capri0mni: A black Skull & Crossbones with the Online Disability Pride Flag as a background (Default)
[personal profile] capri0mni
The other day, [personal profile] dharma_slut posted this link to a TEDx Talk by Colin Stokes, about the correlation between our modern rape culture and the lack of movies that pass the Bechdel Test:

http://youtu.be/Nx8RRIiP53Q

Quick summary of his thesis:

A) It's not enough that we empower girls to protect themselves against the Patriarchy; we have to teach boys to fight the Patriarchy, too.

B) Adventure movies aimed at young male audiences that Don't pass the Bechdel Test have the following subtext: "The role of the True Man is to go out Alone and Kill the Bad Guys, and then come home and collect his reward: a woman who has no friends, and doesn't speak."

So:

C) It's time for fathers to teach their sons that it's a good thing to want to be on Team with the goal of helping others, instead of being a Solo Renegade, even if the leader of that team is a woman, and that Real Men trust their sisters.

And part of his talk was a strong endorsement, by name, of Pixar's new Movie "Brave."

Based on that recommendation, I did something I'd never planned on doing: Gave Google my credit card number, and rented "Brave" for 48 hours of watching over the Internet. I just finished watching the first time through tonight... May watch it again before time's up tomorrow.

Anyway: I wanted to report: not only does it pass the Bechdel Test (the whole movie is basically a long conversation between Mother and Daughter about How to Lead your King Queendom), it also passes the Disability Test I came up with a couple of weeks ago.

The King loses half his leg in the first act (before the tenth minute), in a fight with a demon bear. And for the rest of the film, his peg leg is treated as proof that he Survived, rather than a reason to be pitied.

So it has a disabled character. And while he boasts about getting revenge against the demon, that's clearly for the sake of a good story; he spends all his actual energy trying to maintain the peace in his kingdom (mainly between his wife and teenage daughter), so it's clear that that's his real motivation. And the movie has a happy ending, even though (*gasp*) he still has a peg leg at the end.

Anyway, the movie's page on YouTube has snippets of reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, and while the majority were positive (overall 78% positive), even the good reviews were kind of lukewarm. Now that I've seen the movie, I think a big reason for that is what I call: "Mashed potatoes Vs. Vanilla ice cream Syndrome;" they may be the best mashed potatoes ever to come out of any chef's kitchen, but if you gobble down a mouthful expecting ice cream, you're going to hate them.

The number one thing that I noticed about this film, in comparison with all the other Pixar movies I've seen is that it is so much darker.

First, it's literally darker. Every other movie from them has been "candy-colored:" the worlds of children's toys, and tropical fish in coral reefs, and crayon-colored monsters in closets. This movie was set in the Scottish Highlands, in the Middle Ages, and its color palette is dominated by fog, and stone, and deep, dark forests (still image from the film of the heroine riding her black horse through a fog-shrouded ring of standing stones). I, on the other hand, love those forest/earth tones. But I still recommend watching the 2-D version, and turning the brightness on your screen all the way up.

Second, it's thematically darker (and that may be what dampened reviewers' enthusiasm most of all). Usually, these kinds of "kids' movies" get their happy ending from the moral: "Free spirits just have to be Free!!. But this movie gets its happy ending from the moral: "Free Spirits must learn to temper their Hearts' Desires with Responsibility Toward Their Community." The soaring ballad during the closing credits is "Learn me Right," and it's all about owning up to your mistakes: needing, seeking, and earning, forgiveness.

According to Box Office Stats (unfortunately powerful), this was the first Pixar movie to fail to come in the Top Ten of the Year (it came in #11). I can't help but wonder if it would have done better as an autumn movie-- it certainly had an autumn feel, rather than summer vacation and cotton candy... you know?

Anyway, I liked it.

Date: 2012-12-31 10:41 am (UTC)
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (spiralsheep Ram Raider mpfc)
From: [personal profile] spiralsheep
\o/

Date: 2013-01-01 03:23 am (UTC)
butterflydreaming: "Cris", in blocks with a blinking cat (Default)
From: [personal profile] butterflydreaming
That's cool -- I didn't think about that aspect of King's peg leg, but now that you've pointed it out, that makes me happy. Brave is quite beautiful. I like that color palette, too, and agree that it would have fit better as an autumn movie instead of a summer one. Autumn movies get to be thought provoking, while summer movies are supposed to be light and splashy.

Brave didn't wow me like some other Pixar movies because I felt that the story was atypically predictable after the big spell of changing. I liked a lot of what they did with it, and I realize that an audience of children needs to "get" the movie, but I felt like something was missing. I still can't put my finger one what. (My fav Pixars are Monsters Inc, Wall-E, and Toy Story 2.)

My viewing partner pointed out that it's a princess movie. Pixar took "Goldilocks & the Three Bears" and turned it on it's ear.

Off on a Tangent

Date: 2013-01-01 06:24 pm (UTC)
butterflydreaming: "Cris", in blocks with a blinking cat (Default)
From: [personal profile] butterflydreaming
I know what you mean about the "2nd sunrise" thing. I think you may be right about a third day being cut.

I wanted to see more about the wicked/impulsive prince who was changed, and how his story would inform the main story. Ah! But as I type this, I think I know one large thing that didn't sit right with me about Brave: you can't make other people change. The *Queen's* fate was changed, too, and that doesn't seem right to me. Faerie tales are often about choices in the face of outrageous situations. "Goldilocks" is especially about choices, since G makes a wrong one in entering the bears' house and eating their food, etc., when she is making the "just right" choices.

Re: Off on a Tangent

Date: 2013-01-01 11:53 pm (UTC)
butterflydreaming: "Cris", in blocks with a blinking cat (Default)
From: [personal profile] butterflydreaming
Excellent points. (It really is difficult to discuss sans spoilers!)

Date: 2013-01-02 02:49 am (UTC)
pebblerocker: A worried orange dragon, holding an umbrella, gazes at the sky. (Default)
From: [personal profile] pebblerocker
I want to watch this so I can talk about it! Some people's reviews had dampened my interest in it because of their disappointment that Pixar's first-ever movie with a girl as the main character has a plot all about overcoming the obstacle of being a girl and things you can and can't do while female, instead of being about adventures and cool things done by someone who happens to be a girl. But having a girl in it at all is a good start, right? Maybe if I go to see it at the theatre, my ticket money will give them the idea of making more movies with girls in them.

My niece is six and big on Disney princesses and being pretty and getting rescued rather than doing stuff (it all comes out in her imaginative games which I find disturbing) so perhaps seeing this movie will help her a bit too. Wonder if I could take her to see it with me and if it would go down well.

Date: 2013-01-02 04:58 am (UTC)
pebblerocker: A worried orange dragon, holding an umbrella, gazes at the sky. (Default)
From: [personal profile] pebblerocker
Is it a case of the women fulfilling all the responsibilities which come with power while the men get all the admiration for their position? Because I've seen that in real life, someone telling me women have all the real power in the household, where that means the wife has the load of making all the hard decisions that keep the household running and ensure the husband's comfort, often while carefully allowing him to think he does all the important stuff himself so as not to hurt his ego! Which doesn't strike me as at all fair or admirable.

Seeing a girl do some cool stuff would be great for my niece, but thank you for the warning -- I don't want to show her anything inappropriately scary, even if she sees such things at home anyway. Have you seen Toy Story 3, where the toys narrowly escape being crushed and fed into an incinerator? She watches that movie, and it's pretty scary for me but I can handle watching it with an adult's sense of what's real and what's not and the genre-savvy to know these characters will escape at the last minute. I don't get why the makers of entertainment that appears to be aimed at children have to put in incredibly scary scenes like that so they're too much for children to handle. It's hard to find anything I'm happy to watch with her, actually.

A happy ending about NOT getting married sounds fabulous.

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