I have to say, though, that I disagree with your feelings about Brave (and we may just have to agree to disagree!). I think most Pixar films (ok, most films) have one major idea that they want to get across, and everything that’s not part of that idea is flat. Yes, the triplets were a token and Merida had no friends, but I’m not sure that that takes away anything major from the story. I fully agree that the film isn’t perfect, but I think it’s flawed just like most Pixar films are.

For me, the presence of a female protagonist is an important step for Pixar, and I largely enjoyed the film, but it somewhat bothered me that the “innovation” in the film stopped there. As progressive as Merida’s storyline might be, the rest of the film was remarkably sparse to me: the fact that Merida has no friends struck me as an oversimplification, the triplets felt like a token nod to younger audiences rather than characters in their own right, and the film managed to feel incredibly small (as though taking place on “sets” rather than in an actual living and breathing environment). It was as though the more complex emotions of the central storyline, touching on heteronormativity and the nuanced relationship between mother and daughter, led them to simplify everything else, a decision I haven’t felt from previous Pixar films. It felt like a film that had one brave idea—a female protagonist, which shouldn’t have to be considered brave but that’s the industrial and cultural situation we find ourselves in—and then balked at being brave in any other way.

However, I ultimately came to share Amanda Ann Klein’s great conversation with her daughter about the film, which everyone should read: http://judgmentalobserver.com/2012/07/09/brave-a-mother-and-her-daughter-weigh-in/.