susan

feministdisney:

lipsredasroses:

Merida is NOT a good role model because she is not “traditionally feminine.” She IS a good role model because she learns from her mistakes, is fiercely loyal to herself and family, will do anything to protect her mother (at the end of the movie), and is free spirited. She is NOT a good role model because she doesn’t like to wear fancy dresses. She is NOT a good role model because she is “anti-femininity.” If you think she is a good role model because she only likes to spend time with Angus, shoot arrows, and go on adventures in the woods you missed the entire point of Brave and Merida’s character arch in the movie.

Also, while you are defending Merida please do not bash the other princesses. They do have more to offer than just sitting around looking pretty waiting for Prince Charming to come and save them. They are all actors (actresses?) in their own movies. So most of the princesses couldn’t shoot an arrow but that doesn’t mean they are bad role models. So the majority of the princesses end up with a prince, that doesn’t change the fact they are all strong women. Being with a man doesn’t change the fact that these women survived abusive homes, stepped up to their responsibilities, saved their prince (Ariel, Belle, Tiana, and Rapunzel all saved their prince at least once in the movie), achieved their dreams, and dictated their future. Also, all the princesses are conventionally beautiful, including Merida. Merida is thin and white. Sure her face is more cartoonish than the other princesses but that doesn’t mean she is some ugly duckling.

All I am asking is, can we please stop bashing femininity and girls who are traditionally feminine when writing about Merida? These articles got really old a year ago.

I haven’t seen too much femininity bashing per se but I agree that I dislike a lot of the dialogue surrounding the redesign. There’s been a lot of emphasis on Merida being “the princess we were WAITING for” (which is why I haven’t published so much on the petition since the introduction focuses heavily on “we were waiting for a strong princess”) and “she saves herself rather than waiting around for a guy unlike the other princesses” which really, does not fully describe most of the other princesses. & the whole “we finally got this princess” thing ignores how much PoC princesses like Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas contributed to the whole independence/action sequence princess options. 

And yeah, they all had guys and romance, but really, that wasn’t even anything in Mulan’s movie in terms of affecting how she moved through the plot. She did everything on her own, for her own reasons, and she saved everyone by herself.

I mean it’s great Merida exists but we don’t have to act like she’s groundbreaking on every level in order to disagree with the hyper-traditionally-feminine redesign which is a problem because it does not agree with her character, and assumes all princesses have to be traditionally feminine regardless even of their personal preferences and movies. And considering that Disney makes a fair amount of effort to try and define girlhood in their marketing, that is something to be concerned about.