The XX Factor

Last year we whooped it up over the news that Pixar, the much-beloved animation studio, was finally going to make a film with a girl lead. The Bear and the Bow -which has since been re-titled Brave- stars an "impetuous, tangle-haired" royal named Merida who dreams of being a great archer. Now, courtesy of friend-of-XX Factor Willa Paskin, comes the equally welcome news that Brave will be helmed by its screenwriter, Brenda Chapman-thus making her Pixar’s first female director . Brave ’s producer is also a woman, Katherine Sarafian. All kinds of points for Pixar today! Now if we could only find a way to keep Merida out of the sinister Disney Princess cabal …

Photograph by Justin Sullivan for Getty Images.