Has Her Own Point of View *
Oh yes, we completely need more "girly girl" role models. The problem with previous female puppets is obviously that they weren't "comfortable wearing a dress," and possibly that they had too little glitter in their hair.
Okay, whatever, they're going for the five-year-old pink-loving disney-princess-worshipping toy-truck-swaddling little gender extremes. I wish they'd admit it rather than pretend that they just weren't covering all the bases previously. Oh, this character wasn't that attractive. This one spoke spanish or some crap. This one was orange. Obviously we have a large and ballerina-shaped gap in our cultural landscape. God.
It's also a little funny in the article how they wheel out Miss Piggy (puppeteered by MEN, we're not sure what this means but it's probably not GENDER-POSITIVE) but not anyone from Fraggle Rock. Isn't the pink puppet more than a little reminiscent of Red Fraggle, in sort of a bastardised way? Fraggle Rock had a better gender ratio going anyhow, along with a shot at more complex characters due to more complex storylines and a smaller cast.
* NYT photo caption for puppet. Oh, yippee yahoo, puppet. Congratufukkenlations.
[edit] I'm pleased to say that I successfully imagined the character's voice before hearing it. Sigh.
Anyone else notice a decline in acting level since Jim Henson was removed from the picture, too?
[Later addendum] Come to think of it, is this style of puppet even compatible with the standard cultural concept of 'beauty' embodied by, say, Disney female protagonists? These one-person-operated flap-jawed puppets seem to be able to do certain values of 'cute', but I don't think 'cute' is necessarily entirely what the Marketing Dept. is after. Disney Princess Beauty(R) appears to hinge on, facially, small features and the general lack of information that is abstracted (or actual) 'attractiveness'. Henson puppets don't seem very keen on doing this, as well they probably shouldn't; but it is a little odd that they're being asked to think along those lines. I suspect the dearth of 'pretty lady' puppets stems from the fact that without a large expressive mouth (which, shrunken down to smaller proportions would be hard to operate such that the whole face didn't deform frighteningly) their faces would look dead and empty. Eyes and eyebrows take over this job in nonpuppet characters.
The article even admits this, in retrospect, by mentioning Dora the Explorer, a non-puppet traditionally cute/beautiful little character. Big (mobile) eyes, small mouth, round head, simple design. Can Henson puppets do this? No, sir, they cannot. Please allow them to do something they're good at, kthxbye. The boy market is less fixated on beauty at that age and male characters don't have to abide by these female standards, anyway. THIS is why you don't have any girlity-girl-girl-girl lovable pink glittery beautiful princess-bots, marketing department, not because Henson is a boy's club or doesn't know how to reach out to nonmale genders. They just focus on (theoretically) personality, and hope to be a little less shallow, since that is what their medium does better.
Okay, whatever, they're going for the five-year-old pink-loving disney-princess-worshipping toy-truck-swaddling little gender extremes. I wish they'd admit it rather than pretend that they just weren't covering all the bases previously. Oh, this character wasn't that attractive. This one spoke spanish or some crap. This one was orange. Obviously we have a large and ballerina-shaped gap in our cultural landscape. God.
It's also a little funny in the article how they wheel out Miss Piggy (puppeteered by MEN, we're not sure what this means but it's probably not GENDER-POSITIVE) but not anyone from Fraggle Rock. Isn't the pink puppet more than a little reminiscent of Red Fraggle, in sort of a bastardised way? Fraggle Rock had a better gender ratio going anyhow, along with a shot at more complex characters due to more complex storylines and a smaller cast.
* NYT photo caption for puppet. Oh, yippee yahoo, puppet. Congratufukkenlations.
[edit] I'm pleased to say that I successfully imagined the character's voice before hearing it. Sigh.
Anyone else notice a decline in acting level since Jim Henson was removed from the picture, too?
[Later addendum] Come to think of it, is this style of puppet even compatible with the standard cultural concept of 'beauty' embodied by, say, Disney female protagonists? These one-person-operated flap-jawed puppets seem to be able to do certain values of 'cute', but I don't think 'cute' is necessarily entirely what the Marketing Dept. is after. Disney Princess Beauty(R) appears to hinge on, facially, small features and the general lack of information that is abstracted (or actual) 'attractiveness'. Henson puppets don't seem very keen on doing this, as well they probably shouldn't; but it is a little odd that they're being asked to think along those lines. I suspect the dearth of 'pretty lady' puppets stems from the fact that without a large expressive mouth (which, shrunken down to smaller proportions would be hard to operate such that the whole face didn't deform frighteningly) their faces would look dead and empty. Eyes and eyebrows take over this job in nonpuppet characters.
The article even admits this, in retrospect, by mentioning Dora the Explorer, a non-puppet traditionally cute/beautiful little character. Big (mobile) eyes, small mouth, round head, simple design. Can Henson puppets do this? No, sir, they cannot. Please allow them to do something they're good at, kthxbye. The boy market is less fixated on beauty at that age and male characters don't have to abide by these female standards, anyway. THIS is why you don't have any girlity-girl-girl-girl lovable pink glittery beautiful princess-bots, marketing department, not because Henson is a boy's club or doesn't know how to reach out to nonmale genders. They just focus on (theoretically) personality, and hope to be a little less shallow, since that is what their medium does better.