So that's what makes a woman Brave....

There has been a lot of talk around the camp fire concerning the new Disney princess, Merida, and her supposed homosexuality. It started with Adam Markovitz's article on the Entertainment Weekly website that headlined with the question "Could the heroine of Pixar's Brave be gay?" I will not be the first (nor the last) blogger to explore Markovitz's article, but I hope I can also use this as an avenue to discuss how powerful female heroes (I deliberately refuse to use heroine) are often "lesbianized" by media, movies especially.

Put that bow and arrow down or everyone will think you're a lesbian, Merida!

Markovitz's article commits two fallacies; that of hasty generalization and that of mislabeling. Many bloggers have already addressed how this article pretty much says that if a woman displays any masculine traits and shows no desire to get married, then you can bet the ranch that she is a lesbian. Now, in Markovtiz's defense I think that he was just proposing an idea, but what he really did was re-enforce stereotypes that lesbians have been fighting since Lesbos. Even with subculture labels like "lipstick lesbian" or "femme lesbian," main stream society has a hard time dealing with a strong female character. This leads to my next point. Merida is not a heroine, she is a female hero. There is actually a huge difference. A heroine is like Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin. Yeah, she does some cool stuff like use her sexuality to distract the bad guy while Aladdin tries to steal the lamp back, but besides that she is completely dependent on Aladdin to rescue her. Merida is a female hero. She goes through all the challenges that a hero (in the traditional, literature sense) must go through to prove themselves worthy. Just besides her challenge involved her mom does not mean it is any less difficult. It is a challenge against pride, self-admission, forgiveness, and the willingness to change tradition.

This idea of "lebianizing" a female hero is not new. It is all over the movie industry. Any strong, lead female is coupled with another, slightly less strong female for implied sexual tension. My best example of this is Alice from the Resident Evil move series. In the first move the tension was with Michelle Rodiguez's character Rain. In Resident Evil: Apacalypse it was Jill Valentine. In the third and fourth one, it is Ali Larter's character Claire. In the fifth one, they are all coming back. That sounds like some lesbi-drama I do not want any part of. Anyways, you don't have to take my word for it. Watch any one of these films and you can see it. In fact, you can also watch Xena: Warrior Princess, Aeon Flux, and Silent Hill. These are just from off the top of my head.

Of course, I may just be full of it, but I think this article about Merida sort of shows that the media cannot help but revert to stereotypes. There is no such thing as a strong, female lead who is a 10 on the Kinsey scale (or at least above an 8 to account for those college years).

This whole media-spun web also touches on the idea that lesbians are continually sexualized in the media. In fact, the first blatant lesbians in fiction were lesbian vampires who had orgies which included male and female sexual partners. Many times, the lesbians in films are constantly accused of licking pussy from dawn to dusk ( just watch any 1990s teen movie set in a high school). Sure, it's great that there are some lesbians who have been the heroes of films but only at a price. Stereotypes are still enforced which take away power from ALL women. It forces us all to fit into a pre-designed box and shipped for consumer delight.

What can we do? Well, for one you can go see Brave, because it has an amazing message (having more to do with mother/daughter relationships than sexuality). And, of course, I always encourage everyone to look at the world on them. You never know what you might see, and sometimes what you don't.