Jurnal Ilmiah Mahasiswa FIB
Vol 5, No 2 (2014)

FEMINIST IDENTITY OF MERIDA PORTRAYED IN BRAVE MOVIE

ARIYASNI, YESSI DITA (Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Universitas Brawijaya)



Article Info

Publish Date
24 Jun 2014

Abstract

Disney has produced princess characters following the development of Feminism. Brave is a movie which shows women existence to get freedom and choose her own path. Moreover, an existence is closely related to identity. An existence will be approved when an identity has been recognized in society. As the main character in the movie, Merida shows the manifestation of Existentialist Feminism values through the development process of her identity.The writer uses Downing and Roush, Feminist Identity Development Model also Existentialist Feminism and cinematography elements as the supporting theories to analyze this movie. Existentialist Feminism is a theory which emphasizes concepts of freedom, interpersonal relationship, and the experience of living as a human. The writer also uses technique of cinematography elements to show Existentialist Feminism values in Brave movie, while Feminist Identity Development Model is used as stages that should be passed by a woman to get her feminist identity.The writter sees the process of feminist identity development in Merida’s character by the five stage of Feminist Identity Development Model. The five stages are Passive Acceptence, Revelation, Embeddedness-Emanation, Synthesis, and Active Commitment. The Passive Acceptance is shown in the begining of the story where Merida was unaware about the differences between men and women, and she just did not really care about it. But, when she knew the tradition that required her to get married, she started to refuse the provision. That is called the Revelation stage. Merida passed the Embeddedness-Emanation stage where she developed relationship with her mother. Relationship developed in order to equate the mind. Unwittingly, Merida succeeded in changing her mother’s mind which broke the tradition. All young people are free to choose their own path. The decision was accepted by all people in the movie. It means Merida already passed the fourth stage, Synthesis. Then the society changed overall. It is called as Active Commitment of the stages. And the process shows Existentialist Feminism values in Merida’s character. Merida is described as a princess who wants to get herfreedom to be herself.The writter suggests to the next reseacher to use either Phsycoanalysis or Semiotic to analyze Brave. It also shows relationship between Mother and Child. Moreover, Psychoanalysis can be employed in relation between Merida and hermother, and Semiotic can be used to analyze the appearance of Merida as a princess. Keywords: Feminist Identity Development, Feminism, Brave Movie

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