Conventions of the Disney Princess movie

This last spring break my dear friend Heidi and I had a long phone conversation about movies (as often happens when Heidi and I have long conversations). We discussed children's animated movies, specifically; comparing the movies we hated or loved as children compared to the ones we love or hate now. We talked about how surprisingly dark some of them get, how there were a lot of super heros and villains recently, and how talking mice keep showing up in all sorts of decades. Wouldn't it be interesting to plot them all out and trace the trends. And we need to watch some of these together.

Because we are complete dorks, (and because I enjoy taking light things very seriously) we spend the next few weeks e-mailing each other lists of movies produced by all sorts of animation studios. When I got home, we started making a time line with tiny movie posters of some highlights of America's (and other countries) full length animated movies for children.

These last few weeks, leading up to the opening of Pixar's Brave in theaters, we have been watching Princess Movies. This is the oldest and most iconic sub-genre of animated movies for children. Snow White, after all, is the first in many categories besides being the first Disney princess. It is a grand tradition not so much because there are a lot of them, or because they are consistently spread throughout the history of animated children's movies. (According to my very geeky time line, there is a gap of thirty years between Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid.) Princess are a grand tradition because they have usually been memorable. Whether you love them or hate them, these animated women have had an impact of our culture, especially on girls, since Snow White first sang into a wishing well.

Merrida has joined this glittering company. I have to wonder, does she fit in?

We put together a list of characteristics of the genre, after watching some of the most iconic films. Let's see how Brave measures up.

1) Talking to animals: I have yet to meet a Disney Princess who does not have a special relationship with animals. Birds, horses, crabs, rabbits, dogs and mice have been their companions, to name just a few. In the early Disney Princess movies, this seemed to be some symbol of goodness. Animals, especially small cute ones, sense the innocence or kindness of the princess and flock to her, trusting her. Later it is not so much that the animals reaction to her is a sign of her goodness, but her treatment of animals is indicative of her virtue. 

Merida has a horse as a companion (and also a special relationship with some other creatures -wink-). In this case, the horse actually seems to symbolize her spirit of adventure rather than her kindness. But they clearly have a trusting relationship as is evident when Angus (the horse) follows her down a dark and scary path which he would rather have avoided.

2) Singing: Every princess movie I have ever seen includes at least one song in the princess's voice. A few princess movies highlight the voice of a princess as one of her charms. If we were to make a list of important characteristics of female characters in Disney for the first fifty or even sixty years of the studio's existence, we could mark down a lovely singing voice as a key one. This characteristic can be grouped with lovely hair* and pretty dresses. They are the superficial packaging that makes a Disney princess marketable. Sometimes watching a princess movie, I sense that the designer gave a lot of thought to how the ball gown was going to be eye candy and distinctive and marketable to lots of little girls in Disneyland. 

Pixar plays with these conventions. Brave isn't a musical. Merida sings in a flashback with her mother, which is a sweet and touching scene, and perhaps a nod at this convention. But maybe not. Merida has her own special take on the hair and clothing convention also. Similarly, it feels like she might not be doing it on purpose.
 If Disney Princesses gave you unrealistic expectations for hair, Merida is either a proud promoter of this tradition, or a very real picture of what it would be like to have hair like a Disney Princess. Her hair is wild and tangled and impossibly bright red. It's very pretty. But it's a mess.
Merida doesn't wear men's clothing to have an adventure (like Mulan does). Nor does she get a glorious presentation moment when we see her in a pretty dress from a man's point of view (which is common in the other princess movies). Her beauty is never explicitly pointed out that way. Her mother dresses her up by covering her hair, practically tying her up to meet some standard of beauty. This fails because it sacrifices too much of who Merida is. That dress gets literally torn up. Then she spends the rest of the movie in a dress that she is comfortable adventuring in.
Merida makes no effort to fit in with her glittering, tiara wearing sisters. But she pulls it off by being herself. I really appreciate this about her.

3) House hold chores:  Heidi pointed out that along with unrealistic hair, Disney Princesses movies also often depict a routine of household chores set to music. Dancing with a broom, or, famously, getting the woodland creatures to help you tiny up the house, is a lovely idea, but it is somewhat deceiving compared to the actual experience of cleaning house (never mind getting anyone, human or otherwise, to help you). Feminists complain, with some grounds, that this propagates the patriarchal idea that a woman belongs in the house only. I don't really hold with that. I try to work on a movie by movie base. I think done properly, it can celebrate the kind of work that many women do, whether or not it is the only work they can, or should do. The fact that so many of these women are princesses gives a kind of dignity to house work, even when the princess is forced to do it by evil powers that be, such as wicked step mothers. 

Pixar even nodded to this tradition, twice. First in a montage where we see all the activities and lessons in which Merida is forced to participate against her will. They are not all house hold cleaning type chores, but they are women's work. In this case Merida finds them boring and odious. Later in the movie, however, she makes breakfast for her mother. This might have been my favorite sequence in the movie. She essentially teaches her mother how to make a meal in the wilderness, a domestic skill which her mother has somehow failed to master. Classic.

4) The romantic interest: For every princess, there is a prince. This is the rule of princess movies. Even if the lovers are not going to be together forever at the end of the movie, he is a major part of the story. 

And then there is Merida. Pixar nodded at this convention by including an arranged marriage conflict. But, unlike most other arranged marriage centered princess stories, they offer no "Mr. Right" as alternatives to the sadly lacking suitors Queen Eleanor invites to compete for Merida's hand. Merida remains happily single and the boys have some growing up to do before they can win her heart. This makes the feminist in me very happy.

So, Brave did what I hoped it would do in relation to the Princess movie tradition. Merida is a believable teen age girl. She is interesting and beautiful and fiercely her own person. She fits in, and stands out, just as she should.


We had some interesting discussions and observations about all sorts of things as we watched Princess movies. Perhaps I will find a way to write about some of it. But this will be all for now.

This week, we will start watching movies about mice.

When Pixar shoots wide.

Here follows my thoughts Pixar's Brave, which came out yesterday. I've tried to avoid spoilers, but they may have slipped in. If you don't read any further to avoid knowing too much too soon; the movie is worth seeing. All Pixar movies tend to be worth the ticket price for the visuals alone. This year's short film was Pixar at its best. And now to the main attraction.

Brave is about two women learning to be fully human. Merida learns to respect and live the kind of feminine grace and diplomacy that her mother displays. Queen Eleanor learns to respect her daughter's resourcefulness, courage and spirit of adventure. There were some great moments. The details of the world and the way the story was told were lovely and wonderful as usual.

Image from the Brave Facebook page

However, taking a step back and looking at the structure of the story, this one was far from the well crafted, water tight piece of art that Pixar has given us with movies like Up. They were just off their mark. I have a few theories for what went wrong.

First of all, the central point of conflict is a very old trope. Everyone in the audience knows that by the end of the movie, Queen Eleanor is not going to make her daughter go through with her traditional arranged marriage. The problem is, when the moment comes, we are not exactly sure how that change of heart came about. There is no connection between anything that has happened so far, and this moment of complete 180. This is very unlike Pixar. When a character has such a huge change of heart, it is usually very clear where it comes from. The words she actually uses to break off the engagement sound strange and cliché.

So, it seems to me that the arranged marriage trope got in their way. If the central conflict had been something more directly relating to the journey that they are both on, completing their imbalanced characters, they might have pulled off a good character arch. There are few things so universally unacceptable in America as an arranged marriage. Perhaps if the Queen had demanded that Merida do something that was a little more ambiguous culturally, the story would have been less predictable and the character arches more believable.

And speaking of imbalanced characters, the other serious problem with this movie is, ironically, the male characters. There was all this hype about Pixar finally doing a movie with female protagonists. I was really happy to see it because they have given us really strong characters of both sexes, but no women in title roles. So, they gave us their usual respect and depth to their two female leads, and all the men in the story were insultingly stereotyped. We have no reason to respect the King except that he is bigger and stronger than all the other men. He is no help to either main character, and he makes things worse most of the time. Merida's journey starts from a point where she appreciates all of her father's traits, and none of her mothers. It is clear that this is a fault in Merida. Her parents are set up as a beauty and beast couple, and Merida only admires the beast.

I really wish that the father had shown the kind of balance in his character that the women in the story are journeying towards.  If her father had actually had some of her mother's traits as well, the contrast would have been less sexed. The movie seems to say, it's alright for her father to be a belching cave man who is good with fighting and eating but pretty hopeless in every other aspect of life. But women ought to be smart and dignified, as well as brave.

I can't imagine why such flaws got past the Pixar story team. It is so unlike them. I wonder if the politics of making a princess movie in a culture where princess movies are at least highly charged, if not politically incorrect put so much pressure on the story tellers that they couldn't be free to work their usual magic. If that is the case, I just hope they can shake it off and get back to writing solid stories with real characters again.