It's the middle of the night

[velvetpage]

And I have links for you. So there!
Dear Pixar, please make a movie about a girl who isn't a princess

On Rape and Men, which all the wonderful men on my friends list still need to read. I truly believe that most of you are That Guy, and like some of the commenters said, it's pretty sad that I feel the need to acknowledge guys as good just for not being raging dickheads.

Comments

[starry-midnight.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure what I think about the first one...is it a plea to Pixar because they know that Pixar makes really good movies and therefore could handle it well? They seems like a strange company to aim a letter at, since the grand majority of their female characters are very empowered. *shrug* I'll reread it in the morning.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

From my own dim recollection of "Pixar films", I honestly don't remember female characters being empowered to be anything more than the best darned supporting characters they could be. To me, this is only part of the journey.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I think that's the point - their female characters are empowered but in the background. They never take centre stage. Every single one of their movies to date has its main characters, or two, imagined and voiced as males, even if they're animals. And because they're so close, it would be nice to see them actually star a female character. And I'm getting very tired of princess themes, personally. I want my girls to have media role models that don't revolve around their father being a king.

[starry-midnight.livejournal.com]

Why is it so important though that their media role models be animated? There are a tremendous amount of real life female role models (which always always stuck with me longer than girls in movies when I was little...and come on, you know what a Disney nut I am) to expose your girls to. There are a lot of movies about these women and then when they get older, books.

I understand the point...I will gladly point out every last flaw with the Princess deal and other females aimed at young girls.

I do not have children of my own, but my cousins girls are like my own and I strive to expose them to strong, capable female role models (especially considering the grand majority of completely skanky useless females they are exposed to on a daily basis) so I understand...I just think there are better things to contemplate

It's not so much to me about whether or not the main character is male or female but it's about the journey, the story, the experience. So, so long as it's promoting something positive in our children and ourselves...and getting them to engage and think and we are doing our duty to expose our girls and boys to real life female role models, then for the most part all is well. We're a long way off from perfect and mainstream media is even further behind but it's okay. We can challenge ourselves and our children to look beyond that...to find the treasures in biographies and real people whose stories media never saw fit to animate or develop into a miniseries. We are becoming complacent if our concern is that major film companies are not exposing our daughters to the kind of role models we want them to have. You know?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I think what you're saying is, "Pixar does better than most with good messages, so we might as well be thankful and move on to other things."

I don't think it's out of line to ask a major filmmaker to produce pictures that will show women in starring roles as strong characters, since they already show women in secondary roles as strong characters. I don't like complacency and I believe in letting companies know how I feel about their products. How else are we to get truly representative media works, if the companies think nobody wants them?

As for role models - Elizabeth wants to be a screen writer when she grows up. Movies are her medium and I would like to see better representation there. I will certainly expose her to great women in other ways. But it's wrong that boys can find strong, worthy characters everywhere they look, and girls have to seek them out.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Why is it so important though that their media role models be animated?

Animated films get ideas into a child's mind "through the backdoor," if you will. Yes, there are real live women out there who are great role models. But not everybody notices that.

But having the idea of a woman as strong, independent, and able to chart her own path in life, and slipping it into a child's subconscious through animated entertainment gets the idea in without anybody pointing it out. It also gets the idea in in spite of nobody pointing it out. A parent who doesn't believe in equality may ignore the message in the cartoon because it is a cartoon.

(That's my opinion. Here's a grain of salt.)

[daednu.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!!!!!
I would love to see a main character to a movie like the girl in UP. I'd love to see the movie be about her instead. And have it not be that at the end she realizes she's beautiful and flounces about in dresses and gives up all else.

I would support a movie like that so hardcore. I'd take a whole gaggle of little girls to see it.

*crossing fingers*

[mockingbirdq.livejournal.com]

Can I just say I wish, wish, wish that Ellie had appeared beyond the first 10 minutes of the film UP? Because, my god, I loved little Ellie and a character like her - who doesn't change to girly and beautiful in the end- is exactly the kind of female lead I would want in a Pixar movie.

BTW, Pixar has plans for a movie with a female lead - but she is a princess :P

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I know. It's depressing.

The only thing I didn't like about Bolt was that the dog was male, protecting female Penny. Penny was a capable person in the show, but they could have made it that much less stereotypical if Penny had been male and Bolt female.

[daednu.livejournal.com]

That's why I was careful to say like the Ellie character, not just a female lead. ;)
I saw that princess trailer just before UP. I was hoping my daughter wouldn't ask me to take her. I'm so NOT into the princess thing.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

If you want good quality animated films that feature female protagonists, I humbly recommend that you look at the works of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I wouldn't call them feminist, but they do have female protagonists, compelling stories, wonderful production values, and don't seem to me to have the same kind of odious subtext that I perceive in most modern Disney projects.

Oh, and by and large, Miyazaki's heroines aren't Princesses either; in specific cases, they are "people of note" (Nausicaa), or even called Princess (Mononoke-Hime), but they don't really have the same kind of role-loading that the traditional western "so there's this girl who's a Princess" has, as far as I can tell.

Highly, highly, highly recommended for children and adults, and Disney's Region 1 releases on DVD are high-quality (thank heavens that Miyazaki struck the deal he did with Disney: basically saying, if you want any of my films, you'll be committing to releasing "them all", preserving their original theatrical aspect ratio, and their original audio track, where "them all" is probably a larger percentage of them than Disney would really have an interest in, strictly on the financials).

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'll look into those, thanks.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Arthur loves My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, and has seen Kiki's Delivery Service as well, though seemed to find that one a bit less exciting (it didn't hold his attention all the way through, though I think it's charming!) We're waiting a bit on Mononoke as I recall it being slightly more violent than the others; I haven't seen Nausicaa, so don't know if he would like it or not. Howl's Moving Castle is also very good, though quite different from the book on which it's based. All of these films have female protagonists, none of the first three are princesses or of high status - the first two are basically ordinary middle-class Japanese girls who are put into unusual circumstances, while Kiki is a young witch-in-training, though in a modern-type setting rather than high fantasy. Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle is a middle-class girl who is magically transformed into an old woman for much of the movie.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I found Spirited Away to be creepy, and I think it might give Claire nightmares (and possibly Elizabeth too, though she may be able to handle it now.) Totoro they've seen at a friend's house, I think.

[mockingbirdq.livejournal.com]

I thought Spirited Away would be too scary, especially since Fox is rather sensitive, but he loved it!

Still, he likes Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky and my Neighbor Totoro most. Pon Poco and Whispers of the Heart he also enjoyed.

He did not like Howl's Moving Castle much, and I didn't either, mainly because I dislike the books that it was based on. He was scared of some parts of Mononoke Hime as well.

I think it is simply the fact that the child characters seem very strong and independent, and there is such a sense of peace in Miyazaki's films that appeal to children.

We do try to find anime with strong female characters as well. Fox loves Card Captor Sakura, and wanted to be her last Halloween. However he changed his mind as I was wondering where to buy a yellow dress and wand.

For American cartoons with strong female leads, it is more difficult. He does like Kim Possible and Dora the Explorer.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I think you need to read some of the comments, because your issues with this were addressed in the post.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I read them both, the second one strikes pretty close to home. I have major trust issues when it comes to men :(

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

The second link has been tweeted and linked to in my LJ as well. Unfortunately, it vastly overshadows the first link, at least IMO.