Andrew O’Hehir at Salon has suggested that Brave , however feminist, doesn’t really undermine patriarchy – the daughter weaves a spell of command and rhetoric to sway them to her side, but ultimately it’s to the men to determine when sharp changes to tradition can be undertaken. But the whole (or almost the whole – see below) of what Brave does is show only women as capable of the maturity, the majesty to see what the realm needs to survive; the men, are twits, practically always ready to hack at one-another over the smallest slight. The men, that is, though they can supply buffoonish charms, are mostly a drink-fest and a random melee waiting to happen: does the movie really supply any doubt as to who maneuvered these realm-saving “patriarchal” traditions into place in the first place? Andrew’s former peer at Salon , Stephanie Zacharek, has argued that Brave is closer to Ratatouille and The Incredibles than to Wall-E and Up; ...