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patreon.com/Next Picture Show. It's

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very difficult to keep the line

0:58

between the past and the present.

1:00

You believe that someone out of the

1:02

past can enter

1:04

and take possession of a living being.

1:07

We may be through with the past, but the past is

1:09

not through with us. Welcome

1:15

to The Next Picture Show, a movie of the week podcast

1:17

devoted to a classic film and how it's shaped our thoughts

1:19

on a recent release. I'm Tasha

1:21

Robinson, here with... Scott Tobias. And Genevieve

1:23

Koski. Thanks

1:53

for watching. just

2:00

a really great, really memorable movie in a

2:02

while, and that these days it's leaning

2:04

too much on sequels instead of originals. There

2:07

are certainly different reasons to push back on

2:09

different elements of all of that. I'm curious

2:11

how you feel about it. I

2:14

feel pretty good about it. I

2:16

feel pretty good about Pixar. I

2:19

mean, you look at prime Pixar

2:21

and you look at what has

2:24

come out the last eight or 10 years, and

2:27

I think there's a pretty

2:29

significant contrast in quality, or

2:31

at least inconsistency between

2:33

one period and the next. I mean, I guess

2:35

it shouldn't even be inevitable. I don't know what's

2:38

going on, but I find a lot of the

2:40

times that even with

2:42

the Pixar films, I do end

2:44

up liking a recent vintage. I'm

2:46

more of an apologist than a fan of

2:49

these films. It's like, well, I'm kind of,

2:51

you know, I really like Luca because it's got a

2:54

really nice little, it's small and

2:56

it's well scaled. It's hard to

2:58

make arguments like, you know, when

3:00

you're dealing with Ratatouille or WALL-E or

3:02

the Toy Story movies, it's just like

3:04

there's a scope and

3:07

a weight and, you know, a significance to

3:09

those films that I'm just not quite seeing.

3:11

It feels like we're getting at best kind

3:13

of a lot of small

3:15

base hits from this current

3:17

run of Pixar movies, not

3:20

much in the way of home runs. I

3:22

agree broadly, but I think I

3:24

also want to like extend a

3:27

little generosity and I guess maybe

3:29

push back against the argument a little bit, just noting

3:32

that Pixar is operating in

3:34

a much different movie

3:37

making landscape than it did when it

3:39

was wowing us with all of these

3:41

originals. Streaming is a big part

3:43

of that. And there's a part of the current

3:45

era of Pixar that sort of the divide is

3:47

that a lot of the originals are going right to

3:50

Disney Plus and the sequels are

3:52

what is getting into theaters. And,

3:55

you know, looking at the box office

3:57

of the movie that inspired this week.

4:00

pairing, like you can see the

4:02

logic behind that, you know, and

4:04

it does kind of undermine the

4:07

idea of Pixar as this original

4:09

groundbreaking studio, but that's also a

4:11

reputation that was originated 20 years

4:13

ago in a much different context.

4:16

So, you know, it feels

4:18

maybe a little simplistic to just like kind of

4:20

write it off as a quote unquote slump, or

4:23

having lost the magic, like there's a

4:25

lot more elements at play than I

4:28

think just pure creativity or lack thereof.

4:30

Yeah, I feel like one of the

4:32

biggest things that's changed is that we've

4:34

just come to expect a lot more

4:37

from animated films because of Pixar, you

4:39

know, they moved the barrier so hard

4:41

on what American animated films could be.

4:43

And so many other studios sort of

4:45

came along and took the lessons that

4:47

they'd laid down and followed in their

4:49

footsteps. And suddenly, they're in a much

4:51

more competitive environment where it's kind of

4:54

like the Matrix sequels, you know, I

4:56

think nobody would argue that the Matrix

4:58

looks groundbreaking when it came out. But

5:00

you can't have every movie

5:02

you make be a groundbreaking,

5:04

like industry changing

5:06

phenomenon. Does that mean that the

5:09

Matrix sequels aren't great? Yeah, no, it actually

5:11

does. I just don't think that those movies

5:14

are great. I can

5:16

thoroughly acknowledge that it

5:18

is possible to move the needle and then

5:20

just not have the gas to keep moving

5:22

the needle. But that said, I

5:24

kind of feel like especially some of

5:26

the more recent ones like Soul,

5:29

I thought had some

5:31

just incredible sequences. And

5:33

I feel like when Pixar does like

5:36

put something really, really strong on screen,

5:39

the kind of ubiquitousness of this narrative tends

5:41

to sort of keep people, I

5:43

think, from seeing what's actually there as opposed

5:46

to what they expect to see. But we

5:48

can get into it with this

5:50

pairing, you know, which brings

5:52

up an older Pixar film and a newer

5:54

one. Genevieve, you want to get us into

5:56

the details? Sure. The new

5:59

Pixar movie inside. Out 2, directed

6:01

by Kelsey Mann, is a sequel to

6:03

2015's Inside Out, Pete Docter's movie

6:05

about the anthropomorphic representations of emotions

6:08

at work inside 11-year-old Riley, and

6:10

everyone else in the world. In the sequel,

6:12

Riley is now 13, she's hitting puberty,

6:14

and she's about to hit high school,

6:16

and she's experiencing brand new emotions like

6:18

anxiety and embarrassment. Logical

6:21

pairing would be to compare these two movies, but

6:23

the new film is so much of a piece with the old

6:25

one, from the visual design to the humor to

6:27

the characters, that the contrast seemed

6:29

more like nitpicks than like fruitful discussion.

6:32

So we're looking further back in the Pixar

6:34

canon, to the studio's first film centering on

6:36

a teenage girl, 2012's

6:38

Brave, about the 16-year-old daughter of a

6:40

Scottish king and queen, which, yes, technically

6:43

makes her a Disney princess, though not

6:45

like any Disney princess before her. For

6:47

both of these movies, the directors and writers

6:49

drew heavily on their own fractious relationships with

6:51

their own kids. Both are

6:53

fantasy stories. Brave is about how that princess

6:55

fights her mother over an impending betrothal

6:58

ceremony. Inside Out 2

7:00

turns emotions into characters in active and colorful

7:02

conflict. But they're both rooted in

7:04

real experiences and the real feelings of being

7:06

a young girl trying to define her own identity.

7:09

So this week, we're heading back to medieval

7:11

Scotland for Pixar's first fairy tale and first

7:13

princess story. And next week, we'll

7:15

bring in Pixar's second Inside Out movie, which

7:18

is short on princesses, but taps into some

7:20

of the same feelings as Brave does about

7:22

coming of age, dealing with other people's expectations,

7:25

and maybe not expressing teen angst in

7:27

the healthiest possible ways. Stay

7:29

tuned. I want my freedom. But

7:40

are you willing to pay the price your

7:42

freedom will cost? Careful

7:45

what you wish for, my mother would say.

7:48

What's the worst that could happen? Normal

7:50

fighting! Sure little decorum! Feast

7:52

your eyes! Ah! Ah!

7:55

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

8:04

If you had the chance to

8:07

change your fate, would you? By

8:12

2011, Pixar Animation Studios had produced 12 feature-length

8:15

films, and it had become known

8:17

for exceptional, industry-leading innovation in everything

8:19

from ambitious visual design to big,

8:22

successful narrative risks. But it had

8:24

also become known for producing only

8:26

stories about male protagonists, with female

8:28

characters almost exclusively in minimal roles.

8:31

And these movies were written almost

8:33

entirely by, and directed exclusively by,

8:35

teams of men. So

8:37

it was international news when Pixar announced in

8:40

2008 that Brenda Chapman, the director of DreamWorks

8:42

the Prince of Egypt, a Disney veteran who'd

8:44

served as head of story on The Lion

8:47

King, would be Pixar's first woman in the

8:49

director's chair, and would be bringing Pixar's first

8:51

female protagonist to the screen. In

8:53

interviews, Chapman was frank about how the project,

8:56

originally titled The Bear in the Bow, was

8:58

drawn from her relationship with her own teenage

9:00

daughter. In the movie, the

9:02

protagonist, Merida, a 16-year-old Scottish princess with

9:05

impressive archery skills, a wild mane of

9:07

red hair, and a fierce independence streak,

9:09

pushes back against her mother, Queen Eleanor,

9:11

who she sees as prim, fussy, and

9:14

controlling. Eleanor expects Merida to

9:16

marry one of the scions of the three other

9:18

local clans, whose leaders fought alongside

9:20

Merida's father, King Fergus, in battle.

9:23

The marriage is meant to keep the peace between

9:25

these feuding clans, though it seems like it's only

9:27

fueled their rivalry. Desperate to

9:29

avoid betrothal to a stranger, Merida asks

9:31

a suspiciously bear-obsessed witch for a spell

9:34

to change her mother so they can

9:36

finally be at peace with each other. The

9:38

witch complies by changing Queen Eleanor into a bear.

9:41

That leaves Merida to try to break the spell while

9:43

keeping her bear mother safe from King Fergus. But

9:46

given that their kingdom is already haunted by

9:48

a huge, vicious black bear called Mordu, which

9:51

might possibly be a demon, Fergus is

9:53

pretty obsessed with bear killing. According

9:56

to an LA Times article published in 2011, Chapman spent

9:58

six years working

10:00

on Brave before Pixar removed her from

10:02

the project and replaced her with Mark

10:05

Andrews, who'd previously helmed the Pixar short

10:07

One Man Band but had never directed

10:09

a feature before. Exactly what happened

10:11

there has never been revealed in any detail.

10:14

At the film's premiere in 2012, Andrews

10:16

shrugged off questions, saying that male directors were replaced

10:18

all the time and nobody made a big deal

10:20

out of that. Chapman has spoken

10:23

about Pixar's decision as a tremendous disappointment

10:25

given the personal nature of the project,

10:27

but hasn't said much about what exactly

10:29

happened. The usual phrase, crowded

10:31

out in this kind of case, creative differences,

10:33

got liberal use in articles at the time.

10:36

And later revelations about the working environment

10:39

for women at Pixar, from systemic sexual

10:41

harassment to a boys' club culture where

10:43

female leaders were judged solely by their

10:45

looks or dismissed as difficult, certainly hint

10:47

at the possible causes for Chapman being

10:49

sidelined. There's no way of knowing how

10:51

different Chapman's version of the project would have looked. She

10:54

said in some cases that there was a

10:56

struggle at Pixar to streamline Brave, that her

10:58

version of the script had too many characters

11:00

and needed focus, and that the move from

11:03

traditional cell animation to 3D animation was slow,

11:05

laborious, and challenging for her. And in a

11:07

Collider interview in 2020, she offered this fascinating

11:09

snippet about what the studio changed after removing

11:11

her. Quote, There are a lot of little

11:13

things, but for the most part, there may

11:15

have been things that had more depth in

11:18

my version. Like The Witch's Curse was less

11:20

about bears and more about the wish Merida

11:22

had, make my mother more like my dad.

11:24

Her dad is a big bear of a guy. There's

11:26

more to that curse than what ended up in the

11:28

film. So what are we to make of

11:30

the version that hit the screen? There are

11:32

certainly things about it that feel rushed

11:35

and frantic, a heavy emphasis on slapstick

11:37

humor, particularly regarding the cheerfully dumb, belligerent,

11:39

proud men at the heads of all

11:42

four Scottish clans and regarding

11:44

Merida's three little red-haired brothers who race

11:46

around the castle stealing pastries, playing pranks,

11:48

and causing chaos. There's

11:50

a lot of boy energy and brave.

11:53

From the doofus clan scions vying for

11:55

Merida's hand in marriage, to that big

11:57

bear of a father who clearly loves

11:59

Merida's time. a tomboy streak and encourages her

12:01

to learn archery and act like one of

12:03

the guys, but who won't listen to her

12:05

or take her seriously when danger arises. But

12:08

the core of the movie is still Merida's relationship with

12:10

her mother, a link that seems

12:12

equally difficult on both sides. Eleanor

12:14

isn't a villain in Brave. She's the

12:17

glue holding these bands of squabbling boy-men

12:19

together, and she expects her daughter to

12:21

follow suit. In this fable, a

12:23

magical event neither of them really wanted forces

12:25

them to actually see each other clearly. It

12:28

takes Eleanor's voice away, so she finally has to

12:30

listen to her daughter. And it

12:32

threatens to take Merida's mother away, so Merida finally

12:34

has to acknowledge how much she loves Eleanor. It's

12:37

hard not to wonder what Chapman's version would have been

12:39

like, but it's still worth considering the version that did

12:42

make it to theaters. Still is

12:44

a groundbreaking story for Pixar, and

12:46

is a new model for how a Disney princess

12:48

could get that label while still breaking the mold.

12:50

Then, out of

12:52

nowhere, the biggest bear you've

12:55

ever seen is how you'd

12:57

littered with the weapons of

12:59

fallen warriors, his face scarred

13:01

with one dead eye. Adieu,

13:04

my sword. Halt! Wish!

13:06

One swipe, his sword shattered,

13:08

then chomp! Dad's leg

13:11

was clean off. Down

13:13

the monster's throat it went. Oh,

13:15

that's my favorite part. Nor

13:18

do has never been seen

13:20

since, and is

13:22

roaming the wilds waiting his

13:25

chance of revenge. AHH! Let

13:28

him return. I'll finish with a

13:30

guddle in the first place. Merida,

13:32

a princess does not place her

13:34

weapons on the table. MOM! It's

13:37

just my bow. So guys, I don't know

13:39

about you, but I have not seen this

13:42

movie since it first arrived, and when it

13:44

first arrived, I was kind of wroth with

13:46

Pixar about this whole story, about Chapman's removal

13:48

and some of the things she was saying

13:51

in the press at the time. We

13:53

talked a little bit before recording, and Scott,

13:55

you also had not seen the movie since

13:58

then. Genevieve, are you in that

14:00

scene? boat or is this a movie you've written? Okay,

14:02

so all of us are coming back to it for

14:04

the first time since CNN

14:06

theaters. How did it play

14:08

differently for you kind of

14:10

outside of that immediate set

14:12

of expectations? You know, I want

14:14

to say that like there's a really

14:16

great movie here that was

14:18

kind of overshadowed by the

14:20

extra textuals, if you will,

14:22

of the moment. But I think like

14:25

it ultimately is just kind of a

14:27

pretty good serviceable Pixar, you

14:29

know, at the end of the day.

14:31

I have no like strong

14:33

dislike toward this movie, but there's also

14:35

like no real strong affinity, I feel,

14:38

toward it, which is kind

14:40

of weird considering it's like

14:42

a mother daughter story that seems

14:44

designed to like push a lot

14:46

of my emotional buttons. But

14:49

I just I'm still trying to put my finger

14:51

on why exactly this

14:53

movie doesn't hit emotionally the

14:56

way so many not

14:58

just Pixar's but like stories of

15:00

this type often do for me.

15:04

Not even at the level of Inside Out 2.

15:07

Yeah, and it may have to do with what

15:09

you're talking about about sort of the the compromised

15:11

vision that that we got. But

15:13

you know, just kind of taking it

15:15

by what's on screen like it's like

15:18

okay, yeah, it's sort of like destroying

15:20

the princess narrative and like

15:22

that. I feel like even

15:24

at the time that didn't feel

15:27

all that fresh because we'd gotten

15:29

like tangled at that

15:32

point. And you know, and

15:34

like this does evolve the

15:37

Disney Princess paradigm, you know, in

15:39

one substantial way. But

15:42

it doesn't feel that like exciting in hindsight

15:44

as far as or doesn't feel dangerous, I

15:46

guess, you know, it just feels kind

15:49

of like nice, you know,

15:51

it's a nice story. But I had

15:53

trouble tapping into a deeper level with

15:55

it. Am I alone in that? You

15:57

are not I had exactly the same

15:59

the that

18:01

it's hard for me to get over. Yeah, I'm

18:03

with you on that. I when when Genevieve

18:05

was talking about like the lack of emotional

18:07

connection she had to this movie, the thing

18:09

that kept kind of coming back to me

18:11

is I find Merida

18:13

a little hard to connect with. Yes,

18:16

yes. I'm

18:19

looking back at an interview that I

18:21

did when Brave came out for the

18:23

AV Club with Mark Andrews, who stepped

18:25

in as director and one

18:27

of the producers. And they're

18:29

talking about how Chapman when Chapman

18:31

pitched this story to John Lasseter

18:34

originally, she was looking at her own

18:36

six year old daughter who was

18:38

a humongous handful, just like, you know,

18:40

willful and acting out and, you

18:43

know, going through the terrible twos at age six. And she

18:45

was saying, like, what would what is this girl going to

18:47

be like when she's a teenager?

18:50

And I feel like that simplicity

18:52

that you see in Merida is

18:54

because she does feel like a six year old

18:57

in a teenager's body. She just she

18:59

keeps kind of like kicking

19:02

and saying the same thing over

19:04

and over and over again. And

19:06

as you say, there's there's a lack of

19:08

depth there. And maybe that's because, you know,

19:10

she's pushing back against one giant thing in

19:13

her life. But I find her very the

19:17

dreaded word shrill. Which,

19:19

you know, is a terrible thing to

19:22

say about a woman in an environment

19:24

where that word usually means like has

19:26

an opinion and speaks her mind. But

19:28

I don't know. She's

19:30

just her teenager hood, I

19:32

guess, comes across in

19:35

a lot of yelling,

19:37

just like yelling everything all the

19:39

time. There's not a whole

19:41

lot of listening to anybody about anything in

19:43

her family. You know, this is a problem

19:45

that all of the family members have right

19:48

down to the little kids who aren't verbal

19:50

yet. So it's not like

19:52

she stands out in that regard. But

19:55

there's just there's a whole lot of

19:57

like yelling instead of speaking in this

19:59

movie from. from just about everybody.

20:02

And it kind of just makes the whole movie run at

20:04

a fever pitch for the most part. And

20:07

it isn't until the very end, the

20:09

kind of the climax of the movie,

20:12

that that dies down. The best parts

20:15

of this movie, I think, are Merida

20:17

and her bare mother fishing together without

20:19

words. And Merida

20:22

and her bare mother, you know, connecting

20:24

in the end of the climax. The big

20:27

fight where nobody needs to say anything

20:29

because they're doing what they need to

20:31

do. And the moment at

20:33

the end where she does manage to bring

20:35

her mother back, spoiler for people who

20:38

don't understand how fairy tales work. But

20:40

I just I feel like the

20:43

script for me is just about a

20:45

whole bunch of people yelling so it'll

20:48

feel better when they go quiet. And

20:51

it starts feeling a little exhausting. What you

20:53

say is so correct

20:56

to about the

20:58

pitches that clarifies things to me to

21:00

such an extent because a six

21:03

year old who rebels does not

21:05

rebel in the same way as a 16 year

21:07

old. They're way different.

21:09

It's way more complicated. You

21:12

know, there may be some willfulness involved

21:15

with a 16 year old, but there's

21:17

so much more sophisticated at that age.

21:19

And the ways that they can rebel

21:21

are so war varied and subtle and

21:24

complex as they become much more complex

21:26

human beings. And so if you try

21:28

to supplant, if you try

21:30

to put the mind of a six year old,

21:32

the willful six year old into the body of

21:34

a 16 year old, that you're going to miss

21:36

a lot of nuance and a lot of things

21:38

that are kind of important about girls

21:41

at that age. There's also

21:43

the tomboy of it all,

21:45

which I feel like making

21:47

your female protagonist like a capital

21:49

T tomboy is such like it's

21:52

just such a simplistic shorthand. And

21:54

Merida, like Merida's whole thing

21:57

is like, well, Tasha, you kind

21:59

of. over

24:00

and over and over and over

24:02

without variation, but has her actually looking

24:04

at what her mother is doing

24:06

and saying, I don't want to be

24:09

in charge of being the adult

24:11

in the room. Like, I don't want

24:13

my job to be controlling

24:15

all of these manchildren. Like, why do

24:18

I have to be the kindergarten teacher

24:20

while they get to run around? If

24:22

what she wants is to go

24:26

galloping around the woods and shoot things, she's

24:28

not that different from what the

24:30

boys want and being told,

24:32

you know, that the movie Skims is so

24:35

close to this without actually saying it. Just

24:38

the idea of being

24:40

a woman is being a grown up and

24:42

being a man is being a kid. And

24:44

one of those is more fun than the

24:46

other. And that that kind of hits me

24:48

wrong both on a couple of

24:50

levels. One is marrying off the 16 year

24:53

old to one of these doofuses. And

24:56

the other is, you know, with

24:58

the sort of historical Scotland feeling

25:00

that then she's going to be chattel. But

25:02

the other is just sort of the idea

25:04

that, you know, it's kind of back to

25:07

the gender essentialism thing in this world where

25:09

there's only really three

25:11

women of significance. Your 16

25:13

year old protagonist, the

25:15

queen who is in charge of managing

25:17

literally every other character in the movie.

25:20

Oh, sorry, four. And the witch who

25:23

is outside of society is kind

25:25

of kind of cracked and kind of

25:27

out of touch with everything. And

25:30

the fat lady who like

25:33

runs around squealing a lot and

25:35

gets everything either gets everything taken

25:37

away from her when we're not

25:39

literally looking down her her ginormous

25:41

cleavage. So those are your options

25:43

for women in this society. Like

25:45

no wonder Merida wants to be a boy. I mean,

25:48

not that she says she wants to be a boy, because that's

25:50

a very different thing these days. But no wonder she wants to

25:52

play with the boys instead of,

25:54

you know, being one of four women

25:56

in this entire society, and therefore being

25:58

in charge of like running it. It's

26:01

also interesting, an interesting reading of Eleanor

26:03

in particular to take into her whole

26:06

transformation into a bear

26:08

and specifically the scenes

26:10

where she does kind

26:13

of give into her her bareness,

26:15

which as you I think alluded

26:17

to earlier, Tasha,

26:19

like are some of the most

26:21

successful scenes in the film, like

26:23

every time, you know, the

26:25

eyes change, you know, the human eyes go

26:27

and the bear eyes come and there's that

26:30

moment of like, is she coming back? It

26:32

hit every time for me, like not enough to

26:34

make me cry. But you know, I

26:37

could feel the emotional weight there. And

26:39

to take what you're talking about, about sort

26:41

of the lack of appeal

26:44

of roles women have

26:46

in this society, like, like

26:48

I almost find myself kind of like, wishing

26:50

that Eleanor could just wander off into

26:52

the woods and be free and not have to

26:55

deal with all this anymore. You know, like there

26:57

is a reading that like, maybe she is better

26:59

off just going off and being a bear for

27:01

a bit. Well, just

27:03

briefly, I'm kind of perplexed as

27:05

to what, what everyone's beef

27:08

is here. You know, I mean, it's

27:10

not this isn't exactly Ron or something.

27:12

Why don't we talking about war, you

27:15

know, tension between clans, like, like, where

27:17

is that tension arise? Like, where, you

27:19

know, they seem kind of

27:21

interchangeable. You get to it, you get

27:24

to this moment when the, when the women

27:26

go away, where they're all in a room,

27:28

just kind of randomly firing arrows at each

27:30

other. And it just seems kind of like this rowdy

27:33

party rather than an actual war. Like

27:36

I don't understand. None of that is

27:38

really clear to me why a

27:40

union between one clan of the other is going to

27:42

be all that important to the future of this whole

27:45

ecosystem. All that seemed

27:47

kind of arbitrary to me. As

27:49

I took it is these four clans

27:51

were already allied and had

27:54

an agreement in place that the princess

27:56

would marry within those clans. So

27:58

the conflict was less. about they

28:01

are fighting over who's chosen and

28:04

they are fighting because she rejected

28:06

that agreement in the first place.

28:09

And that just like threw things into

28:11

disorder. Like, I think we're meant to

28:13

assume that if she had agreed

28:16

to marry whoever won the

28:18

games, because that's sort of how this is set

28:20

up. It's not even her choice. It's just whoever

28:22

wins the games wins her hand

28:24

in marriage. So since

28:26

she rejected that premise, that just

28:29

throws them all into chaos.

28:31

And now this alliance that they have

28:33

is coming apart. I don't think that

28:35

marriage was meant to form the alliance

28:37

in the first place. Well, it's

28:39

one of the places in Brave where I think the world building is

28:41

skimmed over a bit in order to give

28:43

other things some room. And

28:46

one of the big things I think is the

28:49

way the visual design of this

28:51

world was kind of held forth

28:53

as, you know, a big

28:56

new breakthrough for Pixar in a lot of

28:58

different ways. So there

29:00

are a lot of aspects of that that we can talk

29:02

about, but I think first we're going to take a break

29:04

and then come back and talk a little bit about the

29:06

visual design and the visual storytelling in

29:08

Brave. So again,

29:10

I'm looking at

29:12

this AV Club

29:16

interview that I

29:18

did with

29:25

the director and producer. And

29:27

man, first of all, it's

29:29

giving me nostalgia for the time when

29:31

we would be able to sit down

29:33

with filmmakers for like 30 or 40

29:35

minutes and really dig into things. Like

29:38

there's a lot more depth here than I remember.

29:40

And I'm thinking about the interviews we get these

29:42

days that are very often eight minutes to 10

29:44

minutes long. And I would have

29:47

had time for two of these questions at most,

29:49

alas, Babylon. Anyway, at the time,

29:51

the thing that Pixar was

29:53

really emphasizing was in part

29:56

Merida's hair and how complicated it was

29:58

to animate. over

30:00

100,000 individual strands and thousands of

30:02

them animated individually by hand.

30:04

I gotta admit, I don't like Nerda's

30:07

hair much. I find

30:09

it very, very distracting. There's just

30:11

so much of it. It seems

30:13

so unlikely. It's kind of a

30:16

wonder of animation, you know, how

30:18

independently all these little chunks with

30:20

different textures and colors move

30:23

from each other, like how they

30:26

respond to her riding harder, standing

30:28

still or stopping suddenly or whatever.

30:31

But man, I did spend like half

30:33

of this movie, both originally and this

30:35

time just kind of wanting to take

30:37

a hairbrush to her. Oh, I love

30:39

the hair. She's like the Scottish Mary

30:41

Elizabeth Master Antonio. Wow.

30:45

That was on all of the posters now that I think

30:47

about it. I mean, it kind of goes back to what

30:49

we were talking about, about sort of the simplistic

30:52

characterization of Merida,

30:54

like she's unruly. Her

30:57

hair is unruly. Get it? You

30:59

know, but it's I think

31:01

I agree with you, Tasha, that I found

31:03

it a little distracting while still being,

31:06

you know, technically impressive. And I

31:08

think it's just like I think they just

31:10

maybe took it a little too far because

31:12

that was like their big symbol of who

31:14

Merida is. It's how you visually represent who

31:17

this character is without changing the

31:20

Disney princess face, which she still

31:22

has, you know. And

31:25

it's just like a simple way

31:27

to underline this like character trait.

31:31

But it's a little blown out of proportion

31:33

in a way that, as we say, becomes

31:35

distracting. Like, I think like her hair could

31:37

have been like 30 percent

31:39

the size it is and you still

31:41

would have gotten that character that characterization

31:43

still would have come through without it

31:46

being quite as distracting. And you still

31:48

would have gotten like the visual humor

31:50

of her trying to stuff it under

31:52

that hood and everything, you know. But

31:56

it's yeah, it feels a little like

31:58

playing with their toys. than anything

32:00

else. You take a 30% hit at the

32:02

box office for that, I think. Just straight

32:07

up percentages. To me though, it's

32:10

like better express

32:12

this theme, simple

32:14

theme visually than with

32:16

talking. So it's like, I'm fine

32:19

with her having this explosion of

32:21

hair and also color, I think

32:23

too. It really helps give the film a very exciting

32:30

visual pop, which is kind of what you want

32:32

from a Pixar movie. But I mean,

32:34

that was kind of a Pixar thing for such a long

32:36

time. We're just like, we're going to look at

32:39

the dust everywhere. It was like

32:41

the water. Look at the water, the fur,

32:43

the blue fur. I

32:46

will say, talking about

32:49

renderings of hair, I thought

32:52

Bear Eleanor's fur was

32:54

quite lovely to

32:57

Bear Eleanor too. It's amazing. The

32:59

way the light lands on her fur

33:01

and the way it shifts, especially when

33:03

she's running around the castle, is

33:06

spectacular. And kind of the textural

33:08

differences between her fur and Mordu's

33:11

fur in particular is

33:13

just very clearly thought through and

33:15

well executed. I

33:18

love, one of the things I love, we're coming

33:20

across as a little negative on this movie, and

33:22

I do think that there are a lot of

33:25

things to praise. One of the things that lands

33:27

with me most is the way Bear

33:29

Eleanor moves when she's Bear Eleanor, as

33:31

opposed to has lost herself

33:33

Bear, the way they

33:36

map this very prim controlled woman

33:38

who's very aware of her reputations

33:40

and her surroundings and the idea

33:43

that somebody might be looking at

33:45

her, the way she moves as

33:47

a bear is spectacular. And the

33:50

scene at the falls

33:52

where she starts turning into a bear and

33:54

moving like a bear, and then she gets

33:56

herself back and suddenly she stands upright and

33:58

starts mincing. I

34:00

think it's just amazing. Yeah. Yeah. The way

34:03

she takes off her crown, so good.

34:05

Yeah. And delicately puts it down on

34:07

a rock to get a stand in the

34:09

water and eat fish. Yeah,

34:11

the thing with hair is painfully

34:14

literal. I mean, Merida

34:17

has wild hair. Her mother has extremely

34:19

structured braided hair that's

34:22

completely under control at all times.

34:25

When her mother's trying to control her, she

34:27

controls her hair. When she's trying to rebel

34:29

in a small way against that

34:31

control, she pulls out some of her hair. When

34:34

she's indicating that who she is and who

34:36

she wants to be, she pulls her hair

34:38

back out in front of everybody. And

34:41

then at the end, when Eleanor has

34:43

been softened and has gone through this

34:45

traumatic experience, literally her hair

34:47

has been let down. It's come

34:49

out of the braids and it's all loose

34:51

and chaotic around her. And she's more like

34:53

her daughter in that way. I don't

34:55

know. The kind of thing that

34:57

I would find cool, subtle

35:00

filmmaking, like good character work

35:02

if it wasn't, if

35:04

Merida's hair wasn't so much, if it

35:06

wasn't so over the top and blatant

35:08

in your face in every single shot.

35:12

And if they hadn't hyped

35:14

it up so much too, maybe. That's

35:18

extra textural, sorry. Can we complain

35:20

about the other character designs in

35:22

this? I just feel like

35:24

the men, the large men between

35:29

the blockiness and the Scottish

35:32

accents, not enough

35:34

distance from Shrek for me and

35:36

these characters, not enough.

35:39

Too evocative of a film I don't like. I

35:41

did not, I was not getting Shrek from

35:44

this movie. I was too busy thinking about,

35:47

this is one of a couple of

35:49

movies that set off a kind of

35:51

a big rolling online conversation about the

35:54

weird sexual dimorphism in animated

35:56

movies. Like the

35:58

thing we see here where Fergus is a ginormous

36:01

mountain of a man and his

36:03

wife is a wee little pencil

36:06

is very common in animated movies.

36:08

And you know, again, it's symbolic,

36:10

you know, men are like big

36:12

and maybe scary and stately and

36:15

like women are narrow and prim

36:17

and self-controlled. I'm thinking about how

36:19

much flak, in fact, Pixar

36:22

took for lava, the short that

36:24

played with the first Inside Out,

36:27

where there's the male volcano is a

36:29

big and broad and fat and the female

36:31

volcano is pretty and thin and

36:33

has long hair. Because

36:36

this comes up a lot, you know, people

36:38

have done TikToks and YouTubes

36:40

and like visual essays and all

36:42

this stuff. You see it in

36:45

the How to Train Your Dragon movies, you see

36:47

it in, oh, I'm trying to think of some

36:49

of the other examples that I've seen. It's just,

36:51

it's very, very common in animation

36:53

to do this like very stylized

36:55

shape is personality thing where somebody

36:58

who's a line just

37:01

like in overall character sketches very different from

37:03

somebody who's a block, who's a

37:05

square. All of the Inside Out

37:07

characters, for instance, are, you know,

37:09

built on shapes to indicate

37:12

their the space they take up. And

37:14

here we understand that Fergus is a

37:17

big bear of a man who takes up a

37:19

lot of space because he's a giant square and

37:22

like Eleanor is a small line. But when

37:24

you look at them both as people,

37:26

as like human beings who are married

37:28

to each other and produced children, I start

37:31

getting weirded out. Yes, my

37:33

thought drifted there briefly as well.

37:36

Very, very unpleasant. Well,

37:39

there is the scene at the very end where he

37:41

literally jumps on top of her and Meredith kind of

37:43

backs off and goes, ew, because it does

37:46

look like it pretty

37:48

primal and also just a little squeaky.

37:50

But I do. Yeah, we

37:52

have been pretty negative about this

37:55

film that I actually think I did log like

37:57

a three out of five or a three out

37:59

of five. the odd letterbox.

38:01

I mean, this is kind

38:03

of a mixed leading positive thing. So I feel

38:06

like I need to mention a couple things I

38:08

like about it just for my

38:10

own justification here, which is I

38:12

think the music is really pretty and

38:14

the songs are really pretty and carry

38:16

it along really well. And

38:19

I think that that sequence that we keep bringing up

38:21

when we are talking about what we like about the

38:23

film, when Eleanor and

38:25

Merida are on their own

38:27

and in nature and

38:30

kind of in more survival mode

38:32

or getting to know you mode in a way, there's

38:35

a freedom, there's like a freshness to that

38:37

and it's comedic and it's sweet

38:39

and it looks incredible. And like

38:42

you just crave more of that

38:44

because I just don't think

38:46

any section of the film is nearly as satisfying

38:48

as that, but that section is quite satisfying. So

38:50

you can kind of see

38:52

enough elements here.

38:55

You can see the glimmers

38:58

of something really special

39:00

that could have been made from the story

39:03

had the focus been really

39:05

even heavier on this mother-daughter

39:07

relationship had it been drawn

39:10

out even more, had the

39:12

characters been more sophisticated, particularly

39:15

Merida and some of that

39:17

play and drama between

39:19

them when they're on their own is gold and

39:22

I just kind of wish there were a

39:24

little more of it. I think that the

39:26

sequence where the two of them both kind

39:28

of try to speak their truths, but they

39:31

don't speak to each other. She's role-playing

39:33

with Fergus who is pretending to

39:35

be Merida and Merida is meanwhile

39:38

having a heartfelt conversation with the

39:40

horse, but Eleanor and Merida are

39:42

both talking to each other and

39:44

the edits have them talking to each other. We're

39:46

just given to understand that all of these very

39:48

important things for them to both say, they're

39:51

saying to the wrong person. They're

39:54

trying to unburden themselves. They're trying to

39:56

communicate. They're just doing it all wrong.

39:59

And that strikes me as a, a really

40:01

cool symbol that isn't overplayed. Just the idea

40:03

that they both know what's wrong and they

40:05

both even know how to say it, they

40:07

just can't seem to find a way to

40:10

say it to each other, I think

40:12

illustrates pretty neatly both what's going

40:14

on in each other's heads and

40:16

why they can't see eye

40:19

to eye. Because they can't seem to find

40:21

ways to say these things to each other instead

40:24

of to whoever else is around

40:26

or is listening. Another interesting illustration

40:28

of the divide between them that

40:31

I like is the two

40:33

main settings

40:36

we get in this, the

40:38

castle, which is very much

40:40

associated with Alinor, and the outdoors,

40:42

the forest, the wilderness which is

40:45

associated by Merida and the two

40:47

of them, the story ping-ponging back

40:50

and forth between putting them

40:52

in those settings as sort

40:55

of embodiments of their two

40:57

personalities. Specifically,

40:59

I like the symbol of the tapestry

41:01

and how it is brought out of the

41:04

castle in the climax

41:06

of the film to sort

41:08

of literally mend their relationship.

41:10

Although, I do remain annoyed

41:12

that neither of them seem

41:14

to process the symbolism in

41:16

that spell, which is very, very obvious

41:20

when they went right to the tapestry

41:22

instead. Speaking of things that could be

41:25

a little clear, I would like

41:27

to know if actually repairing the

41:29

tapestry was a vital component of

41:32

this counterspell or if they just

41:34

assumed there and it was all

41:36

about the mother-daughter bond that it

41:38

was clearly referencing the whole time.

41:41

I feel like it was clearly the mother-daughter bond and

41:43

the tapestry didn't have anything to do with anything. But

41:46

while I'm frustrated with their,

41:49

both of them being kind of idiots about

41:51

that, I also think it's like a fun

41:53

story beat because I think it's so obvious

41:56

that the vast majority of the audience, like

41:59

even, you know, and some fairly young

42:01

kids are gonna look at that

42:03

and think, like, no, you need to talk

42:05

to her, not go sew up a piece

42:07

of cloth. It's not about this. And

42:10

we'll be waiting for the moment where she

42:13

figures it out, like, however she figures

42:15

it out. I think that adds some

42:17

kind of some fun tension to the whole situation. I

42:19

just assume when they sew that thing

42:21

up that everything will be fine. But

42:24

that was my way of thinking. I

42:28

mean, you know, it's like the

42:30

true love's kiss or something. It's

42:32

just it's a physical action that

42:35

needs to be taken. So yeah, I

42:37

thought that sewing would probably take care

42:40

of things. I

42:43

don't have the sophistication of a small

42:45

child. I've often

42:47

said that about you, Scott. So

42:51

one of the things that I found really

42:53

interesting and that I mostly like, although there

42:56

are aspects of it that I'm, I

42:59

guess, a little back

43:01

and forth on, is the world building

43:03

in the script here is just really

43:05

unusual. You know, we

43:07

find out about Mordu, the

43:10

demon, quote, unquote, demon bear, when

43:12

he attacks. You know, there's no lengthy

43:16

scene setting and leading up to him.

43:19

He's just suddenly there. We

43:21

find out what relationship these clans

43:23

have to each other well after they're

43:26

all introduced when Merida starts telling them

43:28

their own history. We

43:30

find out, you know, what's

43:32

actually going on with Mordu really

43:35

late in the film, even though

43:37

he's sort of theoretically the villain. We

43:39

find out that magic exists in this

43:42

world, like almost by

43:44

accident. It's not an upfront kind

43:46

of thing. It just

43:48

it seems like there are a

43:50

lot of cases here where we

43:52

find out really important parts of this

43:55

rather unusual world, like in the exact

43:57

second that the story needs them and

43:59

not before. And given how much I

44:01

dislike this movie's like fussy,

44:05

silly, like voice over

44:07

about, I don't know, blah, blah,

44:09

fate, destiny, something, something. I kind

44:12

of like the bluntness of, you

44:15

know, you don't need to know, you don't need a bunch

44:17

of stories about this bear. You just need to know, oh

44:19

my gosh, there's a bear attacking. Like you don't need to

44:21

know a bunch of stories about the relationships here. You

44:23

need to see how they operate with each other

44:25

and see what, what actually

44:28

they'll listen to, you

44:30

know, what the clan leaders will respond

44:32

to and connect to. It's

44:35

really unusual structuring. It

44:38

doesn't 100% work, but I

44:40

kind of like how daring it is. I kind of like

44:42

how different it is. I do think

44:44

it works in the case of the,

44:46

the more due reveal and, you

44:48

know, that it, that this is the

44:50

same spell, although

44:53

it does raise the question of why

44:55

this, this is the only spell this

44:57

witch seems to have at her

45:00

disposal. I'm, I'm pretty good

45:02

with that. She does not seem like the

45:04

world's most competent witch. And the fact that

45:06

I kind of love the fact that the

45:08

whole more do thing is foreshadowed

45:11

in such a silly way with her,

45:13

her being like, no, I don't, I

45:16

don't do spells for people anymore. Too

45:18

many unsatisfied customers. Like

45:20

she's talking about the guy that she

45:22

turned into a bear because he wanted to be super

45:24

strong. And then he was mad about it. Like, what

45:27

are you going to do? You give a guy

45:29

what he wants and suddenly he's an angry bear.

45:31

Like why is that her fault? He can't complain about

45:34

being a bear when that's kind of her thing with

45:36

the shop. You know what I mean? Like

45:38

she, that's kind of the only trick she's going to

45:40

have in the bag. It's like, it's like the wonder twins

45:42

when they only turn into like ice jet. You remember

45:44

that Tasha, the one turn into an animal.

45:51

I'm going to turn into a bucket. Sorry.

45:53

Yeah. And that plays off. in

46:00

just some interesting ways at the very

46:02

end of the movie, but we'll get into that later.

46:05

I like the fact that Merida

46:08

kind of forces this woman's hand.

46:10

Like she is not a villain.

46:12

She is not a schemer. She's

46:15

not another version of Ursula, like

46:17

lurking in the dark, putting curses

46:19

on people for fun. She just,

46:21

she's got the one spell. She really likes bears

46:23

and she knows how to make bears with

46:26

her hands, sometimes with a

46:28

potion. I think that's

46:30

a really hilarious joke that the movie

46:32

does not oversell in any way. Yeah.

46:35

I admit that like it is

46:37

only like fully clicking into place

46:40

now that like she just likes

46:42

bears. Maybe I like

46:44

was not paying enough attention to

46:46

the wood carvings or something, but that is

46:49

sort of a funny read on that character

46:51

of this, like this is her thing. Or

46:53

maybe, you know, maybe she doesn't love bears

46:55

more than anything. Bears are just all she

46:57

can make. She's tried to carve

46:59

other things and they just don't come out well. She

47:02

knows what her talents are. They're making bears,

47:04

making bears out of wood, making bears out

47:06

of people, just making bears. It's

47:08

Scotland you should expect more. Anyway,

47:12

that was my more. More

47:15

than bears? Yeah, that was

47:17

my, that was a silly, silly more

47:19

joke. Yeah, I don't

47:21

know. Oh dear. Yeah,

47:23

you're getting it now. What

47:26

was I gonna say? I don't know. I just,

47:29

have you all said enough nice things about this film? Are

47:32

you kind of on balance, kind of

47:34

negative about this film or what? Cause

47:37

again, I was sort of like mixed to

47:39

positive. This is still feeling like a pretty

47:42

negative segment to me. I

47:45

feel like this is one of those movies

47:47

that I watch and think about its potential.

47:51

Where I watch and think all

47:53

of these elements feel like they're at

47:55

about 70% of

47:57

where they should have been to be just

47:59

like an abdication. absolutely fantastic movie. And

48:02

that can be more disappointing and leave you

48:04

with more of a negative feeling than

48:06

a movie that's just absolute garbage. Because

48:09

the garbage movie, you can stop thinking about

48:11

two minutes later, unless

48:13

you're hung up on how much you paid on the ticket. But

48:16

with Brave, it's been a long time.

48:18

And I'm still wondering what Brenda Chapman's

48:20

version of this was. I'm

48:22

still wondering what she

48:24

wanted to see in this story. Again,

48:28

going back and looking at that AV Club

48:30

interview, I asked Mark

48:32

Andrews a bunch about what he brought

48:34

to the movie specifically or how he

48:36

changed it, what Pixar

48:38

wasn't seeing in her version that

48:41

they wanted. And one of the

48:43

things he talks about was he was

48:45

on the movie as a consultant on

48:47

Scotland. His whole deal, as

48:49

far as the movie, was just they'd come

48:51

to him and say, okay, what did people

48:53

wear at this one particular time

48:55

in history? Or what would they have eaten?

48:57

Or what's a good reference book for

49:02

what the castle should look like? And

49:05

the idea that this guy was promoted above

49:07

the woman that had

49:10

already directed an animated film that had a

49:12

lot of responsibility at Disney that

49:17

had all this experience under her belt, doesn't

49:19

sit super well with me. And

49:23

it's that old thing where when

49:26

Spielberg steps in on a Stanley Kubrick film,

49:28

you're gonna look at it and say, well,

49:31

all of the stuff that I feel tonally

49:33

dubious about, that was probably Spielberg. And

49:36

everything that I loved was probably Stanley

49:38

Kubrick. And then Spielberg comes along

49:40

later and says, yeah, literally the exact opposite.

49:42

Everything you just said was something of mine.

49:44

And you have completely the wrong idea of

49:47

what Kubrick wanted this film to be. It's

49:49

entirely possible that everything good in this movie

49:51

came from Mark Andrews. I

49:53

just don't believe it as a narrative.

49:56

Something that I just, I cannot stop

49:58

thinking about. watching this

50:00

film is Cassandra Smallsick's

50:03

essay about her time at

50:05

Pixar. At the time, it

50:07

was a pretty big

50:09

deal. You can still find it

50:12

online under the headline Pixar's Sexist

50:14

of Boys Club at Medium. She

50:16

published it in 2018. And there was a lot of analysis

50:19

of it after

50:22

the fact and a lot of conversation about it.

50:24

It's very, very long. And

50:26

my personal feeling is that you can

50:28

kind of skip down to the Pixar

50:30

stuff because she gives some very specific

50:32

and in-depth stories

50:35

about what women went through at

50:37

Pixar, which went way, way, way

50:40

beyond John Lasseter and his

50:43

handsiness and his, you

50:45

know, just general

50:47

ickiness. She tells a lot of

50:50

very specific stories about Lasseter, but also about other producers

50:52

and leaders there and the things that they

50:55

did to women and the way they dismissed

50:57

them. And she talks a bunch about Brenda

50:59

Chapman and some of

51:01

the labels that got put on her as,

51:04

you know, indecisive or, you

51:06

know, difficult or strident or opinionated or

51:08

whatever. You know, all things

51:10

that you don't tend to hear about male

51:12

directors. And you certainly don't tend

51:14

to hear about Pixar male directors. So

51:17

I guess it comes back down to

51:19

like when I read that article the

51:21

first time, I thought, how could this

51:24

environment possibly produce like

51:26

a solid story about a female

51:28

character? How could people who feel

51:30

this way about women produce anything

51:32

about women? You know, how could

51:35

they enable female creativity? How could

51:37

they tell these stories? And

51:40

I don't know. I mean, does this

51:42

movie in the end feel to you

51:44

like it came from a place of

51:46

institutional sexism? Is that going too far?

51:49

I just I don't know

51:51

what to make of this movie coming

51:53

out of the studio at this time.

51:55

I think a lot of the stuff

51:57

that we've been talking about and the

51:59

characterizations of Merida and and Eleanor specifically,

52:02

and sort of the simplified

52:06

sanding off of edges that

52:08

both kind of receive here

52:11

could be attributable to some

52:15

of these attitudes that are being suggested.

52:18

I can just like sense

52:20

Scott's shoulders going up at

52:22

that very suggestion and

52:25

its extra textualness. So

52:28

like I don't want to say

52:30

that I think that is definitely the

52:32

case, but I think that that is

52:35

certainly a reading you can bring to

52:37

the relationship between that article and what

52:39

we see in Merida or what we

52:41

see in Brave. Scott

52:44

would you like to disagree? No, I wouldn't actually. I

52:46

think that makes sense. It's not a, yeah, it's a

52:48

legacy in retrospect. You

52:54

know, when all of this was

52:56

sort of revealed and then you

52:58

kind of look through the filmography

53:00

and look through Pixar from that

53:02

particular prism, I mean, you definitely

53:05

see some holes in

53:09

the films that kind of bear

53:11

all that out that reflect that

53:13

environment in some way. Also, it's

53:15

interesting to note, I

53:17

think that, you know, for all

53:19

of the hubbub about, you know,

53:22

this being Pixar's first female

53:24

protagonist and all that, she's

53:27

also one of the very, very

53:30

few human protagonists in

53:32

Pixar movies. And

53:34

especially up until this point, like it

53:36

was pretty much just like up and

53:38

like maybe the Incredibles, but, you know,

53:41

obviously superhero, you know, they were not

53:43

necessarily dealing with down to

53:45

earth human experiences, you know. So

53:48

Brave almost sticks out even more

53:50

than it already would by virtue

53:52

of being like an unusual

53:54

Pixar character and an unusual

53:56

Pixar narrative, regardless of gender.

53:59

gender. And it's sort of

54:02

it's tempting to speculate that like,

54:04

you know, when given the

54:06

chance to do its, you know,

54:09

its first female lead, they defaulted

54:11

to a princess, you know, because

54:13

that is the type

54:15

of human female that we are

54:18

used to animated movies being about

54:20

instead of like a female fish,

54:22

maybe like Finding Dory a few

54:24

years later, you know, that's

54:27

a spin off, but not

54:30

particularly relevant here. But just

54:32

in terms of like, you know, the

54:34

type of story that is being

54:36

told here, it's not necessarily Pixar's

54:38

bread and butter up until to

54:40

this point. And so maybe they

54:42

were already like a little bit

54:44

of a disadvantage here of how

54:46

to tell this type of story.

54:49

And then when you bring all

54:51

the gendered baggage into it, it

54:53

becomes even messier in that

54:55

regard. Yeah, it's certainly

54:58

easier to accept a character being

55:00

like a little two dimensional and,

55:02

you know,

55:05

just like simplistic in a way when they're

55:07

a bug or a toy or a robot

55:09

or, you know, whatever other

55:12

thing Pixar's deciding to give

55:14

emotions to this week. But I

55:17

think the problems in Brave come in part from

55:19

the difficulty of putting believable

55:21

humans on screen at this point in

55:23

time, you know, with the technology they

55:25

were using. I am still a

55:27

little bugged just by Merida's face

55:30

and like her her character design

55:33

compared to like how sophisticated animated

55:35

faces have gotten. So,

55:37

you know, it's hard to tell.

55:39

But we actually have a really

55:42

good opportunity to kind of compare

55:44

and contrast where Pixar has gotten

55:46

with believable human emotions

55:48

and particularly believable human teen

55:50

girl emotions and faces

55:52

and models and stories.

55:55

And we'll get into that next time when we

55:58

get into Inside Out 2 and some connections

56:00

between those movies. In the

56:02

meantime, normally we would default to feedback

56:04

at this point. We'll talk about that

56:06

in just a minute after this break. Now

56:18

it's time for feedback, but before we get into

56:20

it, we want to give a shout out to

56:23

Film Spotting, the next picture shows Mothership podcast hosted

56:25

by Adam Kempinar and Josh Larson. As

56:27

we're recording this, Adam and Josh's latest episode covers

56:29

Inside Out 2, Richard Linklater's

56:31

Hitman, and the widely beloved drama

56:33

Ghostlight. They've also given us

56:36

a bonus episode covering the top five Richard

56:38

Linklater scenes of all time. I

56:40

am so glad we don't set ourselves

56:43

challenges like that. I cannot imagine trying

56:45

to narrow Linklater down to five

56:48

scenes. What would you put in there

56:50

from where'd you go Bernadette? I mean

56:53

the whole movie. Can you just count the

56:55

whole movie as a scene? Because

56:58

you probably can. I should be mean to

57:00

that movie. It's actually got some interesting things in it, but

57:03

I could do it. I love doing that stuff, making lists.

57:05

That's what the boys do over at Film Spotting.

57:10

They fight over lists. They fight

57:12

over lists. They make top fives. Remarkably

57:14

little fighting most of the time on

57:16

that podcast. It is fun when they

57:18

get into it. Give me half an

57:20

hour and I'll come up with five

57:22

Richard Linklater scenes. So are they.

57:25

Madonna Papsemer from Slacker.

57:27

That's on there for sure. Okay.

57:30

Bold. Very bold. I

57:34

will say when Adam

57:36

and Josh do strongly disagree about

57:38

something and get into it, it's maybe

57:40

my closest window into what it's

57:43

like for fans of this podcast to listen to me and

57:45

Scott fight about stuff. Because I

57:47

do definitely like when they strongly disagree,

57:50

get kind of a yeah, go, go

57:52

fight kind of feel to it. I

57:54

do really like when they disagree strongly about things, but

57:57

it is normally quite amicable. So

58:00

as for feedback, we're recording this pairing a

58:02

lot earlier than we would normally would. This

58:05

is literally the day that our episode on

58:07

Furiosa drops, so we have not left much

58:09

time for people to send in feedback. Jennie

58:12

suggested that instead we should use this space

58:14

for a little discussion on the Disney Princess

58:16

phenomenon. The Disney Princess product

58:19

line was created in 2001 as a

58:21

marketing gimmick to target sales to younger

58:23

female Disney fans, and it

58:25

brought in about $3 billion over the course

58:27

of its first three years. It has been

58:29

a remarkably lucrative success,

58:33

and they just keep adding Disney Princesses to

58:35

the story. I think that there are entire

58:37

films that may have been greenlit out

58:39

of a feeling of, we need more

58:41

Disney Princesses to keep this line going

58:43

and make more money. At

58:46

the same time, Disney has taken a lot

58:48

of criticism for some of the specific products

58:50

they've marketed under this line. The massive

58:53

emphasis that they've put on

58:55

Princesses over everything else, the

58:57

sort of gender presentation

58:59

of these Princesses, and specifically

59:02

how they included Merida from

59:04

Brave in their Princess marketing.

59:07

Jennie, when you brought this up in the first place,

59:09

was there a specific topic that you wanted to raise

59:11

or a specific direction you wanted this discussion to go?

59:14

I mean, we already kind of

59:16

touched on it in our discussion,

59:19

how Merida kind of

59:21

arrived at a turning

59:23

point for the Disney

59:25

Princess and embodies

59:27

a certain pushback against the quote unquote

59:30

old Disney Princess and sort of like

59:32

brings her into a new

59:34

context. And as I said, we

59:36

were already kind of moving in

59:38

that direction prior to Brave with

59:40

Tangled and Princess and the Frog,

59:42

Tiana and Princess and the Frog,

59:45

even Mulan. I think Mulan is

59:48

probably sort of the beginning

59:50

of this shift

59:53

into making

59:55

our Disney Princesses

59:58

strong female characters. too. But

1:00:01

what I think is particularly

1:00:03

interesting about Merida in this

1:00:05

context is she is the

1:00:08

first Disney princess to

1:00:10

not have any romantic

1:00:12

interest, you know, no

1:00:14

sort of prince figure that she

1:00:16

ends up with at the end of the film. And

1:00:19

every princess since her, granted

1:00:23

only been two, Moana and Raya from

1:00:25

Raya and the Last Dragon, but they

1:00:27

have no romantic storylines. And it's interesting

1:00:29

to me because Brave is all about

1:00:31

Merida sort of rejecting marriage

1:00:34

and that whole narrative. So

1:00:36

it does it does feel notable,

1:00:38

I guess, that the Disney

1:00:42

princess stopped needing to have a

1:00:44

romantic happily ever after after her.

1:00:47

So, you know, points for

1:00:49

that, I guess. I'm

1:00:51

just checking what your Frozen was, because

1:00:53

for me, it felt like that was

1:00:55

the the breakpoint, where

1:00:58

Disney rejected most strongly the

1:01:00

idea of its princesses needing

1:01:04

to have, you know, some form of

1:01:06

romantic interest. But that was until 2013,

1:01:08

which is a bit later. I

1:01:10

mean, not much later. And I

1:01:13

thought there was a romantic interest in

1:01:16

Frozen, wasn't there? Not for Anna, right?

1:01:19

You need to rewatch Frozen.

1:01:21

I mean, there sort of is. With

1:01:25

the with like the. It's not a

1:01:27

prince. Put it this way. Frozen very

1:01:29

strongly, Rose, rejects the

1:01:31

the whole prince. Oh, yeah. Sure. For

1:01:34

instance, princess and the frog did not. Yeah.

1:01:37

Right. Right. Although for reasons

1:01:39

I don't really understand, Anna

1:01:41

and Elsa are not considered

1:01:43

Disney princesses. I always

1:01:45

assumed that was a marketing thing because. We

1:01:47

can't just profit off of that forever. All

1:01:49

these care. We can't we can't call the

1:01:51

princesses just to make money. That's not

1:01:54

right. That's not us. Oh,

1:01:56

yeah, that's probably it, Scott. Yeah,

1:01:58

Disney rejected. the profit motive. No,

1:02:00

I think it's because Frozen

1:02:03

made so much money as its own

1:02:06

property and has its own

1:02:08

massive wave of lines, product

1:02:10

lines, like marketed under Frozen and they

1:02:13

didn't want to stick Anna and Elsa

1:02:15

just under an umbrella

1:02:17

with 50-year-old princesses that didn't have

1:02:19

much going on. I think they

1:02:21

were more profitable on their own.

1:02:23

But yeah, your point about Merida,

1:02:25

I mean, Merida's whole thing is

1:02:27

like she's not just rejecting unwanted

1:02:29

betrothal for herself. She's rejecting

1:02:32

it for everybody her age. And maybe one

1:02:34

of the funniest moments in that entire movie

1:02:36

is when all three of the princes speak

1:02:38

up and say, you know what? Yeah, we

1:02:40

just want to marry whoever we want. Good

1:02:45

luck, gents. They all

1:02:47

seem not

1:02:50

like the most appealing fellas, but

1:02:52

should I not have

1:02:54

insulted those guys? Well, every

1:02:56

single one of them is young. They grow

1:02:59

into something. Merida's eventually going to figure out

1:03:01

how to braid her hair and the boys

1:03:03

are going to grow up. As

1:03:05

far as the Disney princess line

1:03:07

stuff goes, I think it's been

1:03:09

really interesting watching it evolve and

1:03:11

particularly sort of watching how

1:03:13

they're marketed. It seems like Disney

1:03:16

is maybe a little more interested in playing

1:03:18

around with or kind of

1:03:20

puncturing that image, the

1:03:23

self seriousness of the

1:03:25

little girl as princess

1:03:27

thing. But I

1:03:30

don't know, the whole thing still just

1:03:32

makes me very, very weary. The idea

1:03:34

of selling princess hood is

1:03:36

aspirational to little girls. Princesses aren't

1:03:39

really cool anymore. It's cool to

1:03:42

push back against princesses that even

1:03:44

in the first inside out, there's

1:03:46

sort of a rejection of princess

1:03:49

culture in that

1:03:51

too. So it seems like

1:03:53

the new trend in princesses

1:03:55

is to maybe be a little anti-princess

1:03:58

even if you are one. like

1:04:01

Merida say. So that is, she is

1:04:03

maybe a bellwether in that regard. Yeah,

1:04:05

Princess Diaries has called and they like

1:04:08

to just wave like humongous amounts of

1:04:10

money at you and snicker. Yeah,

1:04:14

I think it's just one of those things where,

1:04:16

you know, people want to be like edgy, but

1:04:18

still princesses. And, you know, it's kind

1:04:21

of, you know, the have it

1:04:23

all aspect of feminist culture that can be

1:04:25

a little fun. You can kind of like

1:04:27

mix and match your influences and your flavors.

1:04:31

But that does mean that, you know, the

1:04:33

Disney Princess line with its unbroken

1:04:35

connections back to the 1940s. That's

1:04:38

that's what makes me a little weary. Like

1:04:40

I'm all for kids kind of trying

1:04:43

to model themselves after, you know, Vanellope or

1:04:45

Merida or Moana. You

1:04:47

know, whoever the new

1:04:49

character is who's been conceived of for the times. But

1:04:52

the whole Disney Princess line seems to

1:04:54

be about just sort of batching them

1:04:56

all together and saying, sort of, they're

1:04:58

all the same thing, though. You

1:05:01

know, they're a little bit different from each

1:05:03

other, like American Girl dolls, but they're also

1:05:05

all the same thing and all the same

1:05:07

product. Don't particularly love it. But maybe there

1:05:10

are people out there with very strong feelings

1:05:12

about Disney Princesses or particularly parents whose kids

1:05:15

have some kind of specific relationship. Maybe

1:05:17

I should speak about that

1:05:19

for a sec. I don't know. I

1:05:22

mean, I have two girls have relationships

1:05:24

with this line. I just think it's

1:05:26

a fit. I don't know this film,

1:05:29

but the whole Disney Princess thing, it's

1:05:31

just a little moment out of time.

1:05:33

It's it's it's a little phase like,

1:05:36

you know, like my

1:05:38

youngest had had a really powerful

1:05:41

Barbie phase that that has sort

1:05:43

of gone away. And, you

1:05:45

know, my oldest would get these

1:05:47

sort of little princess dresses

1:05:49

and run around. And it was like

1:05:52

all that was kind of over at four

1:05:54

or five, six years old and

1:05:56

was just a way of playing pretend and

1:05:59

just another kind of two. in the

1:06:01

toolbox in terms of just stuff that

1:06:03

she could mess around with when she

1:06:06

was in the house. I

1:06:09

never felt it was, I don't know,

1:06:12

I found it fairly harmless and not

1:06:14

a terribly lasting thing in

1:06:17

terms of the impression that it ended up

1:06:19

making on them, it was just a bit

1:06:21

of play. I mean, there was

1:06:23

a moment a decade

1:06:25

or so back where you could

1:06:27

not open Buzzfeed without there being

1:06:30

a which Disney princess are

1:06:32

you quiz or a mashing

1:06:34

up Disney princesses with the other thing.

1:06:36

Were that weird face that was just

1:06:38

like fan artists, like here's what all

1:06:41

of Disney princesses would look like as

1:06:43

mermaids and here's what they would all

1:06:45

look like as birds and here's what

1:06:47

they would all look like as rocks.

1:06:49

Yeah, there was definitely like a cultural

1:06:52

moment where it extended beyond like the

1:06:54

moment that you're talking about, I think

1:06:56

Scott and like adult women were maybe

1:06:58

supposed to have an

1:07:00

opinion on Disney princesses, which

1:07:02

is, yeah. And

1:07:05

I think that that moment also kind

1:07:07

of aligns with brave and the shift

1:07:09

that we're seeing here. Makes

1:07:12

sense. But I think that's really good

1:07:14

perspective, Scott. I definitely would

1:07:16

prefer to not be the person who

1:07:19

doesn't have kids who has strong opinions

1:07:21

about how other people's kids interact with

1:07:24

literally anything, including culture.

1:07:26

So that's I think a

1:07:28

good and healthy way to look at it. But

1:07:30

as I was saying, if people

1:07:33

listening to this have strong opinions one way

1:07:35

or the other about Disney princess culture and

1:07:37

its relationship to kids or adults, feel

1:07:40

free to let us know. We

1:07:42

appreciate when our listeners share their thoughts and their

1:07:44

recommendations. If you feel so inclined, we

1:07:46

can feature your response on a future episode. To

1:07:49

reach us, you can leave a short voicemail at 773-234-9730. Send

1:07:54

us a voicemail or email us

1:07:56

at comments at nextpitchershow.net. That's

1:08:04

it for this episode of The Next Picture Show.

1:08:06

In our next episode, we'll talk about Inside Out

1:08:08

2 before bringing Brave back into the discussion. Look

1:08:10

for that episode next Tuesday on

1:08:13

your podcatcher of choice. For ad-free

1:08:15

versions of the podcast and extra

1:08:17

content, find us on Patreon at

1:08:19

patreon.com/nextpictureshow. Find us at nextpictureshow.net

1:08:22

and on BlueSky at The Next Picture

1:08:24

Show if you want to keep track of when new episodes

1:08:26

drop. Until next week, if

1:08:28

you're going to ask a witch to radically change

1:08:30

one of your family members, maybe pay attention to

1:08:32

that witch's side hustles first so you know what

1:08:35

you're getting.