hair. I'm afraid that one of the meanings of "mer" is "demented, raging, rash", and it does seem to go with things like the sea and fire. (But I am not a Celtic linguist, even if I play one on the Internet.)
Ohhhhh. This is the project that was formerly called The Bear and the Bow. Merida done kilt the wrong b'ar.
Apparently we're in Christian times, because there's a "Queen Elinor" who's English. (I mean, played by Emma Thompson and has an English name — no Eilean or anything.) I still don't see any "Merida" being a Scottish name. I mean, not unless it's a reference to some Spanish player on a Scottish soccer team.
On the bright side, that's a pretty nice medieval Scottish outfit.
If this is the road they are going to take then I am excited about this movie. They could have made an Amazon type warrior ae well
Oh dear, I think that would be even worse.
Attempts to be authentic don't fit the propaganda narrative. If they called her Siubhan or Eileen, there'd be accusations of eurocentrism…barf. Merida sounds Hispanic–perhaps that's their PC target market?
The us vs them mentality got old a long time ago. It's like every stupid ism on the planet has to get into the mindset. Women vs Men. Young vs Old. Moron group 1 vs Moron group 2. (That one might be RINOs vs Progressives!)
Whether or not the main character is a girl or not is really immaterial. Who cares as long the story is decent.
Now onto the author thing… minor rant zone here so beware…..
I'm going to disagree with that Guardian poll. Recently I'm getting bored to tears with guy authors in just about every single genre. Women authors lately seem to have together more in general. I have lately been really really tired of the over compensation of masculinity in a lot of books by guys. Heroes are over the top rambo and the bad guys are just plain comical. (James Rollins, this means YOU!) I know us guys have been knocked around quite a bit by the idiocy of feminism but by these new standards even Washington was a metrosexual! Next, I'm equally tired of the sanctimonious attitude of some guy authors over force feeding us with diversity garbage for no other reason… than to cram diversity down our throats. It's old, it's tired, it's cliched, it's not anything close to being truly progressive, it usually makes for terrible stories, and I've simply had ENOUGH.
OK, rant over… Whew!
I think any genre can get annoying if it's saturated by a "type" of hero/heroine as written by either gender. Lately the female protagonists are written in a similar mold as the men, only instead of Rambo they're all like Buffy– full of snarky one-liners and ready with an arsenal of weapons. Unfortunately it's hard to find any originality right now; which is why we shouldn't be trying to show preference to authors based on gender.
You're actually exactly right. A book needs to be judged on its own. The gender of the author isn't really relevant.
You know, I think you're right on the women authors -in general- lately as well. I apparently find the Buffy clones more engaging currently than the rambo-clones.
Though at some point we should probably get back to normal men and women. Assuming any are left….
As opposed to the conservatives at Big Hollywood ONLY focusing on discreet elements of other films that happen to make their ideological spidey-sense tingle? I don't see why it should be annoying for anyone — whether here or at HuffPo — to celebrate the fact that Pixar is making its first film with a lead female protagonist.
I agree, I was sad to see Cars 2's terrible "Rotten" score over at RottenTomatoes.com, but my husband and I went to see it anyway because we know and like the Pixar brand. It's a major disappointment a Pixar film could be this flat. The "big oil is bad" message is disappointing, too. But the story and plot, and how they seem to want to literally imitate James Bond movies, but with cars, is what doesn't work rather than it's political ideology. The story would have worked better with the characters from "The Incredibles".
Not really, she was a supporting character. The movie was about Mr Incredible.
I will be making a note of this. Mark my words. And if you're wrong you will accept defeat and agree that everything out of your mouth from here on in will be a load of poo.
We took our son to see Cars 2 last night and my husband and I both felt they tried very hard at being political and not hard enough at being funny and creating a story line that a child can follow. Those of you who have seen it look at it from an adult point of view. Think about a 4 year old trying to figure out "big oil" , "clean energy" or "offshore drilling sights." The best part of the movie was the Toy Story short film at the beginning.
To me, it sort of looked like an Anglicized derivation of the Gaelic name Mairead, which is found both in Ireland and Scotland. But that's just a guess, because it's the only thing that makes any sense to me at all.
I write historical fiction, myself – and if any of the boards and discussions that I am a part of, HF is pretty well split between women and men, although women writers cluster towards the historical romance side of the spectrum (Phillippa Gregory, et al) , and men on the political/military side (Bernard Cornwell) — although this is not absolutely cut and dried – Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Renault did more of the political/military HF.
My own books are pretty well an even split as far as male and female characters, and dealing with their particular concerns – keeping house on the frontier and raising children on one hand, adventure and war on the other, but oddly enough about 3/4 of my fan base are men.
Make of that what you will…
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