Hale Discusses Animated Females
I've previously mentioned Shannon Hale's great post, "The amazing shrinking women...roles." It's the kind of thing that REALLY gets me about animation, and it was that post that brought it the front of my mind. I have a HUGE interest in animation and in the past year or so I've become fascinated/obsessed with the "princess culture" as it relates to feminism.
I've also previously mentioned my thoughts on beautiful Pixar upcoming movie Brave. Here.
A couple of days ago Shannon Hale (one of my favorite authors and writes a good blog as well) posted a kind of follow-up concerning the numbers of females in animated movies. Thought-provoking, but nothing new.
Today, there was something new. Shannon Hale, bless her, expressed everything I was feeling about Brave and other animated movies but somehow I couldn't make the words happen. Also, her commenters were good. Quotes below; unless otherwise stated, all quotes by Hale. Bolds are mine.
If your story takes place in an all-boy school, then of course, most of the characters will be boys. If it takes place on the all-female island of Amazonia, then naturally, mostly girls. But if it takes place in the natural world, then there should be about as many female characters as male. If there aren't, then I'm suspicious about the writers. Are they making an effort to exclude female characters? Or do they only find male characters interesting and worthy of the story?
MKHutchins wrote: "I'm going to be a wet blanket and say I'm not excited to see "Brave." The previews make it look it's all about how hard it is to be girl. Bleh. Why does a movie with a female protag have to be _about_ being female? (Media staring people of color has also had this problem, where the story's focus is _about_ being of whatever ethnicity) I guess I've read/seen too many stories like this."
I had a very similar reaction, MK. When I saw the teaser trailer, I thought, Wow! A movie about a redheaded girl who fights a bear! This is new and exciting. And then I saw the full trailer and realized the storyline followed *sigh* a princess who feels constrained by her gender and wishes she could do boy things. It's interesting, I think books embraced and then wore out this storyline long ago. Maybe Hollywood is just now catching up? That means film is about 20 years behind books, so maybe by the time I have grandchildren there will be animated movies with more natural ratios. I'll definitely see Brave and I'm happy it exists and that Pixar seems to finally be interested in girls. I hope my misgivings are wrong and I'll be pleasantly surprised. After all, many people dismissed Princess Academy unread, saying, "Not another book about girls primping and hoping to marry a prince!"
As Miriam observed, Brave "seems to be about Merida shunning "elegant pursuits" and proving she's just as good as the boys." This makes me feel sad. Are we still in a situation in this country that girls have to prove they're "as good as the boys"? So the standard for good=Boys, and Girls then must measure up to that? Regarding this kind of thinking, read The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. It has nothing to do with animated movies, but it applies to this discussion all the same. Wonderful book.
Megan Lloyd: "I'm an animation major at BYU. A few months ago, I was selected as the director for our 2013 capstone film, Chasm. The protagonist is a mechanic and inventor, and a little bit older (40s,50s). We decided to make the main character female to try for something different and break our school habit of having guy protagonists. I was floored by the fierce, negative response from a couple of my male classmates--everything from "it's too technically challenging to animate the breasts" to "it's impossible to design appealing older women because men get more rugged and handsome with age and women just get ugly" and even "But women don't DO that sort of mechanical stuff!" It was mind boggling. I hope the completion of our film will prompt the other students in our year to set a standard and fight for gender equality in entertainment."
THIS. THIS. THIS. I just quoted the bits that really struck with me, but the whole thing was a good read. Yes. Brave. It's not about her being awesome, or having adventures, it's about her trying to break the shackles of femininity. This makes me CRAZY. SO CRAZY. IT SHOULD NOT BE ABOUT THAT.
Read the whole post: Can we keep talking about those missing misses?
Earlier last year, I was planning to make something that I referred to as "the Disney princess blog," wherein my sister and I would dissect Disney princesses and heroines from a feminist point of view but with an anthropological and historical twist; it would also have served as a dumping ground for my research and musings on "the princess thing." I am fascinated by this and also by demographics and sales and numbers. Then I discovered a feminist Disney blog already existed and my interest waned. Maybe I need to think about making that happen again? It really is a huge interest of mine.
This really just begs to be further discussed and/or interpreted, but I have no time! D: I need to make dinner soon.
I've also previously mentioned my thoughts on beautiful Pixar upcoming movie Brave. Here.
A couple of days ago Shannon Hale (one of my favorite authors and writes a good blog as well) posted a kind of follow-up concerning the numbers of females in animated movies. Thought-provoking, but nothing new.
Today, there was something new. Shannon Hale, bless her, expressed everything I was feeling about Brave and other animated movies but somehow I couldn't make the words happen. Also, her commenters were good. Quotes below; unless otherwise stated, all quotes by Hale. Bolds are mine.
If your story takes place in an all-boy school, then of course, most of the characters will be boys. If it takes place on the all-female island of Amazonia, then naturally, mostly girls. But if it takes place in the natural world, then there should be about as many female characters as male. If there aren't, then I'm suspicious about the writers. Are they making an effort to exclude female characters? Or do they only find male characters interesting and worthy of the story?
MKHutchins wrote: "I'm going to be a wet blanket and say I'm not excited to see "Brave." The previews make it look it's all about how hard it is to be girl. Bleh. Why does a movie with a female protag have to be _about_ being female? (Media staring people of color has also had this problem, where the story's focus is _about_ being of whatever ethnicity) I guess I've read/seen too many stories like this."
I had a very similar reaction, MK. When I saw the teaser trailer, I thought, Wow! A movie about a redheaded girl who fights a bear! This is new and exciting. And then I saw the full trailer and realized the storyline followed *sigh* a princess who feels constrained by her gender and wishes she could do boy things. It's interesting, I think books embraced and then wore out this storyline long ago. Maybe Hollywood is just now catching up? That means film is about 20 years behind books, so maybe by the time I have grandchildren there will be animated movies with more natural ratios. I'll definitely see Brave and I'm happy it exists and that Pixar seems to finally be interested in girls. I hope my misgivings are wrong and I'll be pleasantly surprised. After all, many people dismissed Princess Academy unread, saying, "Not another book about girls primping and hoping to marry a prince!"
As Miriam observed, Brave "seems to be about Merida shunning "elegant pursuits" and proving she's just as good as the boys." This makes me feel sad. Are we still in a situation in this country that girls have to prove they're "as good as the boys"? So the standard for good=Boys, and Girls then must measure up to that? Regarding this kind of thinking, read The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. It has nothing to do with animated movies, but it applies to this discussion all the same. Wonderful book.
Megan Lloyd: "I'm an animation major at BYU. A few months ago, I was selected as the director for our 2013 capstone film, Chasm. The protagonist is a mechanic and inventor, and a little bit older (40s,50s). We decided to make the main character female to try for something different and break our school habit of having guy protagonists. I was floored by the fierce, negative response from a couple of my male classmates--everything from "it's too technically challenging to animate the breasts" to "it's impossible to design appealing older women because men get more rugged and handsome with age and women just get ugly" and even "But women don't DO that sort of mechanical stuff!" It was mind boggling. I hope the completion of our film will prompt the other students in our year to set a standard and fight for gender equality in entertainment."
THIS. THIS. THIS. I just quoted the bits that really struck with me, but the whole thing was a good read. Yes. Brave. It's not about her being awesome, or having adventures, it's about her trying to break the shackles of femininity. This makes me CRAZY. SO CRAZY. IT SHOULD NOT BE ABOUT THAT.
Read the whole post: Can we keep talking about those missing misses?
Earlier last year, I was planning to make something that I referred to as "the Disney princess blog," wherein my sister and I would dissect Disney princesses and heroines from a feminist point of view but with an anthropological and historical twist; it would also have served as a dumping ground for my research and musings on "the princess thing." I am fascinated by this and also by demographics and sales and numbers. Then I discovered a feminist Disney blog already existed and my interest waned. Maybe I need to think about making that happen again? It really is a huge interest of mine.
This really just begs to be further discussed and/or interpreted, but I have no time! D: I need to make dinner soon.