Overall - a beautiful film, interesting story, a few too many action sequences for me.
Treatment of females? In my opinion, not so good. Sure, Ellie, especially as a child, is a GREAT character. She's more adventurous than her husband and LOOKS about as different as you can get from a typical animated heroine. She also lives a very fulfilling life without children (although I could argue that she's presented as taking the news that a family won't be in her future worse than her husband).
But after the first 15 minutes of the film, girl and woman characters disappear. We've got an old man, a young boy, a male villain, and a bunch of talking male dogs (how did all the dogs reproduce over the generations at Paradise Falls without females, I wonder). This isn't a problem in and of itself. It's obviously fine if a director wants to make a movie about men, just like it's fine if another wants to focus specifically on women. In Up, it's really touching how Carl kind of becomes a new father to Russell, and the dynamic would be different if either character had been written as female. The problem here is the overall trend. Think about every Pixar film you've ever seen. Here's the list I found on Wikipedia.
Take a look. Sure, there are girls and women, usually children, wives, or girlfriends, but not a SINGLE FILM has a dominant female character in it. They are always sidekicks to the leading men.
The only female in Up after Ellie dies is "Kevin" the bird whose sex we know only because she has babies to take care of. And, by the way, couldn't the filmmakers have revealed her gender less stereotypically? Not every animal relies on females to care for the young. In fact, in several bird species the males share the role.
I've read research from the See Jane Project that for every one female protagonist in children's movies and television there are two to three male protagonists. Pixar seems to have as bad or even worse a ratio. A lot of people don't see this as a problem, but as an educator, I just don't think it's fair or healthy for girls and women to be consistently presented as secondary to males. I believe the heroines and heroes we see in the movies and on TV and those we read about in books can inspire us. If females rarely get to see people like themselves in powerful roles, it's no wonder they lag behind in these roles in the real world.
I'll probably harp on the female/male divide in movies a lot in the future, so I'd love to hear your comments so I can consider your ideas before I do! No one wants to hear someone make the same rant over and over. :)
***Go to Up's Website***
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Ready for round 1? ;-) I'll start by saying that I'm not a Pixar fanatic by any means, so some of my info may be a tad to the right or left of accuracy.
ReplyDeleteToy Story 2 - which I've only seen once, has a heroine that is set up, first as a foil, and then as a counterpart (in more ways than one) to the original lead character of Woody. In fact, the creators specifically added a female counterpart (literally, a cowgirl to Woody's cowboy) to add a female presence to an overwhelmingly male franchise.
Finding Nemo - While this is obviously set up as a father/son coming of age story, the character of Dory, played by Ellen DeGeneres, is very much the heart of the movie. As Nemo and Marlin struggle to redefine their roles as father and son, it is Dory who tempers Marlin's fear and frustration by maintaining the very "Disney" virtues of faith, perseverance, and compassion. She really mentors Marlin about such virtues by displaying them universally among the tuna fish guides, the sharks, the whales, and the turtles. Such is the strength of her compassion, that it even compels her to overcome the handicap of her memory loss. As I see it, without any hint of romance as a crutch to inspire her, she is the most heroic character in the movie, and sets the example of how one should live and treat others.
The Incredibles - Here, you have a movie with, quite literally, a heroine in Helen Parr, A.K.A. - Elastigirl. Not only does she compete with her husband (before the superhero ban) as an independent superhero, but she also displays a strong-willed personality which refuses to be second-fiddle to her husband's antics. She's the grounding force in her family, and when she believes her husband has been untrue, she seeks him out to set him straight. Throughout the final battle, she consistently holds her own as a fighter, and maintains her independent will by refusing to take extra precaution to protect herself. Also, Helen and Bob's teenage daughter follows a coming of age story arc in which she goes from being overly shy and insecure (even feeling freakish because of her super powers) to embracing her power and becoming a hero in her own right. She stands as an excellent example/metaphor for girls (and even boys) dealing with the struggles of adolescence.
Up - The only thing I'll say about Up is that the boy, Russell, could just as easily have been a girl scout, and the only thing I think that would have changed about the character is that she would have served as a more direct reminder of Ellie for Carl.
Tag, you're it. ;-)
Nice. Here goes.
ReplyDelete1) Toy Story. That's great that they added a female character...but it's ONE female character in what still is, as you put it, "an overwhelmingly male franchise." I guess I appreciate the effort, but it's not nearly enough.
2) Finding Nemo. I do love Dory's character and really love that there's no romance between her and Marlin. That seems very, very unique to me in an industry that seems to want to pair everyone up. But again, I have to look at ratios. She is ONE female. And even if she's the heart of the movie, she's not its lead character. Has there ever been a Pixar movie that has a female as its protagonist? I'm saying the main, undisputed character the movie is about. Not a sidekick, not a friend found along the way...I don't think so.
3) The Incredibles. Maybe the most equal Pixar film, but it's still constructed under a patriarchal family structure. (Elastigirl becomes "Mrs. Incredible.") Also, and this is super, super academic, but I find their superpowers to be very interesting, gender-wise. The man is super strong, and the son is super fast. The wife, on the other hand, is flexible? And the daughter's power is invisibility and creating a (womb-like, maybe? Is that too academic?) protective shield around the people she loves. These seem pretty stereotypical to me. Why can't the woman be the super strong one? Or the girl be the super fast one?
4) Up. I actually like that Russell is a boy. My problem is that Pixar has never made a film that features an older female/younger girl pair and, at the rate it's going, probably never will.
All in all, my point is that Pixar may create some cool female characters. But it's a huge problem for me that girls/women/female-seeming robots/etc. are never front-and-center. They are always secondary to a male lead in some way.