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June 30, 2011
Pixar remembers girls like movies, too
A new short trailer is out for Pixar's 2012 feature, Brave, which I'm pretty sure will be the first Pixar movie with a female lead character, the fiesty, curly-headed Merida. And it's definitely the first Pixar movie written and co-directed by a woman (Brenda Chapman).
Here's the trailer:
We don't know a whole lot about the story yet, except that it's sort of vaguely pagan and mystical and Scottish, but the Pixar Wiki says it involves Princess Merida, an aspiring archer who has no truck with ancient Scottish tradition, which she defies at every opportunity. This leads to problems: her attempt at being a contrary little feminist unleashes "chaos and fury" into the kingdom, then when she's granted a wish from a witch to try to fix all that chaos and fury, she blows that too. Somehow, I'm going to guess, it all works out.
But it sounds cool! Not only a female protagonist (about time) from the most consistently great mainstream animated producers out there, but a protagonist that screws up a lot! And then has to shoot a lot of fierce beasts with her bow and arrow and generally save the kingdom! Disney is certainly no stranger to female protagonists in its long history, but rarely have its heroines been what you could call tough or gutsy or even especially flawed (though I didn't see Tangled, which sounds kinda weird.)
Kelly Macdonald is the voice of Merida, which sounds more like a Mexican city than a Scottish princess, but, OK. I totally love her accent in Trainspotting and Gosford Park, so listening to her sass some druids for 90 minutes sounds great to me.
Just cuz, let's look at Kelly Macdonald's funny, sarcastic speech to a flustered Mark Renton outside the club in Trainspotting, when she describes to him his unsophisticated approach to meeting women:
(I can only find the video of that scene dubbed into Spanish, though it actually works pretty well.)
The movie also stars Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson as the King and Queen, and it comes out next June.
categories:
Celebrities, Movies, Women
posted by amy at 3:39 PM | #
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Comments
oh Jim... She's a princess. And she has lots of hair. Any boys in the story are entirely superfluous.
Posted by: Marcy at July 7, 2011 11:19 PM
I get the feeling this princess is really young, like a preteen, so I really hope she doesn't get married at the end. Though Disney has been remarkably open-minded about teen/tween brides in other movies (Pocahontas, Little Mermaid).
Posted by: amy at July 7, 2011 11:39 PM
This is all very nice, and since it's Pixar it will be clever and inspiring and probably the best movie that comes out next summer. But you totally ignored the important part: does she marry a Prince?
Posted by: T-Rock at July 1, 2011 2:32 PM