Pixar's 'Brave', and how fairy tales have screwed over mothers.

Princess Merida and Queen Elinor from Brave

Last weekend, I had the good luck to attend an open air screening of Pixar's latest exercise in how to make people feel, Brave. It's about a Scottish Princess more at home on a horse with a bow and arrow than sat on the throne being confronted by the prospect of an arranged marriage to one of three suitors. There's so many things to love about this film: it's visually gorgeous, has a stunning Gaelic-folk soundtrack, features adorable baby bears, and boasts a great cast, including the lovely Kelly MacDonald as Princess Merida.

What I most loved about it, however, was the relationship between the Princess and her mum. Fairy tales are notorious for their suspicion of mothers. A healthy relationship between a daughter and her mother in the fairy tale canon is rare, if not impossible. Fairy tale mothers who appear as characters often become complicit in some nefarious business that endangers their kids: think of Hansel and Gretal's mother slamming the door on her brats, or the Goose Girl's mother sending her off to be married in the company of a totally bitchy and evil handmaiden. More often than not, the mothers are bumped off well before the story starts (pretty much every tale ever: Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, etc. etc.), or supplanted by an evil stepmother.

In Brave, Queen Elinor is a superwoman. She runs the castle, handles a boisterous husband and her naughty flame-haired triplet sons with humour and firmness, and *spoiler* reacts to being turned into a bear by her daughter in a surprisingly gracious and classy way. She brought tears to my eyes. As a fairy tale enthusiast and feminist, I was extremely pleased that Mama bear was not only a great role-model, but actually an active presence in her daughter's life. I know that Brave's audience are delighted that the film features a kick-ass heroine who is comfortable with being a single lady, but the real progress for me is reversing a pretty toxic trend in the whole genre.

For another awesome mama, look to the avenging angel Mother in the titular Bluebeard revision story in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (a collection of much-needed ripostes to conventional patriarchal fairy tales):

You never saw such a wild thing as my mother, her hat seized by the winds and blown out to sea so that her hair was her white mane, her black lisle legs exposed to the thing, her skirts tucked around her wait, one hand on the reins of the rearing horse while the other clasped my father's service revolver and, behind her, the breakers of the savage, indifferent sea, like the witnesses of a furious justice.