Is Pixar a ‘boys only’ club?

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Honestly, I’d never even thought about this until Prairie brought it up after we watched one of the trailers for Cars, when its predominantly male-centric theme got her started thinking about the rest of Pixar‘s oevure. We got started talking about it again this morning, after I noticed this quote from Bonnie Hunt excerpted on the Luxo weblog:

One night John [Lasseter] said to me, “The next movie I’m writing, you’ll be the girl in it.”

See that? The girl. Really, that sounds about right. Just where are the girls in Pixar films? Let’s take a quick look…

  1. Toy Story: Bo Peep, Andy’s Mom, and Hannah (the infant sister). All definite supporting characters. Andy’s Mom and Hannah are barely there, and Bo Peep is little more than a cute flirtation gag.

  2. A Bug’s Life: More women, but more characters overall, also: Princess Atta, Princess Dot, The Queen, Gypsy Moth, and Rosie the Black Widow. It’s still a male-dominated cast — even the ladybug is a boy (it’s a great gag, but when looked at from this context, suddenly it’s not as funny).

  3. Toy Story 2: Jesse, Mrs. Potato Head, Tour Guide Barbie, Bo Peep, Andy’s Mom, and Hannah. Jesse, admittedly, is a wonderful character, but still definitely a supporting character — this is still Woody and Buzz’s story. The other additions are an overbearing housewife and a dim blonde. As Prairie said, “Hooray for womankind!”

  4. Monsters, Inc.: Boo, Celia (Mike’s Medusa-like girlfriend), and Roz (the supervisor/secretary). An infant, a neglected love interest, and a stereotypical crone of a secretary (voiced by a man, no less).

  5. Finding Nemo: Dory, Peach (the starfish), Deb/Flo (the fish whose ‘sister’ is her reflection in the tank), and Coral (Nemo’s mom). Dory’s certainly a major character in the film, but still essentially a supporting character (this is, after all, Marlin and Nemo’s story)…and she’s addled to boot. Sweet, lovable, and funny…but addled.

  6. The Incredibles: Helen Parr (Elastigirl), Mrs. Hogenson (who?), Violet, Mirage, Edna Mode, Kari (the babysitter), and Honey (Frozone’s wife). To date, Helen is Pixar’s strongest female character, and the closest they’ve come to a female lead, but again, the movie is about how Bob (Mr. Incredible) adjusts to the changing circumstances in his world. We certainly can’t ignore Honey, who is only present as a voice haranguing Frozone as he tries to find his costume.

  7. Cars: Sally’s the only female character in any of the previews. According to the IMDB, there’s also a Lizzie and a Flo. Until the movie appears, we won’t really know just how strong of a character Sally is, but the trailers make it obvious that this is, once again, a boy’s movie (to the point that Prairie isn’t looking forward to Cars as much as she has other Pixar films, due to the automotive theme).

  8. Ratatouille: This one’s so early in development that the only definite information to date is that it’s about “a rat named Ratatouille who lives in a upmarket Parisian restaurant run by an eccentric chef.”

To date, there’s not a single Pixar film that has a female main character: The Incredibles comes the closest, but even there, both Helen Parr/Elastigirl and Violet are supporting characters, and it’s Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible that’s the hero. Look at the ‘poster wall’ on Pixar’s website. None of the poster designs feature a female character…even the rollover effects exclude every female character save Dory.

As Prairie pointed out to me, where there are plenty of Disney films that girls can spend hours playing and pretending to be the Disney Princesses in (most of them, at least), there isn’t a single Pixar film that she would have wanted to play as a child.

While some might argue that Disney as a whole is sexist, I don’t quite see that. Disney’s older works are often based on traditional fairy tales, where the missing mother/evil step-mother is an integral part of the tale (as is the handsome prince coming to the rescue); newer films have been much better. Tarzan, for instance: while Jane’s mom is conspicuously missing (presumably permanently, and not just left behind in England, as Jane’s father cheerfully joins her in remaining in Africa) and Tarzan’s parents (mother and father) are killed, Kala is a very strong and loving mother figure, and Jane — like Megara, Mulan and Kida before her — is a deliciously strong woman in her own right.

It’s a pity that, as one commenter posited on the Feministing weblog, movie studios in general are both constrained by and unwilling to challenge what appears to be a very male-dominated movie audience, even for children’s movies.

The two big reasons for the dearth of females in G-rated films are that a lot of the source material (childrens’ books, fairly tales) feature male protagonists, and more importantly, a number of very well-made childrens’ films featuring female protagonists underperformed at the box office (A Little Princess, Matilda, Because of Winn-Dixie…), leading a lot of executives to believe that boys won’t watch films with female protagonists. So while studio executives bear a large measure of responsibility for not pushing harder, they’re also reacting to the market in this case.

So how about it, Pixar? You’ve shown the world that not only does Disney not have a lockdown on animated films, but that “children’s” films can be made that are good family films as well, rather than aiming the films so low that the unfortunate parents have to grit their teeth for an hour and a half whenever they take their kids to the movies. For over a decade now (since Toy Story‘s debut in 1995), you’ve consistently produced some of the best films — not just animated films, or children’s films, but best films — around.

How about letting the girls in to play as well?

iTunes “Another World” by Beborn Beton from the album Tales From Another World (1997, 4:25).

Of abnormal psychology and meeting women

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Many years ago, Royce and Jana (the “untamed librarian,” in Royce’s words) were taking an abnormal psychology class together.

One slow day, they decided to relieve their in-class boredom by stringing together every symptom they could think of into one long word…then figure out what it meant.

The result:

Pseudocoitoxenohematomysonecropyrobestioacroclaustro-ochlohydrophobia: The fear of being forced to pretend to have sex with the unfamiliar bloody infected corpse of a flaming animal at 15,000 feet in a small crowded wading pool.

Later on, when I was hanging out in the Yahoo chat rooms, I attempted to use this for a screen name, but it was far too long. Instead, I pared it down to pyropedonecrobestiality, and used that as my default chat name. One day the name caught the eye of someone else in the chat room, who figured that anyone who’d use that for a name had to have both a sense of humor and a few brain cells to rub together, and they struck up a conversation…

…and that’s how Prairie and I first started talking. Eventually (after somewhere over a year) we actually met in person, and things gradually went on from there, but at least at the beginning…

Yup.

I met my girlfriend because the chat name I was using declared that I was sexually aroused by having intercourse with the flaming corpse of an underaged puppy.

Bet’cha there’s not too many people who can make that claim when asked how they met their significant other.

iTunes “Mind Your Own Business” by Pigface from the album Easy Listening… (2002, 3:25).

6,000+ Pictures

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I’ve just passed the 6,000 picture mark in my Flickr account…I figure I’m averaging about 10 pictures a day uploaded. Can anyone say photo whore? ;)

This, then, is picture number 6,000:

Cal Anderson Ducks

Ducklings! Cute widdle fuzzy ducklings looking at their fuzzy widdle tummies!

Excuse me…I need an insulin shot now.

First Time in Five Years

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Every so often, I get the urge to hack off my face fuzz. Most of the time, I manage to talk myself out of it — I don’t really look my age most of the time to begin with (or act it, but that’s a different matter), and going clean-shaven just makes me look even younger.

However, every few years I actually get up the nerve to see just how goofy I look without the beard. The last time was five years ago (and no photos exist of that round), so I figured it was finally time to give it another shot.

Me Without Face Fuzz

End result — well, I definitely look younger…the most popular estimate has been somewhere around 20 or 21 (which really isn’t bad at all for a guy who just turned 33). It’s hard for me to look at myself without thinking I look goofy this way, but I’ve been assured that I look fine, and that it’s probably just me being so unused to looking like this.

I still think that I’ll be letting the beard grow back in rather than stay like this.

iTunes “Keep On the Sunny Side” by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The from the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972, 4:27).

Mother’s Day

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It’s late in the day, so most won’t read this until the day after, but…happy Mother’s Day to all the various moms I know (and, for that matter, all those that I don’t know). My own mom is, of course, right at the top of that list. Other important moms that I know of: my sister-in-law Emily; my aunts Pam and Susan; Prairie’s mom Char; my friends Erika, and Melissa…and I’m sure there are more that I might be able to bring to mind if it weren’t just after eleven at night. ;)

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you.

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