space
head
head head head
Home Contact RSS Feed
COMICS   •   MOVIES   •   MUSIC   •   TELEVISION   •   GAMES   •   BOOKS
Why Disney’s Princess Makeover Of Merida From ‘Brave’ Sends The Wrong Message
space
The Geeks of Doom   |  @   |  

By Amy Vernon

Disney Pixar Meridia Makeover

Look, I’m no fan of the whole “Disney Princess” canon. I’m not even sure most of them are actually princesses, but that’s really splitting hairs.

I usually don’t give it much thought, though, except to betray my feminist leanings and be glad I have boys and don’t have to deal with shelves of pink when we go to the toy store (let’s face it, I’d still be shopping in the toy car and superhero section even if I had girls).

But when news broke the other week that Disney was adding Merida from Brave to its princess collection, I was a bit taken aback at the image I saw.

Gone was the frizzy hair. The dress they put her in was the shiny, princess-y one she hated in the movie, not her preferred garb. Her eyes were rounder and had a certain come-hither look to them. Suddenly, her waist was Barbie-sized and she had breasts.

Gosh, I guess she grew up fast.

Most egregious, though, was that they took away her bow and arrow. What made Merida such a kickass heroine, such an excellent character – whatever her gender – was that she was her own person; her bow and arrow was as much a part of her as her hair, which was frizzy and unkempt.

The entire movie was about her accepting her mother for the choices she had made, and her mother accepting that her daughter was not going to be her carbon copy. It was about women being able to be more than some role set out for them.

It also was the first Pixar film with a female lead character. The first animated film directed by a woman (Brenda Chapman, who stood up for her young ward) to win an Oscar in its category.

Brave, and Merida, meant something to women, to girls, and to the industry.

So to sexify her – a 13-year-old girl! – is really repulsive. Of course, most of the Disney princesses are far younger than they appear to be, all gussied up as beautiful ladies who are waiting for their Prince Charming.

Since I first posted about this on Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else that would listen, the news came out that Disney was pulling back and wasn’t going to go ahead with sexifying Merida. That’s right, they removed Sexy Merida and brought back the original version.

In the U.S., at least [kind of].

The Australian version of the site still has Sexy Merida. Sure, they gave her back her bow and arrow, and changed her gown back to her everyday wear, but kept the dress off-the-shoulder and left the smoothed-out hair and sultry look on her face.

Sexy Merida from Brave

Those Australians probably don’t have access to the Internet, and aren’t likely to know what’s going on, I guess.

What that says to me is that Disney didn’t actually listen to the complaints. They heard them, sure. They heard a bunch of angry moms who weren’t going to buy Merida dolls for their daughters. And changed it. But if they’d listened, they would have changed Merida everywhere. They would have left a kick-butt character who’s pretty adorable anyhow to be somewhat of a role model for girls the world over.

One female commenter on my Facebook post chastised me as needing to “lighten up” because there were much worse problems in the world, with people dying of starvation and civil war.

I mean, let’s face it. This is a cartoon character, basically. In the broader scheme of the world, does how she look really matter?

Problem is, it does. As I told this commenter, it’s part of how society perceives women and girls – and how they end up perceiving themselves.

In a time where slut-shaming is taken to new levels with gang rape photos gleefully shared on the web – by the rapists – and anyone who speaks up against a sexist remark is immediately greeted with a wave of violent, sexist comments by anonymous people across the web, we need to stand up against turning our children into sex objects.

How can you tell girls they’re sluts for wearing revealing clothing when everything shows them they’re supposed to look good for men? How can you tell girls they should feel good about how they look when they have the typical acne and fly-away hair of a teenager and all the magazines and dolls they see have perfect everything?

In some ways, Merida is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Disney’s other princesses pretty much looked the same when they were turned into princesses as they did in the original films – many of which were made a long time ago when Cinderella and Snow White weren’t anachronisms.

We all – male or female – need to make our voices heard. Or else the next generation of girls will grow up, continuing to believe they need to be perfectly pretty with big eyes and smooth hair and tiny waists in order to be worthy.

Amy was the top female submitter of all time on Digg.com (and a top 15 user overall). A 20-year veteran of newspaper journalism, she is general manager of social marketing for New York-based tech startup Internet Media Labs, which creates tools and platforms to help tame the social Web. She is married, has two boys and a Siberian Husky, and spends too much time on the Internet. She also owns the original Battlestar Galactica series in the Cylon Head box set.  

6 Comments »

  1. Good on you, Amy. Everything in the world flows from how we perceive ourselves…and how we sell the images and icons that young people use to shape themselves when they are not quite sure who they are yet.

    I’m not a classic Disney fan, but I admire Brave for extolling the virtues of being different and being sure of one’s self. If I had a daughter, I’d hope she’d be find more to idolize in Merida than in the soft bimbos Amy Adams so beautifully parodied in Enchanted.

    I live in New Zealand (born and raised in the U.S.). On local talk radio, hosts and aging puckerbutts occasionally whinge about how slutty their daughters look when seen in flocks at the mall. But none of these moaners are quite intelligent enough to see the connection between young impressionable girls and the TV shows and magazines that peddle perfection (and sexiness) as a means to be more whole. More powerful.

    We seem, as adults, to believe that a 12-year-old girl is supposed to see through the emptiness of cosmetic perfection and, instead, develop magically into some sort of stalwart, fearless, self-assured little woman. Perhaps in a time before the image machinery prevailed that was a decent expectation. Not anymore.

    Comment by AndrewLynch1 — May 16, 2013 @ 8:35 pm

  2. Thanks so much, @AndrewLynch1:disqus! I’m not a classic Disney fan, either, but my boys loved the movie and didn’t expect to. They think Merida’s really cool (and her brothers really funny).

    I’m working hard to ensure that my boys understand what advertising really is (“that’s junk, right, Mommy?” they say when they see an ad). But parenting is hard work. I wish more people took it seriously.

    Comment by AmyVernon — May 16, 2013 @ 9:32 pm

  3. I named my daughter Merida, because I loved this character and well I just loved the sound of the name. But my husband and I thought she was an awesome little character for our first wee bub to be named after. So when I saw the repulsive makeover Disney gave her, I was really heart broken. They turned a fiery, strong willed, sprat of a girl in to some homogenised, bug eyed Western ideal of beauty. It’s like they never even watched the animation at all, they just didn’t get the story behind the character at all.

    Comment by Karen Jenkins — February 28, 2014 @ 6:01 am

  4. This is bullcrap. If anyone thinks little girls feel insecure about weight or hair, they’re not thinking straight. Older girls care, sure, but should teens be playing with Disney dolls or idolizing Disney characters? No! Also, Merida was kind of a brat. She stood up for herself but it’s not like other Disney princesses haven’t. She meant well, but she is not a good role model. I agree they shouldn’t have changed her looks because she doesn’t look like Merida, but that’s the only reason.

    Comment by Lilly D. — October 25, 2015 @ 1:34 am

  5. Also, Merida isn’t 13, she’s 16. Just saying.

    Comment by Lilly D. — October 25, 2015 @ 1:40 am

  6. I was recently thinking about when this happened and decided to do a bit of googling to find out what happened in the end. Great article! It really bothered me the way they altered Merida, she was the one normal-looking princess. (Also, I’m sure you were joking, but I do hope you know Australians don’t actually live in the middle of the desert. The majority of us live in cities on the coast and we aren’t cut of from the world or the internet. As a matter of fact, Australian scientists invented WiFi. I’m sorry, I know you wrote this ages ago, I just felt the need to comment on that.)

    Comment by Grace Cassidy — March 11, 2016 @ 8:51 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

space
Topics: Features, Movies
space
Previous Article
space
Next Article
«
»
space
space
space
Amazon.com
space
You may have noticed that we're now AD FREE! Please support Geeks of Doom by using the Amazon Affiliate link above. All of our proceeds from the program go toward maintaining this site.
space
Geeks of Doom on Twitter Geeks of Doom on Facebook Geeks of Doom on Instagram Follow Geeks of Doom on Tumblr Geeks of Doom on YouTube Geeks of Doom Email Digest Geeks of Doom RSS Feed
space
space
space
space
The Drill Down Podcast TARDISblend Podcast Westworld Podcast
2023  ·   2022  ·   2021  ·   2020  ·   2019  ·   2018  ·   2017  ·   2016  ·   2015  ·   2014  ·  
2013  ·   2012  ·   2011  ·   2010  ·   2009  ·   2008  ·   2007  ·   2006  ·   2005
space
Geeks of Doom is proudly powered by WordPress.

Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press

Geeks of Doom is designed and maintained by our geeky webmaster
All original content copyright ©2005-2023 Geeks of Doom
All external content copyright of its respective owner, except where noted
space
Creative Commons License
This website is licensed under
a Creative Commons License.
space
About | Privacy Policy | Contact
space