The Brave Men

Recently, I read The New Man in Disney/Pixar by Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden, which focuses on the portrayals of men in Disney/Pixar films. Right away I was intrigued; everyone puts a lot of focus on princesses and almost none on the prince, let alone on the non-princess movies common in Pixar. Gillam and Wooden analyze and praise the “new model of masculinity, one that matures into acceptance of its more traditionally “feminine” aspects.” They say the male protagonists “develop and change over the course of the film” and “achieve (and teach) a kinder, gentler understanding of what it means to be a man.” You can see this especially in Cars, Toy Story, and The Incredibles. However, Gillam and Wooden wrote The New Man in Disney/Pixar before the most recent Pixar film, Brave, was released.

The men portrayed in Brave do not at all fit into this description of the Pixar man.

Check out this clip from the film:

I find it interesting that in the one Pixar princess movie, the men are quite barbaric; they all fight and brawl and don’t seem to change or grow in any way throughout the film. As soon as the princesses come into play, the men are forgotten. The focus will go straight to the portrayal of the princess anyway, so why focus on the prince? The men in Brave are therefore the opposite of what Gillam and Wooden praise. Although the film tries to make a very feminist lead female, it does not try to create good role models of the other gender; as Gillam and Wooden put it, it is important “for our sons to be aware of the many sides of human existence, regardless of traditional gender stereotypes” but Brave does not do this. It pretty clearly just gives the impression of a ‘manly man’ without many, if any, traditionally feminine aspects.

Will Disney/Pixar ever create a movie that is fair and transformative for both genders, or is that actually impossible?