"I had never told Daisy the story of Snow White. I had purposely kept it from her because, even setting aside the obvious sexism, Snow herself is such an incredible pill. Her sole virtue, as far as I can tell, is tidiness - she is forever scrubbing, dusting, nagging the dwarves to wash their filthy mitts... She is everything I imagined my daughter would reject, would not, in fact, ever encounter or even understand if she did, let alone embrace: the passive, personality-free princess swept off by a prince (who is enchanted solely by her beauty) to live is a happily-ever-after that be ultimately control. Yet here was my girl, somehow having learned that plotline anyway, blissfully lying in wait for Love's First Kiss." I can understand why Orienstein wouldn't want to show her daughter this type of woman. Who really wants their daughter growing up thinking that the only why to have a life is to find the man who will take care of you for the rest of your life. (I remember watching these movies and wishing that my prince would come, but then growing up and having my parents, my father likes to stress this, teach my to be an independent woman.)
What I want to know is if the movie Brave had been around when Orienstein's daughter was young, would she want Daisy to see this one? The message of this movie is not the typical fairytale, Merida is not waiting for her prince charming (she more or less finds it disgusting). The message is more about family and independence. Merida has to figure out how to change her life path herself. Her mother has the same princess idea that the rest of the disney movies have (she needs to get married and "a princess is perfection" and so on). Merida wants nothing to do with this and turns her mother into a bear with a spell from a witch (so typical of Disney movies, there's always a witch). But she figures out how to reverse the spell herself, and in doing this she proves to her mother that being a strong independent woman is possible. This message seems more like something that Orienstein would want her daughter to hear.
I actually don't think Merida's mother was the same as other Disney fairy tales. The whole Princess finding her prince thing was always about love in most disney stories and classic fairy tales. Even Merida's mother was subversive because she wasn't stressing love, she was being realistic. She painted the marriage as a responsibility of Merida's. I'm not saying that's GREAT, but it is an interesting aspect of Brave. They kept it realistic in that sense, because a lot of royal weddings are not about courtship and love and magic but about responsibility to one's kingdom, often it's done to merge kingdoms or as a sort of financial thing. It was an interesting choice of Disney's to depict it in the way that they did.
ReplyDeleteNicely put Jessica. I liked how you summarized both texts in simplest form. I don't like how many Disney stories are ended with a prince coming to the rescue. I find it all bull, just like orenstein. lol. I like the idea of Merida being independent and not depending on anyone or anything. As a matter of fact, many guys like an independent woman. They find that to be sexy. Idk if you ever watched or listened to Ne-yo's song Miss Independent. Here's the link -------> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6M5C-oKw9k
ReplyDeleteBtw neyo is so adorable here :)
"What I want to know is if the movie Brave had been around when Orienstein's daughter was young, would she want Daisy to see this one? The message of this movie is not the typical fairytale, Merida is not waiting for her prince charming" I think she would and I think she would stress that more movies should be like this... and I say this because not only does this break the binaries of gender roles but also breaks the boundaries of finding that prince to come and sweep you off your feet and take care of you when in reality we know this is not the truth and quite impossible considering the economy we all have to work and we all need to find ourselves and finding ourselves within someone else is not possible. I say it breaks gender roles because Merrida likes to use bow and arrows and she never states that she wants a man in her life period! Great post.
ReplyDeletei think this is a perfect connection to make to this movie. not only because they both talk about the feminine roles, but because they are kind of opposite of eachother! pulling the quotes from the article also made this post easier to understand - i liked that a lot! - also to comment above going off of Andrea's comment - i agree with her and you at the same time. i do believe that both the text and the movie can be analyzed differently, however.
ReplyDeleteI like your statement "who really wants their daughter growing up thinking that the only way to have a life is to find the man who will take care of you"...
ReplyDeleteI think Merida defies that way of thinking in Brave. She obviously believes that a prince charming is not needed to make life complete and that she is strong and independent enough to stand up for what she believes.