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I'm so serious when I say the movie, Monsters vs. Aliens should be a required viewing for all little girls everywhere. I remember watching it in theaters as a kid, and coming back a changed person (even if I didn't realize it yet)
Is the plot a little generic? Maybe. But it was the first mainstream children's movie I had ever seen as a child in which the main female protagonist breaks things off with a shitty partner AND DOESNT END UP WITH ANOTHER MAN BY THE END.
And that may seem like a small thing, but for a movie whose protagonist's core motivation went from being a bride to wanting to save the world, and to a kid like me, who at that point had never seen a kids movie in which the leading lady ends up with a man by the end, that shit was POWERFUL. Like I'd grown up surrounded by vague messages of female empowerment insisting that "you don't need a man for a happily ever after" but this was the first movie marketed for my demographic that actually exercised that message.
Like little girls these days have plenty of Disney princesses like Moana, Elsa, Merida, etc. But when I was growing up, every single female character in all my favorite shows, always ended up with a man by the end.