The Bechdel Cast - Brave with Rachel Anne Clarke

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

On this very brave episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Rachel Anne Clarke bravely discuss Pixar's Brave, recorded live in London!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @tweetrachelanne on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, everybody. How are you? Yeah. Okay, cool. Very smooth intro to the show. Okay. So we don't have the ability to play our theme song tonight,

so here's what we're thinking you guys know the words right yes okay we have a solid four people willing to participate in this sick exercise we just came up with okay should we just count them in one two. No one started. Okay, wait. I'm going to count to three and then someone take the lead, please. Okay. One, two, three. The way that I'm asked, the questions asked, the movies I've written.

Good job. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's have been vast. Good job. Thank you. That's the show. Just kidding. We're coming out. Hi. Hi. Hello.

Wow. Wow. So many people. hello wow wow what's up people what's up London what's up I've been wanting to say that since I saw what a girl wants what's up London thank you so much for being here

we're so excited this is our first show in London or out of the country here. We're so excited. This is our first show in London or out of the country at all. We're so psyched. Yes. Thank you for singing our song for us. That was truly better. You just put a bunch of female musicians out of a job. Hateful. So this is

the Bechdel cast. Or is it the women in film show as the sign indicates? We got dunked on by our own venue. Close enough. Sounds like a good show. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, we are the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And we talk about the representation of women in movies, as you probably know because you're here. That was where actually we got the name for the podcast, which is the Women in Film podcast.

Right. But the real, the canonical name of the podcast is the Bechtel cast. Just clap it up if you have listened to the Bechtel cast before. Yes.

Love it. Wow. Cool. And then, and it's okay. If you have been brought here and you haven't listened to the show before,

please also clap. Okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We've got a few timid. See what I did there? Brave. Yeah. Wow.

Thank you. Thank you. That was a thinker. That was a time release. A real head scratcher. But yeah, we're the Bechdel cast. We talk about women in film, and we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for our discussion. Yes, and if you're not familiar with what that is, it is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel,

also sometimes known as the Bechdel-Wallace test. And it requires that two female-identifying characters with names talk to each other about something other than a man. And you would think it would happen all the time. But then there's most of the Star Wars. And also other movies. shall we demonstrate it yes please okay um you have one ready i have one ready yes okay i wrote it down too please hey jamie yes caitlin um sorry i almost fucked it up. Did you know that we have someone here in the audience tonight named Katie, whose birthday it is? Yes, I did. I read that, Dan.

Where's Katie? Oh, hi, Katie. Oh, my God. Happy birthday. We already know you can sing, you sickos. Wait, can we sing happy birthday? Yes, of course. Okay, you guys know how to do it.

One, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Katie. Happy birthday to you Wow! Is it anyone else's birthday? It's your birthday!

Wait, it is your birthday! I know, someone tweeted, someone just tweeted, they're like, it's my birthday and I'm in the front room. That was you? Wait! Oh my God! It's everyone's birthday! This is this is so wait whose birthday is it it's your birthday friday well get out of here oh my god okay well i happy birthday happy belated birthday virgo what's your name don't know what that means claire happy belated birthday and

what's your and your is it your birthday oh my it was also friday oh okay it was also friday uh what's your name clementine happy birthday claren clementine love it katie so many good c names i love it yeah a little hard consonant love a hard consonant really gets the night started up right oh man so uh yeah we're so we're so psyched to to be here we tried to choose movies appropriately yes um so this this one really works because it doesn't take place in this country no but it's close yeah point for effort yes uh and we have a a guest here to join our discussion she is a comedian from Glasgow she is a co-host of a live show there in Glasgow called the salon give it up for the very funny Rachel Ann Clark

hello what's up? Hi. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here supporting women in film. Women in film. And their podcast. Yeah. So we're talking about Brave, of course.

This is the best movie for us to cover because I can just say Brave all the time. Everything that happens in this movie is Brave. and the show that we're doing uh after this one is the favorite and if you mash them together it's the bravery night there oh so I was very impressed with it thank you not anyone else was um but uh by round of applause who has seen the movie brave brave brave brave brave brave brave is there is there anyone who has not seen brave clap coward it's called an inversion yeah oh loved it so uh rachel and what's your history your relationship with brave well apart from the obvious um it came out in like 2012 and i was unemployed because i'd

just graduated and media so you know um so it's like Brave was coming out not really into the whole Disney princess vibe usually but I was like so quick to scrape up the last of my dole money just like unemployment benefit. Sure. Thank you, thank you for that clarification. Everything has to be 10 minutes first. Keep in mind we were very stupid. So I was like counting the coppers, like quick, quick, we need to go see Brave.

And yeah, just like skipped to the cinema to see it. And did you like it? Loved it. Like really loved it for so many reasons that I will get into. But yeah, like definitely my favourite Disney. Great. Favourite?

Oh, the favourite? I nearly said my Brave Disney favourite. Oh, the favourite? I nearly said my brave favourite. Caitlin, what about you? I saw it, I don't think in theatres, but as per usual, not long after it came out. And I liked it just fine. And I think that was the only time I saw it until prepping for the show but I have a greater appreciation

for it now I think I wasn't that fond of it at the time because I hadn't discovered my love of bears yet also I needed Paddington to come out right

two years later and then and now i'm like change the game bears what about you what's your history i hadn't seen it i was uh i was in college when this movie came out so i was probably just like busy torpedoing my life so wasn't seeing a lot of movies at that time uh but no i hadn't seen it before it's been on my list of just like things i've wanted to watch forever so i i saw it when we were prepping aka yesterday and um i liked it there were some things of it it's so weird i feel like but even between 2012 and now the way that leading female characters uh are treated in movies has already changed quite a bit and so there are it already feels in some ways to me

to be a little bit dated, even though it just came out seven years ago. But I think it was a huge step forward in a lot of ways. The thing that threw me the most about this movie is in the marketing of this movie, they in no way indicate that it's about a bare Freaky Friday. I thought it was about, they're like,

she doesn't conform to the rules, she shoots arrows. I'm like, this is fucking cool, I love this. And then they're like, oh, so her m-m-m-mom is a b-b-b-bear? You're like, where'd that come from? I was truly, I was shocked when that happened. I was like, why do that that but I guess we'll just unpack it for the next hour but I just I didn't see the bear coming I'm like why did they why

was there so much bear erasure in the marketing like I had no idea this is about a mom bear situation I know I know confusing well shall i get into the recap yes okay you said recap recap we're from we've been here for two days so we're from here so kind of how it works okay the story of brave merida is a little girl in medieval scotland and she's the cutest little girl i've ever seen and she's so cute. And she's a princess. And her parents are the king and queen. That's how that works. Yep.

Okay. And she loves archery. And for her birthday, her dad gets her a bow and arrow. And as she's practicing with it, she comes across a bunch of wisps, which are these, like, ethereal little, like, blue wispy things. They're basically, like, stolen from studio ghibli right yeah uh and as legend has it these wisps lead you to your fate and just then a demon bear not paddington the opposite named mordu attacks Merida's family and she and her mom escape

as her father fights it off. Then we cut to 10 years later. Her father, Fergus, has lost his leg in this bear attack. To the mean bear. To the mean bear, Mordu. Merida has three little brothers now,

Hamish, Hubert, and Harris. They're just like little juggling balls. They're so very cute. And Merida's mother, Hubert, and Harris. They're just like little juggling balls. They're so very cute. And Merida's mother, Eleanor, is teaching her how to be prim and proper so that Merida can rule as queen one day. And then when...

Yes. There's stuff to talk about. When Merida, when she can, she escapes the pressures of princess life, to borrow sort of a phrase from Aladdin. And she ventures off and practices her archery, which she is now very good at. Climbs cliffs, there's music playing in the background.

You're like, sure. And one day, Merida learns that three young male suitors are coming to visit from each of the neighboring clans. And they're going to compete in some games. And the winner will be betrothed to Merida. And this makes her furious because she does not want to get married. How old is she supposed to be also? She seems like 14? I would guess closer to 16. Yeah's a standard princess age i would hope so i would yeah

oh boy right and so she and her mom argue but merida realizes that she has no choice but to participate because it's tradition yeah so all they like cartoony daddies yeah bring their scottish boys to woo her they are macintosh which i think is a nod to steve jobs who one of oh the other major twist of the movie a tribute to steve jobs at the end you're just like what but it was because he had just died and i guess we were still we were like oh he's a nice guy like i don't know what we were thinking because he also he had a steak yeah something yeah i mean it doesn't mean he was a good person we've all seen the ashton kutcher we've all seen jobs starring ashton kutcher the man was a monster yeah so McIntosh he's giving off off some strong William Wallace Braveheart vibes uh McGuffin which is a film term and I know that because I studied screenwriting

and I have a master's in it from Boston University but I hate to mention it I think you're getting your money's worth on that just by repeating it so many times. Right. He's like a tall dude that no one understands when he speaks. And then Dingwall, he's, don't even know what that's a reference to. That's a very sophisticated reference. Yes. Yes. No, I'm kidding. I don't know. He's like this little dweeby guy. so each of the sons are presented and none of them are appealing to merida and then there's too much masculine energy in the room so a fight breaks out and then queen eleanor explains how the games will go and merida perks up when she hears that only the firstborns of each clan are eligible to compete so merida chooses archery as the thing

that they'll all compete in she should be a lawyer that was like a very clever oh yeah a brave choice i would say and the three young men all shoot with like varying degrees of success and then merida is like um actually is the first born of clan dunbrock i will be competing for my own hand this is the best part of the whole movie it's so exciting everything that happens before the bear twist is my favorite thing i've ever seen and then the bear stuff happens uh and she like fucking creams the three boys yeah archery their arrow and like yeah exciting um does cream mean something that i'm i mean it means the same thing in the u.s does it mean come does it what does it mean does it mean everyone laughed when i said it means come i mean yeah cait, I'm being told that it means come.

It means that for us, too. Right. No, well, I don't know. Like, I cream my pants for Nicholas Holt. Right. That's true. Just an example. Yeah.

If you're saying for the favorite show, I'll say that again. But for us, it can also mean brutally defeat. Yeah, if you're saying for the favorite show, I'll say that again. But for us, it can also mean brutally defeat. But you could also use it both ways. I could be like, I cream for Alfred Molina, right? But I could cream him in a fight. Yes. Right.

So. I mean, God, we're just all so different here. I know. I'm getting stressed. Poor choice of words for me. She defeats them is what I. You started a dialogue. That was good.

And Eleanor is furious about Merida, like, making a mockery of the whole situation. And they have a huge fight. And Merida takes a sword and slices this tapestry of her family and then she runs away and Merida comes across some wisps, the same ones that she saw as a child and they lead her to the cottage of a witch. I like to call her convenient plot witch. We have loads of them. I was like, is that a common thing? It's a thing.

Yeah. And Merida's like, hi, can you please cast a spell that will change my mom? And the witch is like, mm-hmm, I got you. That's why I'm here. Yeah. And she makes a magical cake for her mom to eat, which Eleanor does does and which turns her into a bear and then you're just like wait what movie am i in she turns into a bear yeah yes and they both freak out for a little bit and then merida realizes that because of her father's bear vendetta if

whose idea was this the bear vendetta if whose idea was this the bear vendetta uh if if her father sees the queen as a bear he will try to kill her so now merida has to protect her bear mom from her bear killing dad who is also just doesn't notice that his wife is gone. For, like, two days. And then at the end, she comes back. Spoiler, she comes back. And then at the end, he's like, there you are. I was like, what is this place?

I thought he was supposed to be nice. He doesn't notice his wife and three of his sons are gone. And Meredith's gone for a solid day and a half. And he's just sitting around like, I sure do hate bears. So also Merida has to figure out how to change her mom back to being a human. And they escape from the castle and go back to the witch's cottage. But the witch isn't there anymore. That's how plot witches work yeah they're only there for the one scene right yeah but she's left a message that says by sunrise on the second day the spell will be permanent unless she reverses

it which she needs in order to do that she has to mend the bond torn by pride but they're like kind of getting some like ursula energy there with the wording of the curse yeah except but not plot relevant like ursula appears again and has a reason to be there but she this witch is like i went to coachella like it was like okay so they don't know what this means and merida and her bear mom are out in the woods they're fishing they're bonding then her mom becomes feral for a second and merida's like oh my god i gotta fix this soon my mom is becoming a bear yeah yeah so then some wisps show up again. Convenient plot wisps, I like to call them. They follow the wisps to this old castle where Merida figures out that the demon bear Mordu

used to be a prince who wanted too much power and then tried to change his fate, which was foreshadowed by convenient plot witch foreshadowing it. This is also uh beauty and the beast yeah this is also beauty right because the beast was like hey you're ugly turns into big scary beast yeah yeah and it's also foreshadowed whenever her mom like it's like legends are lessons don't try to get too much power the end um women having power am bad anyways i'm a bear now it's like ah the twist right so then merida realizes that men the bond

torn by pride means that she has to fix that tapestry that she cut up with the sword well because women be sewing caitlin yes yes this was pre-shopping days so they had to be sewing rather than shopping for thread sometimes yeah oh true so uh they go back to the castle and all the men are still fighting about which son will get to marry merida and she distracts all these guys with this speech. During this, the bear mom plays a game of charades to communicate that she now supports Merida in breaking tradition by not getting married. So, I mean, you don't see the bear change coming,

but then just the repeated bear antics, you're just like, yeah, sure, bear charades. It's the climax of the movie. Bear charades. It's the climax of the movie. Bear charades. Give me a break. And then they go and find the tapestry, but just then, Bear Mom turns feral again, and then Bear, hating Daddy,

barges in and tries to kill Bear Mom, but Daddy locks Merida in a room, and then an angry mob chases after bear mom right and then merida escapes with the help of her now bear brothers also her brothers are bears now too important that you know they ate some of the cake now they're tiny little bears because they love desserts their most favorite dessert seems to be a pastry that looks exactly like a boob they love oh yeah they make a lot of weird boob jokes. They also make a lot of jokes kind of at the expense

of the woman who works at the castle. I don't remember. Maud. Maud, yeah. Yes, there's that. Justice for Maudie, my God. So Merida escapes. She sews up the tapestry and goes to find her mom.

And then outside, all the men are trying to capture bear mom and then mordue shows up the demon bear like wait not enough bears in the scene bring the other bear back and he and bear mom fight mordue gets crushed by scottish stonehenge yeah scottish or that was probably offensive okay you're good maybe maybe it was there first and Stonehenge copied the Scottish yeah so the Bears crushed more dues crushed and then the Sun starts to rise but bare mom is still a bear and Merida's like oh, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault.

And it turns out that all that needed to happen was an apology to amend the bond. All she had to do was apologize to her mom, who was punishing her for no reason. Yes, yeah. She was so wrong to have not wanted to get married at 16 to a stranger. Merida, you goof. Yes. And then Eleanor finally turns back into a human and they all have happily ever after definitely caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th

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We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts there's a lot to discuss here there is there's a ton so it's a movie about a young woman who is actively defying tradition, traditional patriarchal values and rigid gender norms. So that's not something we generally see out of a Disney princess movie.

It's about a mother who at first tries to uphold these patriarchal values and traditional gender roles but then when merida turns her mom into a bear aka when merida does something like very drastic to show her mom that she's not fucking around well and she just says yeah i disagree with you and i'm 16 so i wish you were different right she didn't ask for her mom to be a bear that was just plot which kind of going off in her own direction but when that happens Eleanor starts to realize how toxic her views are and how it's destroying her relationship with her daughter and then the story becomes about doing away with these toxic views and repairing the mother-daughter relationship so at the core, to me, what this movie is about. Yeah, I mostly agree with that. But then there's a little part of Doubt in me that's like,

is her mum just saying that because she's a bear? Right, if you're a bear, you would say anything to not be a bear. Yeah, she's like, I'm a bear now. What am I going to do I know what's more important is her not getting married and then maybe I'll not be a bear yeah it's a real survivalist instinct coming on her I hadn't thought of that I honestly hadn't either yeah she we don't know where she's coming from I Again, it does feel kind of very rooted in its time in 2012. I wish I had grown up with this movie,

and I wish that I had more examples of, especially princess movies, because they're so prevalent and so heavily marketed at young girls to see if these movies are going to continue. A young girl who has agency agency who has very clear desires and what she wants to do and is very capable and is willing to defy in order to do that I just think that at some point in the movie for me it kind of there is still a weird blamey element towards the women in this movie that don't apply to the men in the movie at all. So I guess where I'm coming from from there is you have like these kind of stock characters and I kind of beside this is like another point.

But the way that the characters are animated are kind of classically like the male cartoons are look like cartoons and the female cartoons look like hot women, like normative Western beauty hot women, and that is something that is an issue in animation over and over and over, where men aren't actual gigantic triangles. Like every man, and they're really cool. The character design on the male characters is so much more fun. The baby's heads are gigantic like right it's there it's ridiculous but then you see like merida and her mother are very clearly western beauty standard women because merchandising or whatever but mod has like oh yeah bosom yes yes she has comedy boobs she has serious comedy boobs and

they are out the whole time there's that oh god the one that i was like are you fucking kidding me the one where the baby bear swan dives into her cleavage i'm just like this i've had enough there but the way the way that the patriarchal structure is represented here, from the way I was viewing it, was that all the men in this movie are so goofy that it suggests that the patriarchy doesn't exist and that all men just need to be, it has to be suggested to them.

Like, oh, have you ever thought that maybe a teenager shouldn't marry someone? And in the movie, there's literally that whole scene where all the guys are like oh doi yeah we should totally okay we're gonna go now like it's like and that just that lets the concept of patriarchy off the like totally off the hook right uh to by suggesting that those standards aren't in place very much on purpose. And then all of the kind of like criticism is placed on her mom, who is the one who is doing kind of the,

I mean, I think she, especially at the beginning, is framed with very kind of shrew stereotype of like, you have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. And it's hard to understand where that character's coming from because it doesn't seem like the men around her are enforcing that norm. Right, it's basically only the mother who is and

then the dad's like yeah girls can do archery fuck it i'm cool right i'm billy connelly and i'm nice well billy connelly does have a thing in his contract that he'll only play a cool dad yeah but they're just that way of just like we're supposed to be angry at and we just don't really have much context for why is the mother character behaving like this and it's made to seem like it's more of a personal flaw of hers rather than a flaw of like the the society they're living in so that like that kind of kept coming up for me as we were as we were going through it but that said i mean it's like i wouldn't have that wouldn't have hit with me as hard when i was a kid that's just kind of the way that we're watching it now sure yeah that criticism is is totally valid but um i mean i think there's

a lot that this movie does really well especially considering the intended audience and i too i wish i had seen it like grown up with this rather than you know the very damaging movies that we've covered on the podcast already like you know snow white little mermaid aladdin stuff like that because if you do compare brave to earlier disney princess movies and they're referenced a lot in this movie like by a lot of different scenes you're like oh that's kind of from there you know right because like in a lot of these other ones just to name a few snow white cinderella sleeping beauty little mermaid beauty and the beast pocahontas aladdin the mom is absent in those movies and the princess's whole story arc is about ending up with a man brave still about a princess

but this is i think the first disney princess movie where the princess does not have a romantic interest right which helps with it being like not technically disney right but this is also i mean like 17 years into pixar and this is their first female-led yeah i have a whole spiel about that but so not only does she not have a romantic interest she explicitly states that's something that she's not interested in at all or at least like in this juncture in her life so that's a huge right yeah but also i mean like girls were getting married off at age nine ish during this time so it's actually very progressive so like yeah her not having a romantic interest and not

having any interest in getting married becomes a huge plot point and then her mom is not only alive in this movie but the story is largely about Merida's relationship with her mom I would even argue that it's

and I don't even know if this is the best writing choice, but the story gradually becomes more and more about Merida's mom, to the point where Merida's mom is the one to make all of the climactic decisions and moves, where Merida is about to be like, you know what, I'm gonna get married, and then bear charades.

Right. So Merida's mom is taking the reins in that scene and then in the big bear fight with the other bear how many times are we gonna say bear that like Merida's mom is in charge of that scene as well so it's

like I feel like the main arc in this story kind of belongs to her mother because we go from Merida not wanting to get married to merida not wanting to get married like she she's is a pretty consistent character where merida's mom has this whole ideological shift or does she because she's a bear we are not right like yeah yeah there's that to ponder yeah um but it is interesting like they're like the the mom kind of starts off as the closest thing we have to a villain besides the other bear. She has kind of this cool redemptive arc that I like.

Yeah, that's true. A few other like key differences between Brave and other earlier Disney movies is, for example, like when Merida is locked in a tower at the end of the movie which her dad does to keep her safe from the various bears right she like tries really hard to escape and then like manages to do so whereas like in other manipulates her bear brothers right because in other like princess narratives uh the princess generally passively waits, sitting by, waiting to be rescued by Prince Charming kind of thing. Or Shrek. Or Shrek, right.

Or Shrek, in some cases Shrek. Never forget Shrek. And then when Merida does need to be rescued from Mordu at the end, it's only after she's put up a good fight herself and it's her mom who rescues her not not a man right right i do that i do wish that merida had fought more at the at the end i mean she's she like launches a few arrows she launches some arrows i just sword i think that

that's like a personal preference thing i was just like whoever makes like the killing blow it's their movie and it is bear mom and it's bear mom and i think that it is arguably kind of bear mom's movie she has the biggest brave one she i think everyone is brave at the end of the day thank you so much we're all sober true here's my spiel about brave being the first pixar movie with a female lead i have a lot to say this about this as well okay do you want to go first um sure uh so this was so as we were sort of referencing earlier this is the first pixar movie to ever have a female lead and this is 17 years after toy story took a long fucking time not Not coincidentally, it is also the first Pixar movie

to have a female director, Brenda Chapman, who I think kind of has this really interesting place in animation history because she is like one of the, she was the first woman to ever direct a major studio animated film. She directed The Princes of Egypt.

Anyone remember that classic? Probably doesn't hold up well, but saw it in church summer camp. 98 or something? Sure. They were just like, how do we get you to be quiet for an hour? So she had directed The Prince of Egypt,

and there's still to date, from what I could find, there's under 10, arguably under five women who have directed major animation studio projects literally ever. Brenda Chapman ended up co-directing, which we'll get into, this movie. And then there was also Jennifer Yeoh directed and co-directed Kung Fu Pandas 2 and 3. And then there was also a female co-director of Frozen.

But there's still never been a movie only directed by a woman in animation. And I don't know if you've been alive for the past two years, but Pixar has a spectacularly bad record with how they treat women. Yeah. So the deal with Brenda uh she had been working in animation at disney or uh dreamworks or disney adjacent since the late 80s she started uh working with

them on the little mermaid uh doing like in between drawings and stuff like that she like put in her time right and uh then for for brave this was was gonna be her big opportunity to direct and she had co-written the script. And- She conceived of the story based on her own relationship with her daughter. Right. And so it was like, great, okay, Brenda,

and who fucks it up, but you know who already, John motherfucking Lasseter. Ruining everything since apparently Toy Story. Like he is, oh, this piece of shit. Okay, so we haven't heard from Brenda Chapman in a bit, but what we do know is that she worked on this project for years and years. It was her baby and it was the payoff

for all of this work she'd done for all these years. And then she was replaced with 18 months left and for a movie this big that is pretty late in the game. She was replaced by a man

because of her disagreements creatively with John Lasseter. Yep. So in the end she only gets co-directing credit for the thing

that is very clear she did the bulk of the work on and uh she leaves pixar the second this movie comes out she's fucking out of here and she said publicly at the time she's like i will not be coming back like she is she really like it's and in 2012 that's not a small thing this is extremely pre me too and extremely like when john lassiter was still kind of this like golden god in the animation industry. But she was just like, I'm not going to work with him.

He's a piece of shit. Yeah. And coming from the only female director he's ever worked with, that's not nothing. So, shout out Brenda Chapman. She's a, she fucking did. And the movie still turned out incredible in spite of all that, like, behind the scenes insanity. And she has said that she feels her, like, original vision was generally maintained and she's still very proud of it i have a few quotes from her from various pieces if you'll allow she penned a piece in the new

york times in 2012 entitled stand up for yourself and mentor others and she says about brave this was a story that i created which came from a very personal place as a woman and a mother to have it taken away and given to someone else and a man at that was truly distressing on so many levels then in an interview with polygon in 2018 she says i'm very very proud of brave much of my work that they had initially tried to take out once i left they ended up putting much of it back in because there was really nothing wrong with the movie and there was no reason creatively to take me off the film go fucking figure when asked what they tried to change about brave she said they tried to make it more about the father-daughter story opposed to the mother-daughter story.

It was interesting, and it didn't work. And then going back to her 2012 New York Times piece, she writes, sometimes women express an idea and are shot down, only to have a man express essentially the same idea and have it broadly embraced until there is a sufficient number of women executives in high places this will continue to happen yes so basically yeah i mean from what i can tell john lassiter wanted to ruin the story brenda chapman was like no don't do that and then john lassiter fired her because of that

and then realized that the changes they were trying to make didn't work and then they just ended up making the movie that chapman originally envisioned but now without her right which is something that happens all the time i mean if you're a big little lies head like myself uh on the on the second season a very similar thing happened this past year where a female director gave in the reins for the entire season and then in the last three months of editing her work

was taken from her and completely re-edited and redone and then credited to a man so it is a prevalent issue everywhere I'm really glad that Brenda Chapman has spoken to this, especially in animation, which is so incredibly male-dominated. And also, I mean, it is an extremely, extremely white industry.

And so the fact that she spoke up and defended her, that's not an easy thing to do. So drama behind the scenes. You love to see it. Feminist icon, Brenda Chapman. Good for her. I really admire that. I also enjoyed The Prince of Egypt.

I didn't know that I ever saw it. Long time fan. Long time fan. Yeah, vacation Bible school, baby. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look

now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.

President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current.

Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up absolutely not what was that you didn't figure it out I think I need to hear you say it that was live audio of a woman's nightmare this machine is approved and everything you're allowed to be doing this we passed the review board a year ago we're not hurting people there's nothing dangerous about what you're doing they're just

dreams dream sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. More about just this movie being the first Pixar film with a female lead. Yes, that is true, but it's also the one that most closely resembles a typical animated Disney princess movie

because the other Pixar movies about da boys get to be about toys, bugs, monsters, cars, fish, robots, etc. But the good news is after Brave, there were more female protagonists in Pixar movies. Where Inside Out, you have a female protagonist where we spend the time inside a woman's brain a confusing place that none of us understand oh it's vast uh but finding Dory I mean sure yeah um but all the same like this you know it's the first one with a female lead it still is like a fairy tale about a princess and while i would say especially by

2012 standards it is a feminist text uh it is still showcasing a very specific type of like female archetype which is a rich white young princess girl yeah who can go to plot witch's house and be like i have gold like you're just like relatable um uh yeah no i also i mean i think that that is kind of another indication of how male dominated pixar and that entire industry is but especially pixar because there are so many demonstrable examples of women's opinions just being absolutely shut down at any opportunity of it's not it's like kind of disappointing even though i i like brave and i'm glad it exists it's disappointing that the only female-led story they were willing to take a chance on was something that was a clear

a clearly demonstrated like a princess movie like there's really not even though there are like inversions and like, really smart ones done by, I'm assuming, the female writers, they're still not taking a real gamble by doing this. I think it was a gamble by their standards, but making another princess movie is not a huge risk. No, no, no, no. And I was curious about,

is this story rooted in any sort of Scottish lore, folklore? And Rachel Ann, as our resident expert, is that the case? I'm not from medieval Scotland. What? Wait, you don't know everything about Scotland that's ever happened? I don't think so. I think the will of the Wisps, like, a wisp is a thing.

Oh, okay. And, like, the stones are a thing. I've been to the, like, Scottish Stonehenge. Oh. Wait, is it a thing? Yeah, it's a thing. Where is it? Well, this one that I was at was in the Hebrides,

but there's, like, there's more than one. Oh! Like, there's more than one Stonehenge they're just not all called Stonehenge I see that's a big marketing like stones stones in a big circle are a thing sure no one knows why maybe that's where they had the bear fights back in the day like we've not we've not quite figured out and why they're there and that's really turning in a bear no I've not we've not quite figured out um why they're there and as for like turning into a bear no i've not that's not that's not part of scottish lore maybe me once a month but like

no like i've not i have no i still i'm just like what is going on with the bear i just the bear truck i honestly if this movie had played out the way I thought it was going to which is a movie I think I would have liked better uh would it would have been like Merida going off and you know like leaving the kingdom that she is from you know and and going out finding her own way making coming back with the lesson she's learned I mean basically invert the hero story that we've seen with male characters a billion times and seeing it with this really cool, empowered, capable female character. And then we kind of get caught in the weeds of this whole bear situation.

And she doesn't get much further than two miles from home. Yeah. I feel like there's not really a lesson for her to learn, though. Yeah. She doesn't want to get married. And then she does, right. Which is cool. I mean, like in itself, that's a subversion.

But I do think that like if they're, and I don't even, I'm like, is this a feminist critique or is this just like weird writing? Just not much about her changes. And what does change about her kind of made me feel weird of by the end like the the action that merida takes at the climax of the movie to unbear her mom right is that she apologizes for her firmly held values right and that was just like what are we supposed to be taking away from that like this the like the first 20 minutes of this movie, which I loved.

And, you know, when she's like doing the archery, she rips her dress. She's like, fuck this. And, you know, like that is all so incredible. But then it feels like she's apologizing for all of that having happened, being like, oh, I didn't respect patriarchal traditions. And so and now my mom's a bear. I'm so bad yeah i agree that she kind of has i mean she should maybe apologize to her mom for turning her into a bear but but she didn't go yeah the fact that she apologizes at least ursula clearly states what's going to happen that's true even makes her sign

a contract and i know ursula is basically a scientist and a lawyer yeah for sure and then this plot which apparently only knows one spell which is to turn people into bears she's also emma thompson she's also a coachella you're just like who is this character no emma thompson's the mom is no i'm sorry sorry so you're right who's the Julie Walters Walters or Walters Walters I'm so sorry and Mrs. Bird from Paddington

yeah she got it in let me just take a quick sidebar to note the Paddington parallels sure the obvious both being bear heavy movies julie walters plays the witch who is of course mrs bird in paddington sure emma thompson who voices eleanor is from paddington england

and you know who else is from paddington eng, England? Whom? Alfred Molina. What? Yes. You knew that. Did they not let him in the movie? Why did he get asked? I don't know. I bet he was busy and he didn't want to. Oh, my God. Wow.

Wow. He's from Paddington. Well, if we're talking about who Alfred Molina could play in this movie, and I know that we're aiming for a Scottish heavy cast, we do have Emma Thompson right and she's not it's English yeah she's English right mom is Scottish her mom is okay sorry if we're making but but you have Rachel Ann also told us when before we came out on stage that so Kelly McDonald plays Merida and she I think is best known from train spotting as famously the only woman in train spotting but she voices merida but apparently

it was originally supposed to be reese witherspoon wait i'm gonna pull up the quote because it is very... She was meant to be a Republican as well. Oh, was she entangled? Oh. She was meant to be a Republican as well. Oh, wow. Stop trying to make Reese Witherspoon happy. She's already famous.

I love Reese. I love her. Don't cast her in a Scottish role. That's the other thing where we're just like, have we ever heard Reese Witherspoon play a non-American? I don't cast her in a Scottish role that's the other thing where we're just like have we ever heard Reese Witherspoon be any like play a non-American I don't think so so the whole Reese situation uh so they hired her she was attached to the project forever no one was like wait a second Reese got a coach she's like I'm Scottish now this is this is the new Reese I'm legally Scottish and and then and then I guess she quietly left the project because she turns out she isn't Scottish

and then late she like said in an interview later she was like yeah my Scottish was like dog shit it was really bad yes it would be yeah so you know didn't didn't miss Reese on this one love her though yeah for sure but well beginning back to what you were saying Rachel and about Merida's arc and and where she goes from the beginning to where the end that that also hit for me as well yeah I mean like if her mom didn't turn into a bear nothing would happen right right like nothing nothing would have happened they would have just had a big row and then she might have got married like she probably would because i think her mom wouldn't be so like do the bear she did she would be as she wouldn't be like as

invested in changing it if she wasn't a bear right i really like this this line of thought of like the mom is just trying to get out of this situation. Yeah. I don't really feel like much would have changed. And then like I love the film so much. And then right up to the end, I was just like absolutely winded because Merida's like, this is all my fault. I've been so selfish. She literally says, I'm selfish.

I'm selfish. Like, you know, I'll do anything to take it back. Like I'll change. I'm selfish I'm selfish like you know I'll do anything to take it back like I'll change I'm so sorry like this is all me and her mum's just there

she can't speak because she's a bear right right and Meredith's like pulling her heart out and her mum's just like moo

mum bear that was a good mum bear impression I was devastated yeah I wanted the mom maybe like mom should be apologizing but as you said she's a bear it is i mean the fact that merida has to go so far to apologize for the character that we all fell in love with at the beginning of the movie just feels off yeah yeah i don't know and then and then again kind of like getting back to what we were talking about at the beginning the dad's lack of accountability in this whole situation

right first of all he doesn't notice his family has vanished but also that like in this whole thing anytime that the that uh queen eleanor is saying like this is what you need to do this is your expectation of society the father always kind of gets off scot-free again well not Jamie brave of you thank you so much uh but he kind of he kind of just like is you know a big triangle and he's like I don't know and then and Merida's like my triangle dad is so awesome and're like, your triangle dad is complicit in a lot of shit, Merida. Wake up. I have some lists of things.

You know me. Caitlin has various lists. Look out. So I would say, unlike a lot of its predecessors in terms of other fairy tale Disney princess movies. This one does a lot more to comment on things like femininity, masculinity, and gender roles, because there are various scenes in which Queen Eleanor says what a princess does and does not do. A princess does not chortle.

She does not stuff her gob. She does not raise her... She does not read them. She does not raise her read them she does not raise her voice she does not have weapons she is compassionate patient cautious clean and above all a princess strives for perfection i like this scene the way emma thompson does it but i prefer it the way julie andrews did it oh sure in the princess diaries yes but it's she's basically saying like you're a woman and women can only do certain things and they should not do other things meanwhile feminist icon sort of her dad is like

her dad's a loser i'm going down on that hill i agree but at first we're like oh he's actually really cool because he's actually really cool because he's like here have a bow learn to shoot but i won't stand up for you in public like or care that you're missing for 48 hours bad so the movie does also comment on masculinity i think to some degree where the groups of men that you see are constantly trying to flaunt their masculinity they're always trying to one-up each other they're always breaking out into huge violent fights and this is always made to look very like silly and and foolish um and toxic by the movie there's that especially one suitor who's like this toxic bro fuck boy he's oh yeah he's he definitely like does like pickup

artist stuff yeah and then and then he like throws a tantrum whenever he like doesn't get the bullseye and then like merida sarcastically he's like oh that's attractive um just the legend of the prince who wanted the strength of 10 men he wanted all this power and then bad things happened to him because he turned into a demon bear and then i hate that merida's dad is like on merida's side for a lot of the movie but i'm anti-dad if you can't stand up for your daughter in public as a man with power you i don't fuck with you king fergus and do it and he has such a strong bear vendetta that he almost kills his wife his wife okay but to be fair it's hard to be fair it would be really hard to look at a bear and be like

this is my wife i was true i was kind of empathizing with him on that where merida's like no this bear is mom and he's like what what no but but if he just listened to merida but he doesn't like to listen to women is the thing right right that's fair believe women when they say other women are bears yes important lesson and don't lock them up in a tower no definitely don't do that he wasn't a good he's not a good character he's not he's not good and then he shoves her out of the way at the in the bear fight at the end he does push but she also cut she also like she she fights him yeah she gets him she i'm glad that she does that yeah that was great i mean that was like a really that

was like when the merida it felt like the merida from the beginning of the movie came back for a second you're like oh cool like when she's escaping the tower and when she like fights like sword fights with her dad like yeah this is the merida i wanted to see the whole time not this whole bear negotiation thing sure to to sum up there is some commentary on like you know like gender roles masculinity femininity but it's still it's not perfect in this movie um i want to talk about fate oh right brave let's do it brave brave because most movies that have fate as like a theme or a big story element have male protagonists um there's a lot of talk about destiny in star wars there's a lot of talk about destiny in Star Wars. There's a lot of talk about fate in The Matrix, Terminator, pretty much any like chosen one narrative.

Jesus. Jesus. Sorry, I just wanted to participate. These all have like fate as a theme or through line. Yeah. And they're almost always male-driven stories if fate or destiny is something that gets talked about in a female-driven movie it's almost always something about romance and it's like something to the effect of this is the man i'm destined to be with right or it is like a tragic fate where there's all those like fated to die sure to advance the male protagonist fated to die so keanu reeves can begin the movie like that that kind of fate

sure sure yeah however brave has very strong fate themes and it has nothing to do with romance it's all about like carving out your own path being free to choose your own journey in life and not being bound to there oh wow someone said bear i had to okay sure sure and like not being bound to rigid patriarchal traditions yes i still wish we had gotten to see more of a journey for her though i still i still think we see more of meredith's mom's journey than hers sure she doesn't get very far from home i mean yeah but i think it's nice to just have a like a headstrong young woman who's like values we know she she never wavers for them until she's apologizing for no reason at the end at the very very end, yeah. Which, yeah, that is, I think, a mistake narratively, which is probably something John Lasseter decided to do. Yeah.

Because it doesn't make any sense. A lot of this movie doesn't make any sense. We've mentioned the bear. Also, I wanted to mention really quick, there are four credited writers on the screenplay. There is gender parody here. So Brenda Chapman is a credited writer, as well as Irene Meche, I think is how you say her name,

who's like a Disney standby. She had writing credits on The Lion King, Hunchback, Hercules, Fantasia 2000. And she wrote the TV version of Annie that I liked from 1999. Wonderful. So that is also, also I mean for any Disney Pixar or any movie period um having some uh parody in the in the writing was was nice to see for sure I want to talk about Merida as a possible queer icon question mark question mark question mark

sure so a lot has been written about whether or not merida might be coded queer either a lesbian or maybe asexual uh because of her lack of interest in getting married to a man um she's 16 she's 16 yeah i'm also not interested in getting married to a man, and I'm straight. It's just good instincts for anyone. True. And different members of the queer community have embraced the idea that Merida might be queer. Others have speculated that she could just as easily

be a straight person, but doesn't want to be locked into a marriage when she's a teenager, as we out straight person with a good head on her shoulders a good head head of so much hair so much oh my god more hair than i think about like the rendering times on her head you're like i'm sure people were like at the brink of their own sanity over like this gorgeous cartoon's head they had to they had to develop a like animation program specifically just for her hair for it to work i mean worth it yeah it's great yes but anyway the movie doesn't spell out her sexual identity or preference one way or the other but i would say for those who have embraced merida as being a queer character it's nice that for once it's not a villain um yeah this time it's

the hero because historically we've talked about this a lot the queer coded uh or ambiguous characters in disney movies have pretty much all been villains yes so um i think that's a nice change of pace and i just love i mean that element of this genre of movies for all the issues that come with the princess movie i feel like there is a very like active discussion and open to interpretation element that different communities have made for themselves i was really when we were doing the Little Mermaid episode, I was pleasantly surprised and really interested in the number of different reads that can be done on a movie like this that is designed to be pretty broad

and for you to plug yourself into the main character and to see the different meanings that people get out of it. And it's just, it's cool. And I think Merida is that kind of character that is just kind of open. And I appreciate that. I mean, it's truly the absolute least they can do but by not doing a hard specification like that that was really cool for sure possible queer icon we don't know true she'll let us know um i think my last point was about archery okay go off we we had a similar discussion on our Hunger Games oh yes

okay with brave you get to see a woman using real weapons for once it's not a frying pan or other kitchen appliance although you do see Madi grab a frying pan to try to hit the three little bear brothers with at one point. She really reminded me of a character, a similar character from The Little Mermaid. The woman who worked at Eric's castle is the same character. They're pulling a lot.

Is it lazy? Is it homage? Sometimes it's both. Homage is just kind of another word from like, I couldn't think of anything new so here different outfit though we see merida defending herself against more do by firing arrows at him she's often wielding a sword and according to a study by the gina davis institute on gender and media yes about archery a fellow menson yes

this study was about archery which is the fastest growing sport in the u.s apparently seven and ten girls said that katniss from the hunger games and merida from brave influenced their decision to take up archery hell yeah that's incredible so it just goes to show that when young people see someone like them on screen represented doing something especially when it's a thing that they usually don't see themselves doing like a girl doing archery and also being the very best at it which the movie goes out of its way again and again, where she's, as you said, creaming them. Creaming. She's very, very good. And that is cool to see. She's not just their peer.

She's creaming them, Caitlin. She's creaming them, right. So yes, whenever girls are shown doing things that maybe aren't traditionally feminine things to do, it empowers the audience to say, hey could maybe do archery too it just feels more possible yes absolutely does anyone have any other thoughts about the film what if i was like i'd like to the bear go on no no that's all that's all uh that i i really had for this i think i mean to start wrapping up and i think that this movie has like a very unique place in time where this is definitely a step forward and it was like pixar's first attempt to show a female character and I think the ways

that they succeeded and failed are kind of telling especially behind the scenes and it is kind of weirdly encouraging that I was frustrated at so many places in this movie because that just means that we have better options yeah. So it was like weird. For the parts I was frustrated at, I was at least grateful to think, well, there are movies that exist now that exist off the work that Brave did that kind of resolve some of the issues.

It's a good stepping stone hinge. Ooh, Scottish stone hinge. Someone did boo. Rachel? Yeah, I mean, I feel like we've talked a lot about the bear, but I feel like we've kind of overlooked Angus a little bit. Oh, the horse. Which is a very strange name for a horse.

Right. Unless they're going to eat him later. Yeah. Angus is a cow thing, right yeah like this is a cow thing this is a cow thing yeah yeah just shout out to angus we never really we like he doesn't really do much in it but then that's also the thing when she is like running off to to save her mum she's not even really you know got angus there to be like, oh, come on, she's just surrounded by animals. She's doing it on her own. No one can talk to her. She's brave. She's another Disney

princess with seemingly only animal friends. Why doesn't she have a human friend? We don't see any of the people. There's a major peasant erasure in this movie. We don't see anyone who's valued at less than six figures in this movie. Except for Plot Witch.

We don't know. Monty, too. Monty is like a chambermaid or something. She has like a line. Yeah. Oh, she plays... She's objectified brutally. Monty plays into the hysterical woman stereotype quite a bit. Because she's always just screaming. We've got a into like the hysterical woman stereotype. Oh yeah. Quite a bit.

Because she's always just screaming. You got a true and a hysterical woman. Yeah. And a few of our only. I mean iconic. Brave of them to include these tropes. True. I blame anything that isn't like good.

Or that's kind of tropey about this movie. On like John Lasseter. Sure. But nonetheless. Because I feel like Brenda Chapman would have you know not done that stuff oh we firmly stand Brenda yes we stand Brenda Chapman um I think we have time for a few questions or comments from the audience oh birthday girl oh yes how many nipples do bears have? Good question. Was the question.

I don't know off the top of my head, so I'm going to look it up. Guess, guess, guess, guess. You guess, and then I'll tell you the answer. So I learned this recently, that the number of nipples an animal has is dependent upon the number of offspring they generally have per litter. So bears, I think, generally think generally have like maybe two or three cubs at a time I'm guessing but but you double double it so twice as many nipples is it do they have six yes wow I got it on the first try. The way this will be edited. Okay, so six nipples.

Thank you so much for your question. Thank you so much. Any others? Yeah. Do you think the cake that was given was a bear nipple? Oh, the witch's cake? I think that is what a bear nipple looks like. Yes. It's kind of flat and squarish.

And delicious. And if you eat a bear nipple, it'll turn you into a bear. Yeah, that is canonical. Yeah. With Mordu, like with the other bear story, it felt like that didn't need to be there at all, but it could have been really interestingly looked at, like you end up with mother bear killing patriarchy bear.

So do you think there could have been any way to make that actually part of the story rather than just this kind of like, ooh, bear? There's, I mean, I could have done with either a lot more or a lot less bears. It doesn't... The amount of bear is confusing to me. This is like...

I didn't... I saw... I mean, it's like I watched the trailer. I didn't show up ready for bear. There... Because there's also... There's another Disney movie called Brother Bear where a human turns into a bear.

And that movie... I hope we never cover because it's a fucking disaster there i've never seen it but i have no interest it's a it's a it's a phil collins joint oh my which i do i mean in england we stand phil collins do it we don't we fuck them i know i know things yeah no, I do think that, like, the patriarchy bear added at the end, and then you get this, like, I don't know, the fact that there were four writers on this movie is very obvious, because everyone was in,

I feel like maybe patriarchy bear was added after Brenda Chapman left, because there was even this moment where, it's kind of, it reminds me of that moment, there's a scene in The Rock. His wife. His wife, where there's like a soldier who dies. We don't know who this soldier is.

He's played off with like 20 seconds, like a 21 gun salute. And they're like, it's some guy. And they're like, we're like, who is this guy? And I felt the same way about Patriarchy Bear. When his ghost appears above the bear at the end and Merida's like, I'm so glad you're at peace.

We're like, who cares? I don't care about your soul. Who are you? He was a bad guy. But she's like, for you you're like what yeah the the second there there i don't even know if there needed to be one bear storyline much less two uh question in the back there so to to repeat it into the mic the question or the comment is basically because her dad permitted merida to go off and like do out outdoorsy

journeys and stuff like that she has the wherewithal and the knowledge to know that like the berries that bear mom tried to collect and eat for breakfast they would have died because bear moms be making breakfast they would have died because merida wouldn't have known that they were poisonous and that there were worms in the water i can see yeah point for fergus yeah on that one sure not all bad yeah i i agree this movie could have been called mother bear the comment to summarize is uh that when women are given weapons, they're generally long-range weapons as opposed to hand-to-hand combat,

which is something that you kind of see in these two characters alone. It makes me glad that Merida at least gets to do some sword wielding at certain points, but it does seem like it is still kind of an unnecessary limitation, and in some ways kind of indicates there's still some cultural weirdness around seeing women in combat, hand-to-hand combat. Women are allowed to be snipers, but not have swords and knives.

I would say an exception to that, yeah, I think that's generally very true. An exception is one of three female characters in Lord of the Rings, Eowyn. Eowyn. That's everyone's name in that movie. They're like, Eowyn. Why wasn't Eowyn McGregor cast in this Scottish movie?

Right? What did he do? Maybe Brenda Chapman was like, no, and I won't talk about it but Eowyn wields a sword but yeah I would say in general that's totally true where yeah

women are only allowed to use long range that's one thing Game of Thrones gets right sometimes is that you get to see women really brutally murdering people true a couple more questions unfortunately the rather terrible ABC show once upon a time addressed that they tried to force a romance between her and Macintosh no

like there was like a whole arc where, because she didn't defend her father, big sword-wielding triangle, because she didn't defend him and he died on her watch, she wasn't worthy of being queen. There was a whole thing. She had to go and prove herself again. Mulan was involved.

It's a very bad show. Once Upon a Time is a mess. I had no idea all these characters were in that show yeah cause Disney owns ABC so they can just do fucking weird problematic fan fiction on their stupid

show all the time it's a mess I didn't know there was a Merida that sucks we'll go home and burn ABC to the ground macintosh is the the brave hearty one i love when people fuck up their own good work that's and i'm back oh okay so they did have some queer relationships in there okay it was oh good as long as it was bad and set things back

oh god that's brutal thank you for sharing that very upsetting info One more? Yeah, I think one more. Yes. On the topic of Merida's Maul arc, I'd like to add a few more elements and hear your reactions to them. It seems pretty clear that the reason how they need to resolve their bear problem is to solve their issue with pride, which shows Merida's actions as being overly prideful.

And then when they're in the ruins of the old castle, they see that the man who became Bad Bear was trying to be selfish and not be part of the community, the family. And that was wrong. And this leads Merida to then try to explain to all the lords that she's been bad, and she apologizes, as you've talked about. So the only thing that isn't embracing the patriarchal system in that moment is that she gets to choose who she wants to fuck. And that's basically it. Other than that thing, and even now we've kind of learned that she only chooses amongst the three men who she had a choice of anyway. Right, yeah.

It still seems like she basically, her fault, her moral arc is to learn to embrace the patriarchy. With the slight comma that, but I get to choose the dick. Right. So that she doesn't become a bear, of course. Right, so that she doesn't become a bear of course yeah I do yeah I have some issues with Merida's arc and I also feel like when they do that scene

and they try to set up like prideful will make you into a bad bear like that felt like very false equivalency because all she's trying to do is have some ownership of what happens to her she's not trying to do is have some ownership of what happens to her. She's not trying to inflict harm or control

over literally anyone but herself. And I feel like comparing her to this prince that no one gives a fuck about was kind of like, yeah, that was just another way that I feel like the plot subtly would punish Merida and her mother and kind of invent this thing that Merida has to feel bad about when the only person she's trying to exercise control over is herself she's not trying to force anything on anyone so fuck that prince what was that that was too many berries yeah uh one more

question in the corner there yes um so the question was um how the movie represents curly hair and like the element of a wild nature and non-conformity and how that's often tied with curly hair so i had like merida hair in a past life and like i had like very wild ginger curly hair and after brave i grew it so it got even longer and even wilder um i don't know if that if i was influenced by that but um i like proper went for it so i had like ginger curls down to like here it's hard to imagine how brave of you hi brave but yeah i guess that is a good point she is the only one to have has there been other princesses that i've had like i don't think so and most of the other princesses have been white woman women and curly hair is not exclusively but um women of color and curly hair is

there are connections there um so i think yeah i think it's just a matter of like all the princesses in like fairy tale history being white women who like various degrees of like adventurous uh i don't know totally how to answer your question but i think that it's definitely something that like i'll be on the lookout more for yeah i know that there's more written on this and i know just with the amount of knowledge i have i'm not qualified to really speak to it I did kind of view that as an attempt at some sort of subversion of the princess archetype that they seem to try to be commenting on a lot of like this you know like where there's I can't really think of a princess besides Ariel whose hair isn't somehow like styled or controlled in some way and so it seemed like a character design to indicate

something about her but I I definitely see what you're saying and that's something that yeah I would just need to like do more research on thank you for bringing that up too yeah for sure so does this movie pass the bechdel test yes and it passes the bear that was like a bad pun on the level that i usually do i know i was i was just like wow i didn't know i had it in me i know jamie honestly brave of you. Thank you. Yes, it passes between Merida and Eleanor. It passes between Merida and the witch who isn't technically named, but I think that she's... Plot witch.

Plot witch. I think she's an important enough character because the name caveat is like, do we see this woman for five seconds or less? But yeah, I think I would count the witch conversation. It doesn't pass as much as much as you would well because her mom is a bear for most of the time and can't talk but she is but they are communicating and i think that there is like i mean bacterial test bacterial test oh my

god bacterial test is you know not a precise metric because it wasn't designed to be that i think that you know like even though a lot of the communication between merida and her mom are non-verbal it's still i would by far it absolutely does yeah the charades bear scene counts that's communication between female identifying characters yes absolutely bears be damned bears they speak their own language what would we rate this on the nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its representation of women um i would give this i think a four three and a half four i think for the time especially it was like it was paving the way for other like feminist texts targeted at young girls to be made i think there's a lot of stuff it handles really well it subverts

a lot of tropes and but as we've talked about there's some missteps and again they're probably all john lasseter's fault um but yeah i don't like that like the burden becomes is placed on merida to have to apologize for just being like a feminist icon that's and her mom for seeming like patriarchy was her idea somehow yeah yeah there's a lot of weird things like that but um i'll split the difference and i'll do a 3.75 now everyone doesn't imagine slicing a nipple like that Yeah, and I will give one to Bear Mom, two to Merida, and I'll give my three-quarters nipple to Paddington, who should be in this movie.

If you're going to have two bears, why not a third bear? Rule of threes, put Paddington in Brave. That's true. Irresponsible to just have two. Yeah. I'm going to do, I swear to you, I was thinking the exact same number, the 3.75 nipples. Yeah, I mean, because meeting this movie in context and on its terms for 2012, this was kind of the only movie of its kind

that was coming out. So for all the reasons, the way that it deals with the idea of patriarchy was kind of frustrating. But it does seem like there have been movies since that have learned from the lessons that this movie sort of taught us. And the fact that this is like one of the first female helmed, fuck the other guy who worked on it for a year and a half, don't care, is Brenda Chapman's movie. Like that is a really cool step in the right direction. And unfortunately, since she left pixar she hasn't been able to direct another movie so i really really really hope that those

opportunities continue to be available so so i'll do i'll do 3.75 give uh two to merida one to one of the brothers whichever was your pay uh and then i'll give the last three quarters to bare mom. Great. Rachel-Anne, how about you? I'm not as good at math, so I'm going to go a solid three. Sure. I just think that it's going relatively well until she decides she doesn't want to get married and then she poisons her mom.

She's like, I know what to do, I'll poison my mum. And then her mum turns into a bear and she's like, maybe that was too much. Maybe we could have slept on it and spoke about things in the morning and she would have came round. But she didn't, so she's a bear and then and then it's her fault it's essentially it's her fault that her mum's a bear yeah and we forget that she's like not like wanting to get married now she just has to change her mum back by apologizing profusely yeah for something that she didn't mean to do. And then she's borderline thinking about getting married at the end. She also made a really irresponsible purchase by buying all of those wood carvings.

What was that for? She's got a lot of disposable income. She's rich. Was that the plot? Just being like, get ready. There's a lot more bears where this came from? Yeah. So three nipples. Three.

Yeah. I think that's the show. That's the damn show. So thank you so much again to our guests, Rachel Ann Clark. Rachel Ann, what would you like to plug? Where can people find you online?

So I'm on Instagram, rachelanne.comedian it's like all the E's R-A-C-H-E-L-A-N-N-E and I'm on Twitter tweet rachelanne R-A-C-H-E-L-A-N-N-E you can also follow my comedy night which I run

which is in Glasgow but you know if you're around it's Ambush the Salon so we have a sketch group called Ambush and we run a live comedy night and it has stand up and sketch and all sorts of alternative feminist comedy that won't

make you wince give it up for her one more time give it up for yourselves one more time give it up for yourselves thank you so much for coming yeah we'll be hanging out we're going to be selling some merch and taking pics so come say hi on your way out

bye and that was our brave episode it was so much fun our first international episode can you believe brave of us. Brave of us. So thank you again to our guest, Rachel Ann Clark. She is wonderful.

So funny. So amazing. Thank you to the Albany in London for hosting us. And for hosting us as the Women in Film Podcast, which we have, as you know, by now, officially rebranded as. That's true. Thank you to my beloved Isaac Taylor for recording for us under duress. Oh. No, I'm kidding.

Okay. I was like, what happened? He volunteered. Oh. And we paid him. Yes, true. Big thanks to Sassy for working the door, checking people in. Sassy is a champion.

Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone who came and everyone who bought merch. We are eternally grateful and we hope to be back in London soon. And we have another live episode from London coming out in the near future. So look forward to that. Stay tuned. Bye. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from?

Like, what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me?

A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology. Swaps of different meds. But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.