24. Brave
When Brave premiered in 2012, it should have been a huge deal for Pixar. It was the first movie the studio released with a woman protagonist, and Princess Merida was the first (and thus far, only) time Pixar got to create an official Disney Princess. A big part of her premise was that she would be a subversion of the exaggerated perception that Disney Princesses were meek damsels waiting for a soldier to come save them. She didn’t need no man, could save herself, and wasn’t going to listen to her mother’s demands for her to fall in line and marry some halfwit dweeb whom she could easily outshoot…then she goes on a transformative adventure with her mother, and they find common ground. But not the kind that lets Merida continue to carve her own path. Instead, she concedes to her mother’s desires and agrees to follow a traditional path. What a waste. — KS
