Merida: The new princess and her new royal image

Merida, the latest Disney princess from the movie Brave, had everything that mother's like me were looking for. Well, most of what we were looking for. She was strong, didn't need a man or to be married, she was wild, looked after herself and, of course, she was brave. (And it's a great movie -- makes me cry every time.) Merida was the answer to the please-save-me-and-live-happily-ever-after-with-my-prince princess. And last week, Disney was officially inducting her into the Disney princess canon, something I guess they do about a year after each movie comes out, and the 2-D "princess" version of Merida was revealed. Merida went from this:

To this:

No more bow and arrow. No more wild, untamed hair. No spirit. Less waist. More breasts. More sparkle. More sexy. Just what a three year old needs to look up to. No thanks. A petition on Change.org quickly went up, which is how I heard about the change, and it wasn't long before the petition had 120,000 signatures. Merida's creator, Brenda Chapman, even spoke out about Merida's change:

They have been handed an opportunity on a silver platter to give their consumers something of more substance and quality — THAT WILL STILL SELL — and they have a total disregard for it in the name of their narrow minded view of what will make money. I forget that Disney’s goal is to make money without concern for integrity. Silly me.

Her words and the signatures may have worked. The new image of Merida has been removed from the Disney website and we may be spared the sexy Merida merchandise machine. Or maybe Disney is simply waiting for all this to blow over. Only time will tell. But only one of these Meridas is welcome in my home, and she's already there.