Maleficent- The only real major male character that is a good guy is Maleficent's sidekick. Phillip is VERY minor in this movie and might as well have never been in the movie. He was only used to mock the idea of a woman being with a man and that women don't need men. Every other male character, especially Stephan, are complete assholes that are shown as the enemy of woman. I mean, this is just INSULTING! They didn't even have Stephan show any real human emotion when he hears his wife is dying, sees his daughter after sixteen years, or that she was dead. All he could think of was keeping Maleficent "the evil woman" from winning and shows no compassion for anyone or anything. I mean come on, this is just down right despicable and insulting towards men. It's like they're teaching women that they should hate men.

Frozen- The men in this movie are just so badly written. They have Kristoff either act gross, like an asshole towards Anna and everyone else, or like a nutcase that talks for his reindeer. Olaf is a complete idiot that doesn't even know that he will melt in summer. I know he was just born but so was Frosty The Snowman, who also wasn't very bright, but still knew that he would melt when heat came. I mean, there's stupid and than there is insultingly dumb! The King (but the Queen is at fault here too) and the leader of the trolls are what caused Elsa to fear her powers, ruin Anna and Elsa's childhood, and caused these problems in the first place. Then we have the deceitful assholes like the Duke and Hans. Plus the constant shoving the message of not marrying someone you just met, you don't need a man, and female relationships just makes it even more jarring. This is just degrading!

Brave- The only male characters in this movie that aren't teated like idiots are Merida's brothers, the Witch's crow, and to an extent, Fergus. But even Fergus, along with the other male characters, have no sense of peace and logic and only solve problems through war, unlike the women. Plus the suitors for Merida are just a smack in the face that men are idiots and losers that women don't need. Shouldn't they be just as skilled, competent, and attractive as Merida? Shouldn't they be great guys but Merida just isn't ready to get married yet? No, instead they just decide to make the men look like idiots and losers to make the women look better.

Feminism isn't making women look WAY better than the "inferior" men. It's EQUALITY! Which means you can show a woman as strong, independent, and not desperate for a man but don't make the men just look like idiots that women have to deal with. I like Brave but the way all of these movies portray men is just sexist in my opinion.

Not really sure, tbh...

Yeah, I hate it when movies do that. They give feminism a bad name. The feminazis who claim to be feminists by degrading men aren't feminists, they are misandrists. Also these same feminazis shame women who chose to have traditional roles or shave their legs. When males get raped or abused by women guess who speaks up for them? Feminists! Also it's very anti-feminists to use periods as a reference when a girl is angry (that's major bull shit!) and to only use bitch as a reference for women. Anyone with common sense should be a feminist tbh. Anyway these movies are about misandry and NOT feminism

Good points, KataraLover!

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I really don't get the hatred for Elsa saying what she did -- it really is stupid to legally bind yourself to somebody you just met, whether it's a man or a woman.

Good points both KataraLover and Uploaded900. I agree with your statements. Frozen shows the most of it and pounds it into your head nonstop; Brave just manages to be "gross" about it; and there's a tinsy bit of Maleficent that follows this disturbing trend.

I hope Moana isn't anything like this.... If so, I'll be shaking my head some more.

Also, I thought Kristoff was written just fine. I like him. I like that he didn't just immediately start swooning over the heroine or blindly approve of whatever she does; he challenges her on a really stupid decision she made and he's absolutely right. He reminds me of Naveen in that it's okay for a prince/male love interest to call the heroine out on her bullshit for once. And that's empowering. A lot of the older DP films have idealized women teaching the guy something, and it's rarely the heroine who needs to improve. Maybe the message in Frozen is a little heavy-handed but "sexist against men" is kinda pushing it imo.

Well, at least with Brave we are supposed to look at some of the men as being good people. Merida gets along well with her dad, and it's suggested at the end that she makes friends with the three suitors, so...

With Maleficent the message is insulting towards women as well. By playing the plot of the "woman scorned" the movie reinforces again sexist stereotypes: that women can never be evil, that women can only do wicked deeds if influenced by men, as if they have no free will of their own. In a way the movie is more sexist at times than the 1959 version!

But yeah I don't get these new "strong" movies. They seem to be pandering to the hateful tumblr crowd at times. "Yess female relationships no icky boys eew!"

This will sound strange, but at least Princess and the Frog and Mulan got this right. The female characters were strong but the movie didn't need to "dumb" down the men in order to make the female look superior. And that's a big problem with establishing female characters nowadays, that in order to make the girl stand out, all the men around her must be idiotic. It's not true equality in my eyes if the woman has to prove she's "Just as good as any of the guys" when all the guys are clowns who can't do anything right.

^^Actually, Flynn did not swoon over Rapunzel when he first saw her, either. Naveen did not swoon over prickly Tiana ( who hit him several times with a book). And Shang did not swoon over Mulan, after he figured out Mulan was female. No, he was in command of an army, and was full of stoicism. Eric, even after he figured out "just why" Ariel had not been able to talk to him, was not swooning. He was puzzled, and he was intrigued as to "why" Ariel had gone the nth mile, and sacrificed so much to meet him face-to-face. I would not call that swooning. I'd call that real interest. He loved her not just for her voice.

Non-male swooning is not something unique to only Kristoff. That's what I'm trying to say. But Kristoff is very brusque, and he is not the kind of male I would ever cosy up with, because he's judgmental. Frozen is packed full of judgmental characters. Elsa is extremely judgmental of her sister. Kristoff is judgmental of the female interest in romance ( having never even met a female before Anna, this seems weird). And Hans and the Duke are also judgmental, and are opportunists.

Besides, Frozen is the latest in the DP movies ( not live remakes, which Scarletunicorn pointed out), and in order to carry on the "theme" of Elsa and Anna being superior princesses to their forebears, Disney had to either vilify the male half of the movie, or show them to be cynical hermits. Not an improvement at all in my opinion, and I do agree with Uploaded that this is entering misandry territory on all fronts.

By earlier films i mean stuff that predates the current era (i.e, renaissance and classic stuff). PATF, Rapunzel, and Frozen are all contemporaries, so I wasn't including them in my criticism. And yes, I LOVE all those dudes for not taking shit and sticking up for their own beliefs instead of being the lifeless no-personality guys from the older films who seemed to just exist to be taught a lesson or to be the love interest. And personally, I find the whole "infanitlized guy who needs to be shown the way by an idealized female character" way more offensive than any supposed anti-male message in Frozen.

Kristoff is a jerk, sure. But we've all got flaws. (Tiana's pretty judgmental, too, but she's still a good character.) I like that you're not inclined to throw yourself at him; that's kind of the point. He's not idealized or objectified for the female gaze; he's just a regular dude. Good for him.

^^ ahaha. Apparently, I'm not attracted to jerks. It isn't about objectification of the male in my case. It is all about a person's character, whether male or female. Kristoff doesn't have much character, and what little character he does have is--- like you said-- jerk-ish. So, yep. He's at the very bottom of my list of favorite princes. I've met many males in real life who had the same mentality as Kristoff. I didn't hang out with them...;)

it's a fairy tale, though. love at first sight isn't outrageous. what is crazy is Elsa (who has no experience at all with love- the same thing she shames Anna for lacking) acting like it IS outrageous. a fairy tale character wouldn't say that. it's not reality. A friend on tumblr pointed this out:

Elsa: Anna, you can’t marry a man you just met.

Anna: Elsa, you have magical ice powers, my brain got memory-wiped by trolls, you sang and danced up a mountain without losing your breath or even getting a little bit tired even with very little oxygen in the high-altitude air, I’ve been traveling with a talking snowman, you can make sentient snow people, this ice harvester I met was raised by trolls, we randomly burst into song with perfect harmony and choreography, and you are telling me I can’t have a little fairy tale romance?

Elsa: …

though I totally agree the 'infantilized guy' is ridiculously offensive too.

anyway, Brave is pretty insulting. It's like you can never portray women as stupid (unless it's an unacceptable kind of woman- like the Bimbettes, who like Gaston, or Lottie, who is portrayed as ditzy and shallow next to Tia) but men can be. women always have to be the competent, smart ones. I hate Frozen's sexism of both portraying nice men as secretly evil, gross rude men as the ones you HAVE to be with, and also sexist to girls who want love and find it instantly as if that makes them stupid and shallow.

but Maleficent is flat-out anti-man. painting men as dangerous is dangerous itself. I agree with everything Scarlet said.

It's like, all right, Disney, we get it now. Boys are ICKY and so is love, eww!

wavesurf, good for you. I'm glad you're not attracted to jerks, i'm not even being facetious. But it's besides the point. And when the chips are down, Kristoff proves that he is a good guy. He's just gruff, like Tiana; you don't have to be likeable to be a decent character. And I think Kristoff is the only realistic character in that godawful hot mess - he balances out Anna and isn't afraid to call her out on her bullshit. He isn't a vessel for some idealized heroine's moralizing or condescending "lessons." He's allowed to be an actual person. Personally I find the message in a lot of the Renaissance movies -- the one-sided relationships that reduce men to projects (*cough* BATB, Pocahontas, Aladdin) that need to be fixed -- way more sexist. I don't think it's fair to keep griping about "new" movies while letting this slide.

Audrey - Elsa is definitely a hypocrite. She has no experience with love either. But being a hypocrite doesn't discredit what she says -- Hans *is* bad news. I think everyone is missing the point when they make this about women and men, when really it's stupid to marry a stranger regardless of your gender.

And it's also about making characters relatable -- the audience is more likely to agree with what Elsa is saying than Anna's objections. Disney was a punchline for a long time for peddling outdated tropes. Even if they are saying what you think they're saying about love and whatever, that's how society feels now. It's good to see Disney getting with the times.

all the men in this movie are portrayed as stupid, except for Merida's brothers