Post 5 - Brenda Chapman

Brenda Chapman

Brenda Chapman

            Brenda Chapman is a female with a lot of talent; she is an American writer, animation story artist and director. This woman had a pretty successful beginning, she studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts, and after graduation she was a trainee on Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Then she continued in Disney by being one of the key story artists for Beauty and the Beast, as she got more experienced she landed as the head of story for The Lion King. As you can already tell, this woman is on the track to being a very successful female in the industry because of how big these movies are. Some more of the movies she was involved with were The Prince of Egypt as director, and Brave, which she also directed and also wrote screenplay for. Brenda became the first woman to direct a animated film for a major studio when she made the Prince of Egypt in 1988. Her style is similar to the princess style of Disney films primarily because she worked for them and learned from them, but she does bring a different approach then typical men would. She doesn't rely on  aprince to come save the day like they seem to do in typical Disney films.

Brave (2012)

            Brave is an animated film that was released in 2012, it featured the main protagonist’s as females who wanted to break all the norms and kick ass. In the film “they took the heteronormative institution of marriage and used it as the vehicle through which personhood and belonging could be explored. While marriage and tradition are the surface issue with which Queen Elinor and Princess Merida struggle, their struggles and their bond with one another are much deeper than that.” The film despite being worked on by many men was very feminine due most likely to Brenda Chapman who actually wrote the story and directed it. The film was empowering because the characters formed relationships that helped them advance and they didn’t need to rely solely on the prince to come save the day like they tend to typically do.Along with that the female characters were not overly sexualized and objectified in the film. Princess Merida was drawn the way she was on purpose but its amazing how advertisements and toys were portraying Merida. They were more sexual and objectified playing into the typical female representation. Some people are trying to get the advertisements to stop changing Merida and to use the way she looks like in the film, Chapman wrote an article relating to this addressing the people who create the ads "They have yet to make a definitive statement that they intend to restore to Merida her original look, staying true to her character, on all future merchandise. The sexier, slimmer version of Merida with a come-hither look and an off-the-shoulder dress is still very much out there."This shows that Chapman wants to stay true to keeping her work the way she makes it, not allowing others to make it sexual.

  

Right: The original Merida

              It’s nice seeing that females get these jobs to direct films and create stories but there still needs to be progress made. Cases like this with Brenda Chapman are rare, she got a very easy pass with her early career which helped her achieve more, along with that she is married to a film director who she had met in California Institute of the Arts. Her husband could have easily helped her out because he has connections and of course he is a man who has power. Even so, this is still progress, seeing more females in these positions would be nice. There also has to be a shift in which the division between female and male movie categories. I understand chick flicks are made by women because they know how to represent it, but action films can also be created by females. Some argue that men direct those films because it’s masculine, what a load of bull, the actors themselves almost never do their own stunts.

 Video that touches upon Merida having power as a woman to go against the rules set out by family/culture.

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McFadden, J. (n.d.). Feminism, Beyond and Within: A Review of Brave. Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.gender-focus.com/2012/07/02/feminist-review-of-brave/

Chapman, B. (2013, May 23). Staying True to Merida: Why This Fight Matters. Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-chapman/staying-true-to-merida_b_3322472.html