If you’ve ever experienced a minor earthquake you’ll immediately recognize the feeling I’m describing: It’s the reverberation, absent of any noise, like that of galloping horses, a thundering freight train or the bass music of a rock band palpitating your chest. The silence is what makes it so hard to recognize at first, but combined with the almost imperceptible movement of things that shouldn’t move, it becomes evident that the earth is indeed shaking ever so slightly.
There’s a relatively dull roar, as my mother used to term an escalating uprising, in the princess world over the “enhancements” fresh-faced Princess Merida of "Brave" fame is undergoing in her transformation from visual medium on the silver screen to marketable toy for purchase. The problem is to be true to her character she needs to look less like a doll and more like an action figure. As designed at present, she’s not anything close to the sassy spitfire so valiantly and refreshingly portrayed in the movie. She has lost the quiver of arrows at the ready on her back, smoothed her impossibly wild crimson mane and donned the very same form fitting, elegant gown she curses and literally bursts at the seams while flexing her muscle to cleanly shoot the arrow that wins her much-desired reprieve from imminent betrothal. And in this transformation lives the subliminal message that she’s had a lobotomy as well, moved into the demure mold of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, no longer able to rescue herself, instead waiting in all of her complacent refinement to be rescued by her prince.
The fact that a permanent smile has replaced the look of absolute misery written all over her face in the movie scene where she wears that dress, watching in weary resignation the prospects competing for her hand tells us so. They’ve turned her into exactly the princess she fights so hard not to be in the movie. What is going on here?
I love the part of the story where Merida implores her three suitors to stand up for themselves in the very same way she is. In a banquet room full of men, the lone woman holds court, speaking eloquently and logically, arranging her conversation carefully and emphatically to gain buy-in and ultimately inspiring all to agree that everyone deserves the right to choose who they marry, and ultimately what they do with their lives.
Imagine the girl in the theater watching a young woman find the courage to speak her mind and fight for what she believes is right. She takes the floor and owns it outright. Captivating her audience with the passion and empathy in her voice, she calms a throng on the brink of mayhem. Even better is the way the men respond to her, showing respect for her intelligence. Who couldn’t use that skill someday in a conference room or the boardroom, or even with unruly and defiant adolescents?
I can still feel the quaking in my chest as I sat in the theater last summer watching Merida confidently mount her steed, her frustration cresting in a fierce need to escape the confines of the castle and feel the wind in her beautiful, tangled curls. The horse can’t gallop fast enough to affirm her freedom. It is so much more than the booming soundtrack that makes my heart race; it’s the excitement brewing inside me around what’s possible for our girls. It is vindication of everything I write in this blog about breaking your own glass ceiling.
Here’s the message, ladies: We are beautiful exactly as we are. We don’t need to fit any mold. We don’t need tame tresses, tight dresses or other alterations to be noticed, respected, valued, admired or loved. We are most beautiful when we are most real.
Let the world see you in your own skin. Be brave. Be open. Be real. Be you.
Read last summer's post about Merida here.
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