Brave movie review from a Feminist English Teacher

8/10/2013

I've been chewing over this for a few days now. My husband and I watched some reviews of Brave the movie on Youtube. The first thing that I noticed was an almost total lack of female reviewers. The males seemed to be doing most of the talking and it all sounded the same. Almost like they were copying each other. The complaints listed a sudden change in the tone of the movie when the queen changed into a bear, a total lack of understanding as to why she turned into a bear and not some other magical effect, and a lack of adventure or meaningful action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzWoeQ-GWAU

Hubbie and I had some great discussions about where the reviewers were missing the point. There were things they were not taking seriously, belittling, overlooking and misjudging. I dismissed the men mostly because the movie focused on a relationship and its evolution between two females. Men really can't understand that just because they are men. It's a genetic loss on their part. Hubbie, as a male, made some great points about socialization and the female perspective. He really is in touch with his feminine side. It's nice to see.

 A recent edition of SageWoman included tons of articles on gender and spirituality and the third wave of feminism which seeks to include gender, sexuality, socio-economic status, race and men's roles in feminism. These are things that were overlooked during the second wave and this new breed of feminist seeks to include these things in the discussion. Some of my ideas come from this edition as well as books on motherhood, growing up female and my own literary analysis.

First, one must understand there are two types of fairy tales: masculine and feminine. The masculine fairytale often involves a boy leaving home to reclaim his destiny or reclaim his crown. Sometimes it was stolen by an evil uncle, or sometimes this fate lies in the claiming of a woman or magical weapon. He travels far and wide, meets many allies and gathers magical tools. The conflict he comes across is often a magical beast, a maze of problems he must solve to claim the maiden or weapon, or the slaying of the evil wizard/uncle. Male stories are everywhere. The Athurian Legends, Merlin, Legend of the Seeker, Star Wars, etc. are all male fairy tales or legend story arcs. Stories that fall outside of the fairy tale like UP and Finding Nemo have male leads. They would have been just as good had it been a mother and daughter separated and searching for each other, or a grandmother figure and girl scout flying away in a balloon house. The socialization of our society makes the default of these stories masculine. It probably just didn't occur to the writers to make the characters female, even as it would have no impact on the direction of the story. Or perhaps the only time they think of using female characters is during a female story arc.

The feminine fairy tale consists mostly of an impossible home life. She must flee for her life as in Snow White; or she is kidnapped like in Tangled, the story of Rapunzel; or she seeks an escape from abuse like in Cinderella. All of these stories feature a romantic lead who saves the princess. In Snow White it's the seven dwarves who act as father-figures keeping her safe until the prince can take her away and keep her safe for good. In Cinderella it is her beauty that attracts the prince and marriage that is her rescue from domestic violence. In Tangled it is a handsome rogue who gets her out of her tower. Even though she starts out as her own agent of change, he takes her fate into his own hands when he cuts her hair off, thereby taking her choice away from her. It is only by accident that her tear brings him back from death. Neither of these events come from her choice, her intelligence, skill or her intentional action.

Brave is different because Merida very much takes an active role in her choices and the direction she takes in life. She is her father's daughter and like many 2^nd wave feminists, she rejects the subtle and familial focus of her mother. She sees what her mother has to teach her as useless and silly. She goes along with it to be dutiful but when she is put to the test, she aggressively turns her back on it.

2^nd Wave feminism seemed to focus on career paths and masculine traits as a way for women to gain equal footing with men. The side effect of this was to belittle stay-at-home moms, feminine traits like cooperation, the subconscious, emotion, relationships and family, peace and diplomacy. To accept these female traits would have been tantamount to treason. It was believed that to be valuable one must be masculine because femininity is not valued in our society. Ambitious and professional women rejected femininity and female friends. Merida in the beginning is most definitely a masculine character whose values lie in combat skills, aggression and action.

Elinor embodies the female traits of subtlety, diplomacy and a quiet strength that literally parts the waves of the battle in the great hall. Her silent presence is highly respected and revered by the men of the court. Her soft-spokenness is powerful. Her tapestries, which might be sneered at as a useless female activity, are historical records of events and people in the kingdom. It is from these tapestries that history gets recorded for future generations. Her recounting of the Legend of the Four Princes is part of the kingdom's oral history.

In our society, oral history is often considered women's history, since men wrote their stories down and their stories involve men's victories. Women preserved the wisdom of female stories such as the women of the Bible or Goddess mythology. The also re-interpreted male stories. Examples of this include a feminist attempt at a re-interpretation of Genesis. In that version Eve chose willingly to eat of the tree of Knowledge. She understood the risks, she was not a victim of the serpent and her gift to her children was free-will which she had determined was worth the price of pain and death.

 The men and Merida sneered at the oral tradition, saying they had already heard it before. They saw it as merely entertainment. Elinor saw it as a lesson to be meditated on and then lived. Merida would learn this as she got to know her mother as a person separate from her role as queen.

This leads us to the next point. Not only is this story different because it focuses on two women and their relationship, but it is a female adventure. By this I do not mean it ends in marriage as do traditional female fairtytales. The adventure is domestic/local and subconscious. Merida does not leave her home like Cinderella and the other fairytale princesses. This is instead about internal change, revelation and a shift in perspective. Male adventure usually revolves around violence, weapons, attacking and traveling far away. The men in the hall when they set up their barricades and throw spears at each other while arguing over who will marry the princess, covers the male point of view in this story. The film only shows this for only a few minutes because it is not the primary narrative thrust.

The female narrative in this case is triggered by a physical change of self. When Elinor turns into a bear it is both accidental and very much intentional. Merida did not plan it. However, we know something is going to happen involving bears because of Mor'du in the beginning and because of the obsession the witch has with bear carvings. The story of the four princes plays heavily in this as well. When we put these three foreshadowing clues together, it should not have been a surprise to anyone that Elinor turned into a bear. Nor should it be a surprise that Mor'du is the fourth prince. So I reject this idea that people were surprised, disappointed or felt the narrative made a complete 180 degree turn at this point.

This is also not a surprise because this is a Celtic tale. Anyone who knows Celtic legends or mythology, even just King Arthur, should have seen the animal shape-shifting “twist” coming from a mile away. Merlin was said to have turned Arthur into different animals to try to teach him the wisdom of each animal and how seeing through another's eyes could lead to wisdom. Elinor's experience does just that for both main characters. This animal tradition still exists today in modern Shamanism.

Being changed into a bear takes Elinor out of her element. She must leave the castle which is her domain, the place where she is the master and teacher. She follows her daughter into the forest. Elinor doesn't have a clue about the forest and the animals. Her daughter for the first time becomes her teacher. Elinor starts to see Merida as the intelligent and capable young woman she has become and ceases to regard her as an empty vessel to be filled with her own knowledge or as an extension of her own identity. An acknowledgment of their separateness occurs. From this separateness a relationship of equals can emerge. They begin to see each other as people and not just as roles or positions like princess and queen. Stripping away the civilized social roles enables them to just be people with each other. Elinor as a bear is taken out of her element and gains an opportunity to really learn who her daughter is as an individual. This is a major trans formative moment. I am a bit concerned that so many overlooked it in the reviews. This scene seems to embody the whole point of the adventure and the character evolution that was the primary focus of this film.

I believe this also answers the problem that Adrienne Rich wrote about in Of Woman Born. She talked about mothers as being symbols, or place holders for their children. Society and children failed to see mothers as human beings with their own identity, their own interests and separateness.This led to the isolation and neglect of the mother in the domestic sphere and from this came stress, depression and even violent reactions like child-abuse and suicide. This story provides a healthy example of a mother and daughter who come to see each other as independent people, and not as social roles, as I've said earlier. Finally, a mother who is also a person in her child's eyes.

The lessons that Merida learned from her mistake, from the change her mother went through, the loss of the face and body of the woman she knew as her mother, the loss of that comfort she remembered in her childhood dream when they sang to each other, came to full fruition in two scenes.

The first one shows us how much Merida learned from her mother's tutelage on how to be a princess. She takes on her mother's character traits to an extent, in order to gain the attention of the crowd of warring men. She imitates her mother's walk, posture and voice projection as well as careful slow and diplomatic speech. However, when the men start to shout over her, she channels her father's forceful presence yelling, “Shut it!” She also invokes the feminine oral history of the four princes. She does not allow the men to dismiss this tale and explicitly reveals the lesson of the story and how they can all do better if they learn from it. Some have said that she compromises in order to make her family happy. I don't see her compromising here. I see a change. She has gained new wisdom and is changing how she views herself and her place in the world because of it. She has integrated both masculine and feminine traits and used both to get attention, hold the floor, and get her point across and not be shouted or bullied out of her power.

I believe this Merida has resolved the conflict left us by the second wave feminist war of the sexes and found a peace within herself with both aspects of self. It is the hope the third wave of feminism has for both men and women. To value equally the masculine and feminine traits within ourselves, our spirits and our society. With this integration we can find peace with each other and hopefully create a healthier society, as Merida did by laying down new rules for her kingdom. The tradition that took power away from women to choose their mates, and took power away from the princes to choose their brides as well, was tossed aside in favor of a new tradition that would honor free-will and each individual having a say in their own life and destiny. That is true liberty.

The second scene is brief. Her father tries to kill her mother/bear. Even though Merida in the earlier scene has accepted the lessons of her mother and has made peace with her feminine side, she still is fierce and dons the power and action of her masculine side, that she learned from her father. Her tosses her aside and she is restrained but she flips the men aside and fights her own father, defeating him with her sword, a most phallic symbol. She has succeeded both mother and father and has become fully a whole and powerful person who wears the traits of male and female equally and fluently.

The tradition of fairy tales told to children is one that was intended to teach children the lessons they needed to know in order to be successful in society. What happens to children who disobey their parents, who are greedy or gluttonous, or who trust the wrong people? These same tales also give the answer, like the witch when she said “Fate be changed; look inside. Mend the bond torn by pride”. They give children a blue-print on how to navigate the threats and problems of childhood and adolescence. Our modern Young Adult books like Harry Potter and Sweep Series do the same for children today.

Now I come to why I think some of the reviewers, including the female reviewers surprisingly, had such a problem fully comprehending the importance of this film. I asked many questions regarding this and it took me a while to formulate potential ideas as to why the misunderstandings occured.

At first I thought it might have something to do with a lack of understanding of fairytale structures and specifically Celtic mythology. The magical creatures, the shape changing, all seemed to be a struggle for some viewers. The witch was a real person, not a jealous and evil character, but benevolent and funny. She had a sweet yet feisty personality. She was not like your average witch in a fairy tale. She was a helper and not trying to destroy the princess to eat her, use her magical hair, or kill her out of jealousy. She was a great cartoon crone, in the pagan sense.

Perhaps these viewers, who were all younger than me, were not familiar with King Arthur and animal shamanism. They didn't know about or understand the connection of experiencing life in another's body in order to gain new wisdom. There is a long tradition of taking on the form of an animal. In tribal societies they do so in order to get into the mindset of the prey they will be hunting. There are elaborate hunting rituals that men engage in before they leave as a party to hunt and get food. Still practiced today in some parts of the world. So perhaps the concepts presented from this culture were just too foreign for these younger viewers to handle or process.

Could it be a lack of imaginative childhood? I remember when I was young, my friends would spend hours on this vacant lot we called “the jungle” with trees and bushes and wildflowers. We would make up stories and act them out. Not reenact movies we had seen or books, but make up totally new stories and improv our way through them. My back porch was a time machine (not literally) and jumping off one side would get you to the future and the other would take you to the past. I don't know how kids in their teens spend their imaginative years or how young people in their 20s now spent their free time as kids. Did they watch TV and play video games? Did they leave the house at all? Is that imaginative play essential to truly understand metaphor and symbol and allegory? Could they not see the layers and depth of the story, the characters, their evolution, etc. because of this missing skillset? We know in wild animals that play is essential to that animal's survival. They learn hunting skills, grappling, killing, and social cues from their play. Why would humans be any different? Boys are exposed to certain types of toys that encourage math and science and girls get toys that encourage babies and homemaking even today. We protest this knowing that what they play with can program their interests and skill sets even as young as one. The type of play our children engage in will shape their brains, the social connections and knowledge and thus determine their ability to live a full and enjoyable adult life. So could there be a stunting of imagination in our children because of a loss in free-thinking and imaginative play?

The last possibility leads me to socialization. The last point also involved socialization through play, but this question regards gender role training. Because our society belittles females and female traits, it might be hard for men and women to take anything seriously that focuses on a female point of view. This occurs to the point that having a female character "just because", like female characters for UP which could be a gender-neutral story, doesn't even enter the minds of writers as a possibility. The only time female characters are added is when a girl is needed for a female role. Mother, daughter, token female to appeal to a wider audience, housekeeper or servant, victim to be rescued and evoke the viewer's emotional reaction. Even in princess stories from Disney the supporting cast is all male like the bug and alligator in The Princess and the Frog.  FeministFrequency on YouTube covers a series of tropes describing in full these female roles in video games and how harmful these stereotypes are to females, males, and society as a whole.

Because society cannot take female points of view seriously, viewers do not believe that their perceptions and experiences have any value or lesson to teach. They violently reject or simply overlook these women and accompanying female traits as superficial, vain, girlie, and as having no impact on society. Much like Merida did in the beginning of the film. She learned later they did impact her ability to be powerful in society. Stories about girls are often stories about mean girls, girls fighting over a guy, girls being sexual or being sexual objects. Mothers and daughters are almost never addressed in films and when they are they are always fighting. Even in “chick flicks” they are at odds with each other. Trying to find a healthy mother-daughter relationship is impossible. This movie presents a troubled relationship but, like a good fairytale, it gives us a pathway, a vision, out of the conflict and toward resolution and understanding. It's a way for our young people to envision what it would be like to really appreciate one's mother and to see her as a person. It is troubling when a female reviewer says repeatedly and with contempt that she just doesn't care about Merida as a character at all and this conflict is the same as all others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnev3eTmKCU

In How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, the author discusses something she describes as her imaginative landscape. In the book she focuses on visions of sexual pleasure, but I believe her concept applies to this as well. In order for us to be able to see ourselves in healthy relationships, we have to have examples. We have to have seen it on TV or in real life, or read it in a book when we are in our formative years so we can add it to our imagination. Once we have that vision in our heads, it becomes like a landmark. We are conditioned to look for that because it feels good and makes us happy. It becomes a ruler to measure our relationships and something we can use as a model to create our own happy and healthy relationship. If we don't have these visions in our imagination we are lead to believe it is not possible or does not exist. People who have seen nothing but broken and antagonist relationships aren't going to know how to construct a healthy one. They need a model to follow, and clear signs to read so they can steer their relationship right. It is the legacy of a conflicted familial past that so many cannot accept a clear example of a healthy and happy family.

For Example, Pop Psychology authors have made millions of dollars teaching visualization as means to achieve happiness. "If you can dream it, you can do it."--Walt Disney

This imaginative landscape that is seeded during a person's youth combines socialization with imagination. You can't imagine it if you've never “seen” it and you can't create it if you can't imagine it. Therapy is expensive and fairytales are cheap.