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"  Merida, the heroine of Pixar&amp;#039;s Brave, marked a departure from your typical children&amp;#039;s movie princesses: She didn&amp;#039;t particularly care about her appearance, nor was she envied or praised for her beauty. There was no love interest, and she was more interested in kicking butt than finding one. However, before Disney inducted her into the rank of their 11th official princess, they obviously felt a makeover was necessary in order to make her worthy of her new title. So they redesigned her as a more stereotypical-looking female character: Sans bow and arrows, with a thinner waist, some hair gel, a stop at Sephora and a hella glittery dress. Sigh. People, understandably, were spitting mad. A petition on Change.org that&amp;#039;s garnered 200,000 signatures insists that depriving Merida of her original kick-assery was also depriving America&amp;#039;s little girls of a positive role model, rather than the helpless Damsels in Distress that constitute most of the other princesses. Brenda Chapman, the writer and director of Brave, slams Disney for placing marketing techniques at a higher priority than instilling in young girls that looks don&amp;#039;t matter:  Merida was created to break that mold \u2014 to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance. [Disney] have been handed an opportunity on a silver platter to give their consumers something of more substance and quality \u2014 THAT WILL STILL SELL \u2014 and they have a total disregard for it in the name of their narrow minded view of what will make money.  Disney&amp;#039;s responded to the outcry by quietly returning Merida to her original character design on their official princess website. (Incidentally, this may not even be the most egregious Disney makeover: Tiana, the first black Disney Princess, was remodeled to have a smaller, more Caucasian nose.)  But perhaps the most telling anecdote of Disney&amp;#039;s misstep was when a writer for the Christian Science Monitor asked a 7-year-old girl she babysits for which version she likes better. The girl pointed to the old version. &amp;quot;The one in dark blue is smiling and her hair&amp;#039;s prettier &amp;#039;cause it&amp;#039;s more like mine and &amp;#039;cause the new one&amp;#039;s scary-pretty with all that blowy hair and cat-eyes. The new one looks mean and I don&amp;#039;t know her.&amp;quot; Follow Anna on Twitter. Image via Walt Disney Co. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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