Japan's Studio Ghibli was – and still is – a world leader in producing fantasies that happen not to exclude half the population. Given time, and the necessary research grant, I'm certain I could prove this to be the result of a dearth of female role models in her early cinematic diet.īy the time my youngest daughter, Edith, now 11, had developed a taste for film, I was better placed to understand what she might respond to. At 19, Rosie now has a special predilection for movie drag queens.

Was it an eating disorder? Dysentery? No – she was bored by this boys' own adventure set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far inferior to ours in its equality legislation. At a screening of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones in 2002, my son Barney, who was eight, was spellbound, but my eldest daughter, Rosie, then nine years old, kept trudging off to the toilets. Still, I took a dismayingly long time to recognise their need to see themselves represented in the films they watch. If I'm attuned acutely to the presence of women in children's entertainment, that's partly a result of having two daughters. No longer are complex female characters for the under-18s rarer than hen's teeth. And there must be at least another few hundred Twilight books lined up on the Hollywood conveyor belt. This year we have also seen the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins's novel The Hunger Games ($683m worldwide), and two popular spins on Snow White (Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman). The idea has long prevailed that a film's potential audience falls in inverse proportion to the main character's oestrogen levels, but this has been discredited by Brave, which has already grossed more than $340m. The cause for celebration is the film's emphasis on the relationship between a young, assertive Scottish princess called Merida and her mother. W hen Pixar's new animated adventure Brave reaches UK cinemas next week, even grumps like me, who feel the picture falls short of the studio's usual standard, will be cheering in the streets.

Movies with brave characters