Boys are dumb. Girls are ‘Brave.’ But luckily, a plot twist adds nuance
Published: 6/29/2012 8:05 AM
Last Modified: 8/2/2012 3:38 PM
"It's clear that the queen wears the kilt in this family," says Tulsa World movie critic Michael Smith.
“I’m a boy,” he said. “I can’t cry.”
Where did he get that?
Not from me, and certainly not from his mother.
How did this old stereotype infiltrate our 21st century family?
The very next day, he was sitting on his mother’s lap at the movies, burying his head in her shoulder to hide from a scary bear in Disney and Pixar’s latest collaboration, “Brave.”
A modern Disney princess can’t act too much like – well, a princess.
So our heroine has to do all the “guy stuff” better than the guys – riding a horse, shooting arrows, sword fighting, you name it.
She finds a pretty dress too confining and ignores her mother’s quaint advice about acting ladylike.
As Robert Ebert put it, Pixar “seems at a loss to deal with her as a girl and makes her a sort of honorary boy.”
A prince, however, can’t show up in shining armor anymore.
The real boys in this movie come across as boorish dimwits, literally tripping over themselves when they try to come to the rescue.
Thankfully, part way through, “Brave” takes a sudden turn. Just when you think it’s going to be a heavy-handed lecture against traditional gender roles, the plot heads off in an entirely different direction.
The princess even finds out that some battles really are won with grace and charm, not bows and arrows.
But my son, at home after the show, picked up a Styrofoam sword and took revenge on an imaginary bear.
I wonder, if I had a daughter, would she have done the same thing?
Read Michael Smith's review: here.
Written by
Michael Overall
Staff Writer
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