Brave is an important movie, perhaps more
important than it thought it might be. Media attention aside for the moment.
Revenue and profit aside too, for the moment.
Brave is a movie about women.
I’ve had people ask me why that point is
important. It’s important because women honestly don’t feature in most movies. Actually,
they don’t feature in most media.
That statement might send some people into
scoffing disbelief, but pay close attention to it. I said feature. Women might
exist in every movie or television show you’ve seen recently – but do they
feature? Is there more than one woman in that movie? Do they progress the plot?
And Bechdel’s infamous question: do they talk about anything other than a man?
For interest, I had a look at the top 50
most popular 2012 movies in IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?year=2012,2012&title_type=feature&sort=moviemeter,asc
As of writing this blog, 6 of those 50 had
female leads – and one of those was Twilight. Another 3 titles had split 50/50 male
and female leads.
Considering women are half the population,
those aren’t great odds.
This is important, and no, it’s not just
because I’m menstruating.
Movies themselves are a microcosm of our
current culture. Women being underrepresented in movies says something about
our culture at large. While egalitarianism is no longer at the forefront of our
minds – ‘cause women can work and buy their own tampons and shit – this phenomenon
still shows our current culture clearly. This underuse shows that men – and their
stories – are more important to our society.
Brave is Pixar’s thirteenth movie, and
their first female protagonist. Why? It’s a money thing. There’s a secretive
agreement we’ve all come to, in the boardrooms of the people who greenlight
movies and in the isles of Target when you’re buying a movie to watch: men will
watch movies about men, and women will watch movies about women AND men.
The movie houses get nervous about
releasing things with female leads because they honestly think it can’t sustain
a male audience and thus will lose out on 50% of the supposed earnings.
Which is why Brave is so important. Because
Brave is a great movie, it’s an actioned packed, emotional movie about breaking
social norms. About breaking free and taking charge of your own destiny.
And it’s driven by women. Strong women, who
can lead and have their own stuff to deal with, and their own female-female
relationships to nurture. And just like little girls could love Woody and Buzz –
little boys could love Merida.
And no, I’m not saying you should never
have a movie aimed at women, or a movie aimed at men. I’m just saying, that by
the law of averages, we should be about 50/50 and we’re not – we’re nowhere
near.
It's an anthropomorphic sausage party up in here |
How did that woman get in here? |
Children are like little sponges, and if
all little girls can take away from movies to look up to is a token female they’re
going to learn their place in our society very well and very quickly. They’re
going to learn that women aren’t equal. They’re going to learn that a story about
a women is merely a secondary plot. They’re going to learn that a woman is just
not as important as a man is.
It’s important for women to be represented
in movies, and television and books. And our society can change its current standpoint.
If it's Brave enough.