Hot Take: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers isn't problematic.
The whole point of many stories is that a character has a problem, a flaw, a conflict, that they must overcome in order to achieve a happy ending. The first ones were typically learn about at Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, and Man vs Self. There are plenty others, but in this particular musical film, its Man vs Self. And the journey to overcoming the conflict usually follows a pattern. Oftentimes, we see this pattern as a circle, sometimes referred to as the Hero's Journey, but for this, I'm gonna use Dan Harmon's Story Circle as the base because it's pretty simple.
Both Milly and the Brothers follow this circle.
For the Brothers:
The brothers are living out in the wilderness, as wild independent men.
The brothers desire the love of a bride, just like their brother, and ask Milly for help learning how to court women.
They test out their newly learned manners at the barn raising, but it does not go well.
They adapt their lessons from Milly, Adam pointing out the Sabine women story, to be interpreted as kidnapping is okey.
They get brides!
The brides want nothing to do with them because they were kidnapped, for God's sake!
After realizing what they did was wrong, they attempt to return everything as it was by returning the brides to town. (This, of course, goes awry.)
But they are changed now, realizing the preciousness of love and respect in a marriage, and how much damage they've done to the girls and their families, but also... they literally get married.
For Milly:
Milly is living in town, working as an independent woman.
Milly desires a home of her own and gets married to Adam.
She goes to their new home and is frustrated to find that she's going to be living with Adam's six brothers.
She adapts to the situation by trying to teach the boys how to be better men and court women through manners and bible study.
She succeeds, kind of. They do their darnedest to be the better men, even when their rivals in love try to fight them at the barn raising.
Her bible lessons are misinterpreted and they kidnap the townswomen and she's forced to kick the boys out of the house.
Milly is able to "return to comfort" when Adam finally comes to apologize for being a huge idiot and to rectify the situation with the girls. It's a new comfort, being happily married, but it's still a comfort zone.
Having changed both as a new mother but also with a newly polished family.
The premise of the story is that the boys are overcoming their own "problematic-ness." What would make the story problematic is if they didn't learn a fucking thing and just raped a bunch of girls.
If you judge every story by the character's flaws at the beginning of the story, then whats the fucking point of stories?
