Female Protagonist

Pixar Studios has 12 movies all which have been successful. Out of those 12 movies there is not one female protagonist. Urged by his wife, John Lasseter—Pixar’s chief creative officer—finally decided to make Pixar’s 13^th film Brave with a female protagonist. He even hired a female, Brenda Chapman, to produce the film. The story revolves around a princess, but the usual princess narrative is sabotaged. For instance the princess tells her nagging mother—the queen—that she is not marrying anyone. She also fights bears, wields swords and fires arrows. I thought this was going to be an article about a movie aimed to challenge traditions. And when the film is released in June, many will be delighted to see an animated movie with a female protagonist from a mega film studio. On the other hand, if anyone reads the Time article or investigates the real life production of the film, they will find the movie was not a triumph for the female gender. Brenda Chapman was fired halfway through the production, because the movie was too “murky” and was not “propulsive” enough. She was replaced by a male director who made the final version “brawnier.” This is ironic since the movie was taking a gamble by not giving the princess the traditional tiara, wand and pink dress. My guess is the film wanted to appeal to the younger male gender. The only way to do that was to “masculinize” the film. We have already seen the ass kicking female theme in many other movies from different studios. Why does the female have to be “kicking ass” to appeal to the male gender—to sell tickets? To me Brave is now flawed, it is not a genuine movie about a female protagonist, because a male co-created her and was behind her ass kicking actions. I would actually have paid the money to see a kid’s film about a female protagonist created solely by a female director, just to see a female’s interpretation of a heroine. Now that I know the truth behind the making—that the interpretation was altered by a males perspective—I will not waste my time or money.
Stein, Joel. “Pixar’s Girl Story: An exclusive first look at the megasuccessful studio’s first film with a female protagonist” Time Magazine 5^th March 2012: 36-41. Print.

Domalski, Josh