What do you think about Disney dressing up Merida, the character from Brave, into a Princess?

It bugs me a bit. I liked the idea of a Disney Princess that was just a girl. Not some beauty queen looking for her inevitable happily ever after at the hands of some man who will rescue her from her lonely life of gorgeous perfection to another life of gorgeous perfection.

Just a girl who climbs trees and shoots a bow and is happy enough to not have time to worry about her waistline or frizzy hair.

But, they’re in it to make money, and the sexualization of children sells. I suppose it’s up to parents to vote with their wallets if they want it stopped.

Typical to airbrush the hell out of what was meant to be a highland girl from the clans of Scotland, give her a tattoo & put a pint glass in her hand, but not this…Cinderella she ain’t.

I liked her better the other way.

You can see my answer here.

Other than profitability, I cannot see any reason that Merida “needed” to be changed. She was already pretty as well as a great role model. I completely agree with the tthree answers above me. Except maybe the tattoo. The pint is cool though.

@tedibear Thanks for the link. That Q didn’t pop up when I asked the question.

I asked a similar question a few days ago when I saw some of the comments about this in the Daily Mail. The short answer is I don’t care all that much. I do prefer Merida as she is in the film but personally, I didn’t feel that the change was big enough for me to waste my energy being bothered by it. She looks a little more mature and they have tamed her hair (as someone said in my thread, who wouldn’t do that if they were being inducted as an official princess!!). I can’t see a massive difference in the wasitline, to me it just looks like she is standing at a different angle but I would have to watch the film again to see what the originally waistline is.

Kind of annoys me but it hasn’t crossed my radar too much. I do think we need more real girl – Pippi Longstocking, Ramona, Jo March, Scout – role models than princesses.

@Leanne1986 When I first came across the story on my facebook today my response was that at Disney all girls are princesses, and also I pointed out she was being inducted into the Princess Court so of course she would groom herself and dress up, wouldn’t she? Lastly, I felt all girls can easily be everything. They can play sports, climb trees, and play with make up and dress up. We don’t have to be locked in a box of some sort of title like tomboy or girly girl. I hope at the Disney parks they have Merida walking around in her regular garb, but for certain ceremonies if she is dressed as a princess I think so what? But, I guess also from a marketing perspective it is better to be consistent with how she looks.

@JLeslie I would agree with all of that!

I’m pretty sure she could kick the asses of all the other princesses combined.

So yeah, it’s a shame Disney feels the need to glam her up.

Typical gender stereotyping crap.

@cookieman I don’t know, I think Mulan would hold her own. It’d be a good fight, though.

@Seek_Kolinahr Everyone seems to forget how bad-ass Mulan is. She’s my favourite!

My issue isn’t with the sparkly dress or the tamed hair for the “ceremony.” I would think that most anyone who was going to a special event would dress up and try to look nice. My issue is that they changed the shape of her face, her eyes and her lips. She doesn’t look like Merida now. Her waist is definitely smaller which I don’t see as a necessary change.

This picture shows how she was formally dressed in Brave. Why not use that look?

My 15 year old daughter was PISSED when I told her about this! Merida is one of her favorites, “Her hair is a big curly wild thing, that’s the whole point!” (My daughte rhas hair similar to Merida’s.

Mulan is my daughter’s top favorite too. They watched it in her Mandarin class with Mandarin subtitles. She told me the girls in the class sang the songs but in Mandarin!

Sleeping Beauty would put them all, err…to sleep?

Cat fight!

I don’t like the makeover. I’m not all outraged about it, because frankly, I’m not surprised. But the original Merida is way better, and as @Seek_Kolinahr and @ucme point out, the new one kind of defeats the entire purpose of her character. Merida would never dress up like that unless she were forced, and in fact in the movie they show her not being happy to have to get all swanked out. Fuck this new design.

She’s not a brave little girl any more. It’s not a good move.

@Seek_Kolinahr: True, but only if she can get in close enough. Red’s got the distance advantage with that bow & arrow.
thwiiiip, chunk; thwiiiip, chunk; thwiiiip, chunk; thwiiiip, chunk

Various things bother me about it. First, there’s the waist-cinching. Then there’s all the plastic surgery done to her face. And finally, I notice that the redesign puts her in what is just a more detailed version of the dress she hated in the original movie. So in order to get into the pantheon of Disney princesses, all she had to do was go back on everything and say “guess I’ll wear this after all.” Somehow, I didn’t think that was supposed to be the moral of the story.

Breaking news: Disney has backed off. They are withdrawing the “new” Merida. * Y * A * Y *

Thanks for the update @YARNLADY! As much as I wasn’t very upset about the princess overhaul, I am glad Disney decided to keep her looking like the brave girl she was in the movie.