A New Era for Women and Disney?

Frozen has become central for debates regarding feminism, a potential new era for Disney and dividing people down the line. So what I'm here to argue is...it's a middle ground. I'm not going to argue it's really revolutionary, because how long do we have to wait before we get both a decent strong female character and a strong plot? We seem to get stuck in a situation of either/or and it's frustrating. There have been loads of great Disney/Pixar films regarding male leads and their adventures, e.g Wreck it Ralph, Ratatouille, Toy Story. But when it comes to female leads and their adventures, the plots tend to fall flat or rely on the old 'and they fall in love and live happily ever after.' trope.

There's something that's always bugged me about Brave, for example, and up until recently I couldn't quite work out what that was. Then I sort of realised. Despite the ending culminating in Merida forming a better relationship with her mother and her mother letting her hair down (pun entirely intended!), we're still being taught that a girl with an adventurous, bold streak will end up being in trouble. Brave has the two wonderful characters of Merida and Elinor, it questioned the bond between mother and daughter, but had this been about a boy seeking acceptance from his father I can't help thinking the plot would have been different. Would he be almost 'punished' for his adventurous, daring streak? And as usual we get the whole marriage theme (albeit Merida not wanting to marry at all).

But her adventure falls flat, because in reality she doesn't change her fate at all. The will o' the whisps and the witch do. Yes, she might have avoided the loathsome issue of marriage, but when we really think about it, Merida has no real say over her journey. In a similar vein to Ratatouille, Merida wants to go on an adventure to find out more about the world, her passions in life and the choices she has to make. But unlike Remy, she really ends up with little say about this, because rather than the adventure being important, it is still her family and her responsibilities as a Princess that are important, not Merida herself. Does she wind up with the choice to remain single? For some reason, I doubt it. Young MacGuffin's apparent gibberish in the film, is actually Scottish Gaelic, and what he does say at one point is 'The Princess should decide who she marries.' This may imply that despite Merida's timely escape from marriage for now, she will still have to marry someone in the future. Because the stability of the surrounding kingdoms rely on her eventually becoming a brood mare.

Another issue I'm taking with Disney films is the amount of boys. I appreciate that may sound wrong, but let's look at every single heroine who has had to be surrounded by a gang of guys (or at least male gendered counterparts). Rapunzel, from Tangled, had Flynn/Eugene, Pascal and Maximus; Tiana, from the Princess and the Frog, had Prince Naveen, Louis and Ray; Pocahontas had John Smith, Flit and Meeko; Anna, from Frozen, had Kristoff, Sven and Olaf...hmm, I'm noticing a pattern here! It's apparently impossible for a female lead to get from A to B, without one potential love interest and two goofy sidekicks. No way we can drop just one for a female sidekick? Who could talk maybe? No...? Ok.

But it does mean, apart from one, often naive or even foolish woman, that young girls have no one to identify with. Even those females with a grain of sense and determination are seen as foolish. Tiana is told her dream of owning a restaurant won't mean anything without a man at her side. Whether she met someone or not, I am certain her father would be damn proud of her. I felt cold, when her exclamation of needing to work harder to gain her dream, was treated with ridicule. Her hard work and no nonsense attitude should be seen as admirable, not as idiotic. We shouldn't regard Tiana as lacking something, because she has no romantic inclination at the time. If we compare it with another film, regarding the same desire of owning a restaurant and cooking. Ratatouille focuses more or less on Remy's desire to cook. Yes, he's told he's a fool, but he defends his dream to the hilt. But the thing is I don't recall Remy being told his dream of owning his restaurant would mean nothing without a female rat by his side.