I’m in Australia for a few weeks visiting my investments, so I’m currently celebrating a cold and wet 5th of July.
Best wishes to you all, and I hope it cools down soon.
ETA: I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten a front page jersey before now. Brave is apparently racist and gingerphobic:
Like its cohorts, Brave is doing something very cynical in its appropriation of Scottish culture for the backdrop of this film: It’s using the most identifiably tribal white culture to side-step charges of racism while playing the same goddamn exploitative game of hilarious caricatures and noble savages.
Scottish people, with their clans and tartans and ubiquitous red hair, have become the go-to group for makers of pop culture who want all the fun of racial stereotyping without the charges of racism.
“Scots are tribal with weird indigenous clothing and silly instruments and some old language and funny words and goofy accent and ginger hair, and these facts have been used to marginalize this occupied nation for centuries, but they’re WHITE, so it’s okay!”
These are the exact things that have been used to paint reductive pictures of people of color in animated (and non-animated) films for years.
That Scots are now frequently used as “hilarious” sidekicks and broad comedic punchlines, and historical Scotland as a shorthand for “magical kingdom,” and that Scots are the most identifiably tribal white culture is not a coincidence.