MOVIE REVIEW: Brave 2012

Although primarily intended for younger audiences recent animations have been made with a more ‘darker’ approach, where moral ethics and dire consequences are portrayed. Disney Pixar’s animated film, Brave, beautifully addresses an important stage of a young adult’s life, the exploration of self-identity through rebellion-ness.  Additionally, the film also portrays contrasting perspectives on society’s views on women that can be inferred. This quick review will briefly illustrate how the above topics were integrated.

1.        ‘Barbie girls’ vs ‘Boyish girls’

In the few minutes of the film, Pixar Disney immediately portrays the contrasting behaviours of the mother (Queen Elinor) and the princess (Merida). The queen illustrates a polite, disciplined and civilised image of women, while the princess depicts a more tom boyish attitude. Ignoring the obvious age and maturity gap between the two characters, a base concept on how women are usually stereotyped as either ‘girly girls’ or ‘boyish girls’. This contrast was seen as the queen objects for the princess of having a weapon as a birthday present, due to the idea that ‘proper ladies’ do not use weapons. There is an abundant example of this seen in real life, where women are looked strangely by others due to the lack of what is considered ‘feminine appeal’. One example that I have personally witnessed is from my martial arts school, where girls who I train with are generally depicted as ‘too manly’ by men. Personally, I find it quite ridiculous how men are generally unsettled by women with power. I believe that women have every right to portray strong attributes, whether it is physically or mentally. Why would you want a girl to just stand there and have no opinions? Sounds rather boring don’t you think?

2.       Maturing through experiences

The overall moral that can be taken from the film is experiencing things through trial and error. Everyone has been lectured by their elders as they pass down words of wisdom, however those words of wisdom cannot be fully understood until we experience them first hand. Indeed it sounds counterproductive in terms of, why experience the hard times, when we can avoid them entirely. Truth is that being told what is right is not the same as facing them head-on. Addressing this issue allows the film to be relatable to practically everyone. 

Furthermore, this concept can be seen in the movie through a simple sequence of events:  

Princess rebels against her mother, tragic event happens, the princess learns from her mistakes and fixes them. 

The most important aspect of the story that I believe should be remembered is the optimistic ending, where the princess overcomes her obstacle by understanding her mother’s words of wisdom and apply them with her own method. While her mother, the queen acknowledges that the princess has her own personality and that everyone has their own path to follow. 

Ultimately, if you enjoy movies such as Tangled, the film Brave will definitely win you over with its combination of humorous Irish culture and real world issues. As a rating, I would give Brave an 8/10.