Why I Love the Movie "Brave"

Image credit: pixar.wikia.com

My 4-year-old daughter, Maggie, loves the movie Brave. And when I say "loves," I mean "is borderline obsessed with." We've watched it so many times, I could probably recite the script from memory.

While watching the film, Maggie rides her toy horse and pretends to shoot arrows from a "bow" made from two pens. She acts out the rock-climbing scene by scaling our couch and perching precariously on its arm, her own arms stretched triumphantly toward the ceiling as she shouts "Woo-hoooooo!" just like the movie's main character.

I thought the movie was a little silly at first (it is a kids' movie, after all, and I'm old and cranky and cynical). But it has grown on me.

Here's what I love.

1. Merida's insanely curly hair. It's the classic symbol of the free-spirited woman who will not be tamed (except by her own choice, of course). Merida follows in the footsteps of Carrie Bradshaw, Hermione Grainger, Claire Randall from Outlander, Skeeter from The Help, and many others.

Merida is the first Disney princess to rock unruly curls. As a naturally curly girl myself, I love that. You'd think that distinction might have belonged to Tiana, Disney's only African-American princess, but Tiana's curls were always pulled back. And the half-hearted waves on  Esmeralda and Belle are not "curls" by any stretch.

Check out this great piece from Pixar's blog. Who knew it's even harder to manage curly hair in pixels than in real life?

Merida has more than 1500 individually sculpted, curly red strands that generate about 111,700 total hairs. Brenda Chapman insisted upon Merida having such curly hair, which was very difficult to create. Claudia Chung, the simulation superviser, said, "We've never seen anything like Merida's curly hair. Technically, that was incredibly hard to achieve." ... The results were so pleasing that they used the program to create all the other hair in the film, from Angus's fur to the triplet's hairstyles. It took three years and left them only six months to finish the rest of their work on the film. 

2. The 10th-century Scotland setting. Watching this movie has opened up all kinds of conversations with my daughter about history, social customs, and language. My 4-year-old can now explain phrases like "will-o-the-wisp" and "stuff her gob."

Maggie is too young for some of the conversations we could have. As she gets older, I hope we can talk about why it was considered important for Merida to get married in that time and place. And why Merida's mom insisted on teaching her geography, music, and public speaking, even though those lessons bored Merida at the time. And which of Merida's actions were truly brave. And what both Merida and her mother learned from their adventures, and from their mistakes.

3. Merida's independent spirit. She's bold, energetic, outspoken, tomboyish, and thrill-seeking. For me, her spiritedness makes her a thousand times easier to relate to than any other Disney princess.

Merida comes right out and declares that she's not ready to get married because she wants her freedom. "I don't want my life to be over," she says. It's hard to explain just how refreshing that is. It makes her pretty unique not only among Disney heroines, but among female movie characters, period.

She's one of the only Disney protagonists who doesn't have a love interest (Sulley from Monsters, Inc. and Remy from Ratatouille being the others). Sure, by the end she's more open to the idea of marriage, and she flirts with boys from the other clans. But it was her choice, and it was not the focus of the movie. What a nice change from the standard love story.

4. The bits of dark humor. Like when Merida's mom is saying, "A princess should be compassionate!", and right behind her, a cook lops off a chicken's head. Thanks, Pixar and Disney, for throwing in little winks for the parents' benefit. It makes it a lot easier to sit through the movie for the 147th time.