Last week the trailer for Pixar’s new film Brave was released. News of the film has been creating a lot of hype as it will be the first Pixar film to feature a female protagonist. The arrow-shooting, horse-riding, bear-fighting Merida certainly looks like a very promising hero, and I have no doubt she will kick all kinds of bear on the screen come the film’s release in June 2012.

But a female hero isn’t the only reason people will be gearing up for Brave. It comes to pass every so often that Celtic culture comes back into fashion, and starts weaving it’s way into films and music. Many will be excited for the return of Celtic-y things to mainstream culture, like tin flutes, bagpipes, Druid robes, and fancy spiraly stone carvings.

Celtic culture is possibly one of the most romanticised cultures in the world. Actual Celtic history is rich and fascinating but there’s another brand of Celtic appreciation that seems to go beyond historical exploration. It’s misty-eyed and magical. It’s grand yet incredibly bland. It’s the daggy side of the Celtic style; the stereotype of the Celts I like to call “Celtsploitation”- a little bit trashy, as little bit lame, but people (including me) eat it up.






Celtic camp at it's best 

Because no film is an island we can be sure that Brave will influence the cultural surrounds of 2012 and Celtsploitation will return to popular culture. Don’t believe me? Well it’s been reported that Enya is working on another album to be released in 2012, and if Enya isn’t a reliable harbinger of the return of Celt campiness I don’t know who is.

Here’s a few things we can expect from the 2012 wave of Celtsploitation that Brave will inspire:

There will be robes
Celtic Woman are the indisputable queens of Celtsploitation.



They sing songs inspired by Celtic music, on stages erected in front of castles, skipping through clouds of dried ice. People love it. Their fanbase stretches across the world. Celtic Woman are perhaps best known for the splendid bridesmaid-like dresses they always perform in. Swaddled as they are in metres of fabric they represent one of the most fetishized aspects of Celtsploitation. If Brave influences the fashion of 2012, we can expect to see fabric draped elaborately all over people. Celtsploitation doesn’t encourage low-key dress. It requires kilts, sweeping skirts, capes, fabric thrown in a bewildering fashion over shoulders, and robes- lots of robes, particularly robes with hoods.

The much-anticipated The Hobbit will also be released in 2012 and although it won’t be explicitly dealing with Celtic culture we can expect to see strains of Celtsploitation throughout. This publicity still was released earlier this year and contains more robes than you can poke a stick at.



There will be fairies
Or faeries, or faieries, or something like that. While Scotland today may be all about comedy festivals and twee pop bands like Belle and Sebastian, everything in the olden days was magical. 

There will be mist
No depiction of Celtic scenery is complete without reams of mist covering everything in sight. Mist makes everything more mysterious and therefore much more Celtic. An early example of Celtsploitation, the musical film Brigadoon (1954), featured a town that magically appeared out of the mist for one day every 100 years. In the film Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse fall in love under the heavy influence of Celtic mist and must commit to their love by the end of the day or every person in Brigadoon will disappear into the mist forever. It’s a wonder the Celts ever got anything done, wading through mist all day long, but if you want it Celtic you need it misty.


Also available in a bottle

There will be masculinity
When the Celts weren’t falling under the spells of fairies and mist they spent their time fighting and lifting heavy stuff. Highland games, still played today, feature the most blatantly masculine displays of strength of any sporting competition in the world. There's no lithe athletics, just lifting and throwing really heavy things like gigantic logs and large stones.

Any Celtsploitation image of a Celtic man will feature him bulging with muscles, staring proudly and defiantly off into the horizon. Mel Gibson embodied this in Braveheart but Braveheart was practically understated compared to the masculinity of the Celtsploitation group Celtic Thunder.



Just look at those proud Celtic men, striding through the mist, being all Celtic. Clearly they are the last word in Celtic masculinity. Forget Braveheart. Forget Highlander. Anyone would think Dropkick Murphies didn’t exist. 

There will be choral arrangements
Get ready for lots of slow songs with lots of vague choral singing. Not so much words, just airy Enya-like “Haaaaaaaa, haaaaaaaaaaa”s in the background. Although actual Celtic folk music is rousing and rollicking, Celtsploitation favours the sort of music you hear played in shops that sell soap and daily affirmation booklets. It’s pretty much the audio equivalent of mist.