Pixar’s Female Problem: Please Stop Asking Me, “What About Jessie?”

[Neoma]

Let me begin with this: if a studio as innovative as Pixar made 12–that’s TWELVE– films with female protagonists and a few had perhaps 1 or 2 strong tertiary characters were who were male and maybe 1 in 10 male characters with ANY speaking parts at ALL wouldn’t you think that was a teensy-weensy bit disproportionate, minimally a failure of imagination and maximally openly hostile in its dismissal of boys and men?

Would it feel an adequate comeback if I shrugged and said, well, there were kick-ass guy side characters who was love interests in one or two films. Jessie is great, yes she is. But guess what: THE FILM IS NOT ABOUT JESSIE. It’s about Woody. And Cars is not about what the comment referred to as the “Spunky Attorney Car” (Jeez, does she even have a name)? It’s about Lightening McQueen. It is NOT the same thing, and to even intimate that it is shows how inured you have become to the fact that female characters so rarely play the central role. We are happy with the crumbs of being “strong” but completely unnecessary (really) side characters.

Link

I recommend reading the entire blog post. I really love Pixar, mainly because I wanted to be an animator until I realized how expensive paper is. But wow... Good points all around.

[Skittles]

1. are they talking about a cartoon

hell, watch the promos for ANY film - most of the time it's men with the action and the women are there as love interests or supporting their man, no matter how bad he is - sexism is RAMPANT in the movies

[Neoma]

2. And yet no one notices any of it...

It's so much of a norm, I started writing a book from the male perspective because I randomly thought writing about women is too feminine... Had to remind myself that I am a woman. I do the same thing with picking out books to read. It's automatic, you don't really think about it until you think about it. It's ingrained and hardwired.

I remember watching Alan Alda on some talk show, talking about how much he admired Marie Curie. I thought, "Well, that's not something you see everyday. A man with a female hero." Why on earth should that be unusual? Gotta refer to my sig line for that one.

[daleanime]

3. If your looking for animation with strong female leads....

may I suggest the best new show of the season, with the worst title, "Bodacious Space Pirates". Really forget the title, if I could get dub for my nieces I would take it in a second. Well plotted, complex and like-able characters, fun old school Sci-Fiction, No Fan Service(Yea!). I can't recommend this show enough!

You can also try Chihayafuru or Summer Wars(english dub available).

[ejpoeta]

4. Toy Story is the story of a BOY and his toys.

So it would stand to reason that his toys would be a Woody character and a Buzz character. There were girls... Bo Peep was the little sister's toy. Sure I understand the point here... I have noticed this myself in a lot of areas, but in a movie about a boy and his toys who understandably would be toys you are going to see boys liking.

[Neoma]

6. Well, the post is about how ALL Pixar movies have male leads.

[MADem]

5. Let's not even get into the Smurf and Smurfette thing.

There's only one female Smurf? What's up with THAT?

You have to ask yourself, what were those writers (not) thinking?

[Neoma]

7. They only added her later too.

I guess the only old female cartoon we get is... Betty Boop? Ew.

[MADem]

8. And there's only ONE Smurfette. One blue gal, and a few dozen blue guys?

Sounds like a kid's worst nightmare!

All of the "girl" cartoons were added, e.g. Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck...about the only one who came along at the beginning with the main character was Olive Oyl!

The same deal with the old school super-heroes:

Supergirl (no Superwoman, even though there is a SuperMAN), Batgirl, (no Batwoman to be the gender complement to BatMAN)...but there IS a CATWoman--and she's Eeeeeeeeeevil!!! And thanks to Julie Newmar and Ertha Kitt, she's one of the most popular characters EVER!

There is Wonder Woman, but she's got some strange powers--and you've gotta figure some oogling cheese-cake fellah designed that too-tight drawers/bustier outfit of hers. And who rides around in an invisible plane?

In the newspapers, there's Cathy (she's defunct now, but she was always desperate to get married), Nancy, who was kind of weird, Little Dot (I am dating myself), and a few others; none of them were particular world-beaters.

[snooper2]

10. It is 2012 now, not 1982

For Example-

Wonder Pets
Linny is a five-year-old guinea pig [4] and the leader of the Wonder Pets. Linny is voiced by Sofie Zamchick in the United States version and Meisha Kelly (Alphabet Kidz) in the UK version. As a superhero, she wears an orange-yellow cap and a blue cape.





Team Umizoomi
MilliA six year old girl[3] (voiced by Sophia Fox and later, Madeleine Rose Yen) who has abilities related to patterns and measuring. She can change her dress to any pattern and can then project that pattern by singing "Pattern Power". Milli is usually the one to interact with the child viewing the show when it is necessary to complete the next element in a pattern in order to accomplish something. Her ponytails can be used to measure things, which is initiated by singing "Milli-Measure".





Bubble Guppies

Molly (Brianna Gentilella)- Born on February 20th, is a 9 year old girl. The smart co-host of the show.
Gil (Zachary Gordon)- Born on July 30th, is a 9 year old boy. The dimwit co-host of the show.
Goby (Jelani Imani)- Born on May 23rd, is a 9 year old boy. The imaginative character of the show.
Deema (Angelina Wahler)- Born on June 8th, is a 9 year old girl. The silly character of the show.
Oona (Reyna Shaskan)- Born on November 16th, is a 9 year old girl. The sensitive character who has a pink starfish hairclip.
Nonny (Eamon Pirruccello)- Born on September 17th, is a 9 year old boy. The very smart character who almost never smiles.



Backyardigans
UniquaA curious, self-confident and high-spirited pink character of no existing real-life species (the series uses the name "Uniqua" for both the character and her species) wearing pink polka-dotted overalls.
Pablo, a yellow-beaked blue and yellow penguin wearing a blue bow tie and a blue and yellow propeller beanie, is the one who most often has the ideas and tends to be the most excitable and the smallest of the group. He is best friends with Tyrone.
TyroneA good-natured (and sometimes fearful) red-haired orange moose he has his antlers at an early age he wears a red and blue striped long-sleeve shirt,
TashaA little yellow hippopotamus, in red shoes and an orange flowered dress. Of the five characters, she is the only one who wears shoes at all times (except as a mermaid).
AustinA timid, but fun-loving purple kangaroo who moved into the block during season one.[7]







And of course Dora, which had a spinoff of Go Diego Go

[MADem]

11. Those 'old' 1982 Smurfs just--and I mean just--put out a brand new movie last year.

I saw it on a plane recently, because it was the only thing on offer that I hadn't seen. It was the same old paradigm--one Smurfette, and a pile of Smurfs. Only one "old guy" too and no old women. Very odd.

You'd think they would have moved forward in thirty years.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472181/

[snooper2]

12. Well it's the Smurfs, they aren't going to add 99 Smurfette's to balance it out LOL

I guess you can write a plot line for that but I don't think it's going to ever happen

My 2 year old daughter wasn't very interested in them anyways so I guess they may be losing their appeal. I grew up with and loved the smurfs, along with Scooby Doo of course.

Point is, children's cartoons these days have as much diversity and "equalness" that you can ever put in to a show. There will always be re-makes of the classiscs...

[MADem]

13. I was an aging adult when they first came on the scene.

I just knew they only had one female Smurf in the lot--that, and the one old guy, I found odd. They'll never be able to add any "Smurfettes" with that demographic, unless they manufacture them!

I grew up on the Three Stooges (with their woo-woo-woo-woo-woo foolishness and eye-poking, head bopping dangerous practices) and cartoons that are, viewed through adult eyes, horribly racist, sexist and intolerant in many instances, with adult conversations and themes that went totally over my head as a young kid, but with, as a factor in very slight mitigation, fabulous soundtracks culled from the classics. Of course, we didn't always have a television, so I'd sometimes only see them before the movie started.

Everything old is new again...they've remade the Stooges, too!

[DutchLiberal]

14. The Smurfette was also created by their enemy Gargamel to sow division between the Smurfs.

In the 1966 comic 'The Smurfette' by Belgian cartoonist Peyo, the arch-enemy of the Smurfs, Gargamel, looks for ways to create division and fights between the Smurfs, so they would be easier to trap. He creates the Smurfette by using black magic and sends her to the Smurfs' village. In the beginning, she's not very attractive. She has short, raggy black hair, big nose and a long common white dress and shoes. She drives the Smurfs crazy with her constant chattering, asking questions, butting in, being nosy, getting in the way etc. Nobody really likes her. Then Papa Smurf uses his magic to turn her into the Smurfette we now know: the one with the long blonde hair, the smaller nose, the shorter dress and the pumps. Suddenly, all Smurfs don't mind her 'bad' qualities anymore and start competing for her interest, which ultimately almost leads to catastrophy because one of them can't resist showing the Smurfette how the dam works and the village nearly floods.

The comic gives a really good insight in 1960's male attitudes toward women. The portrayal of the Smurfette obviously is very sexist. On the other hand, Peyo also shows male hypocrisy and superficiality when the Smurfs suddenly change their opinion on the Smurfette once she has become 'pretty', yet she still has all the same character traits they found annoying earlier on when she was still 'ugly'. The original comics have much more layers and are much more enjoyable for adult readers than the simplified Hannah-Barbera cartoon series which was dumbed down a lot to appeal to young kids only.

Later in the cartoon series, two other female Smurfs were added: Sassette, a little girl; and Grandma Smurf. Sasette appeared not much later in a comic in the original comic book series as well. She was created by three other little Smurfs as a companion for Smurfette. Grandma never made it into the comics.

[MADem]

15. How horrible!!!!!

When I think Hannah-Barbera, I think Flintstones--now that's a cartoon that, sexist attitudes and all, still makes me laugh!

[tech_smythe]

9. On the side topic of female 'toon hero's... Alpha and Omega

Where the females of the pack were clearly in charge.
I have always liked strong female personalities.
And it wasn't her that needed to change, it was the omega male who stepped up to be worthy.
I also liked the B-plot where her sister upped her own game, as it were, and showed how capable she was. As she became more confident in herself, she became stronger.

It may be a serious tangent... but all the females in the old tiny toons, toon, were very strong.
But that was an all around awesome cartoon

I'll go back to being quiet now.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Only thing is, this blog post is 8 monts or so old.

The blogger is only dimly aware of the newest pixar movie, Brave, which while containing a "Princess", apparently has absolutely nothing to do with her "finding a man" or other tired princess cliches.

Full disclosure, I haven't actually seen it, and it's entirely possible

(as has been written about at length subsequently, in particular this Time piece which seems like it was cribbed from the blog post)

that this WAS Pixar's long-overdue attempt at addressing this very point, but perhaps they deserve some credit for better late than never.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1217209/

Plus EVE could completely kick Wall-E's ass, which ought to be worth something.

[Neoma]

17. Already mentioned that in the blog though.

"It’s not just the stories they choose to tell, it’s how they choose to tell them: in a way that always relegates female characters to the periphery, where they can serve and encourage male characters, but are never, ever important enough to carry a whole movie on their own shoulders. Unless they’re, you know, princesses."

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Right, but, like I said, at the time that was written there was only a slim sliver of information

out about Brave. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but everything I've heard about that movie is that it's very much about a strong female lead deciding her own fate, and not a "princess movie".

[Neoma]

19. You mean besides her being a princess?

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Yes.

That's about all that the blogger knew about the movie, in July of 2011. Exactly.

[Neoma]

21. Unless they make 11 more movies in a row, with female leads...

It doesn't really help even out the male lead default.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I agree 100%.

But, it's a start, and I suppose it shows that maybe they're listening. Gotta start somewhere.