Bizy, Head Undergoing Recompile, Come Back Later

[akirlu]

I felt a bit of initial resistance getting into this analysis of Brave, because I don't think I ever really had the experience she describes in the first paragraphs -- of coming to see myself as a specifically female consumer of movies (or other fiction). I don't think that I have, to this day, lost the childhood facility for projecting myself onto protagonists of whatever sex or gender. I can't remember a time when I felt personally rejected by protagonists who don't deal well with women. I may well reject them -- Thomas Covenant is still a witless self-pitying asshole -- but I don't actually care whether I would get to be important in their world. And yes, I get that there are some men who are not comfortable putting themselves in the position of identifying with a female protagonist. But who wants to hang with guys like that? They live in an impoverished and circumscribed reality; pity them.

Possibly this failure to withdraw into gender-defined viewership has some bearing on my sometimes uncomprehending, sometimes unsympathetic reactions to some forms of feminism, but whatever. The actual point I'm fishing for is that I'm glad I got past my lack of reference points to her girl-viewer experience, and went on reading because her interpretation of the film is smart, thoughtful, and crammed with fascinating insights. I think the analysis is pretty well dead-on, too. In fact it's rearranged quite a lot of the furniture in my head and left me with a number of things to think about. If you somehow came away with the idea that Brave is just another Princess movie, then it could do some major redecorating in your head, too. Highly recommended reading, and thanks to cynthia1960 for the tip.

Thanks also to Hal, whom I will love forever for not being one of the guys who have trouble sympathizing with a female protagonist.

Comments

[milwaukeesfs.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is a very good analysis, one of a couple I've seen.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

While I agree with the reviewer's assessment that Brave is not Just Another Princess Movie, I did not walk away from the movie with the messages that the reviewer did. What I saw was that the princess was physically brave but essentially a spoiled brat: the climactic throne-room scene seemed more to me to be vamping to provide cover for her mother than some great personal revelation -- it's the mother who changes and proposes matches based on love; the daughter talks about clan loyalty to try to reconcile the warring clans but never actually says she'll marry one of the choices to my recollection. The daughter never pays any price for her rebellion: she cries and says she's sorry but she doesn't appear to learn anything. The last scene is the mother and daughter riding free and there is no scene that shows any similar accommodation on the daughter's part to her mother's point of view.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Having seen a bit of the sausage factory that is Hollywood, when there are missing interstitial bits like that, my default assumption is they exist, but they're on the cutting room floor. Never underestimate the ability of a studio to cut things they think are over their image of the audience's head.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Possible but all I can do is judge what I saw. I didn't think that the princess's speech in the throne room showed any character growth: she seemed to be aware of clan history prior to that (for example, she knew what was going on when they found the old castle).