Pixar

Though Merida is indeed a teenage princess whose parents want her to live a traditional life and get married, through knowledge, determination, and honest communication with her mother (and some magic—this is a Disney princess movie, after all), she subverts the princess paradigm. Well, sort of.

The big pop culture news this week – and other than the death of Michael Jackson, likely some of the biggest pop culture news of the year so far – is that the Walt Disney Company has purchased comic book, film, and video game powerhouse Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion.

While I’m personally in no way rattled by the acquisition/merger, I do think that it provides some opportunities to discuss gender, entertainment and marketing.

Marvel has over 70 years of history, and Disney will have access to over 5,000 characters (though the ones that have been mentioned most in the past week are the most profitable: Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men. Hmmmmm . … what could be missing here?)

The deal has included lots of business speak about "brands," "vertical integration," "long-term growth," "value creation," and my favorite, "synergy," (mostly because it reminds me of 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy telling Liz Lemon to "never badmouth synergy"). There certainly will be many opportunities for profit, but I’m interested in how y’all respond to the fact that one of Disney’s major motivating factors has been securing a young male demographic.