The female team members are often shown as being more capable then the males, both as combatants and as scientists. Gogo Tomago , and Honey Lemon, are two bright, young scientists who exhibit strength of mind, body, and will. During a training montage, Gogo uses the phrase “woman up” to encourage one of her teammates to do better. This was a great, subversive line because it flowed naturally from the character and the context, rather than seeming like a forced injection of faux-feminism.
U.S. release poster.
This repost by Andé Morgan appears as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.
Big Hero 6(2014) is a cinematic snack, lighter fare to counterbalance heavier offerings like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar(2014), much in the same way that Wall-E(2008) contrasts with The Terminator(1984), or a pile of disgusting feces compares with Jack and Jill (2011). Still, the film does touch on universal themes that adults will appreciate: the trials of adolescence, grief, our wonder at science, and our fear of unrestrained technological development.
Other recent Disney animated films, like Planes: Fire and Rescue (2014), and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day (2014), were not, for good reason, box office or critical darlings. But Big Hero 6 is different — it’s an offspring of Disney’s 2009 union with Marvel. Like Guardians of the Galaxy(2014), Big Hero 6 draws on a little-known corner of the Marvel universe. Directors Don Hall and Chris Williams took the heart of that original comic and created a Happy-Meal-ready sequel factory. Thankfully, they left the spandex boob socks and impractical armor behind.
Yeah, this is OG Gogo Tomago…
The story is set in the fictional city of “San Fransokyo.” While the name is a bit clumsy, the visual fusion of Bay Area landmarks and American and Asian architecture is beautifully done. The influence of Japanese comics and science fiction is tastefully overprinted on all the animation, and it works. I wish I could say the same for the character design. While adequate, it suffers from the same Disney animation facial blandness found in Frozen (2013) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
This should be IRL.
If you’ve ever seen a Disney animated movie, particularly one of the more recent ones, then you already know the plot beats to Big Hero 6. This is too bad, because after establishing an interesting origin story, screenwriters Robert Baird, Daniel Gerson, and Jordan Roberts let the effort devolve into a decidedly unoriginal superheroes vs. villain story. Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) is a 14-year-old orphan (of course) and robotics prodigy, although the puffy robotic heart of the film is Baymax (Scott Adsit), who resembles (at least to this child of the 80s) a futuristic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Despite an appearance that may appear androgynous to Westerners, Hiro is definitely a male protagonist, and this is definitely not Frozen. However, gender plays little role in his actions or interactions, and this is where the film really shines.
After rescuing Hiro from certain doom, his brother, Tadashi (Daniel Henney), takes Hiro to the robotics lab at the local R1 university. There he meets Tadashi’s friends and fellow students (who will later become his wrecking crew) and the department head, Professor Callaghan (James Cromwell). Hiro is impressed by the tech, and very badly wants to join Tadashi in college. In order to gain entrance, he competes in a pro-level science fair. He wins, of course, but tragedy ensues and sets the stage for the rest of the movie.
The cast of characters is diverse. In a subtle and pleasantly subversive move, the only white male characters of note are the “villains.” The Black character, Wasabi (flatly voiced by Damon Wayans), did come off a little token-ish, but it’s hard to level that accusation considering the diversity of the entire cast. Also, I have to credit the writers for avoiding race or gender-based humor throughout. This film does not have exceptional voice acting, animation, or story, but it does stand out in one other major way: the relative parity between male and female characters. And I don’t just mean numerical parity, I mean parity in the intent and essence of the roles.
From left to right: Fred, Gogo, Baymax, Hiro, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi.
Several main characters, and an important ancillary character, are women. Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph), is Hiro and Tadashi’s guardian. She’s a single mother, and not once does she complain about it. No references are made to some horrible tragedy involving her former husband; there are no jokes about her wanting a man. Rather, she’s shown as a happy, competent business owner and caretaker.
The female team members are often shown as being more capable then the males, both as combatants and as scientists. Gogo Tomago (Jamie Chung), and Honey Lemon (Génesis Rodríguez), are two bright, young scientists who exhibit strength of mind, body, and will. During a training montage, Gogo uses the phrase “woman up” to encourage one of her teammates to do better. This was a great, subversive line because it flowed naturally from the character and the context, rather than seeming like a forced injection of faux-feminism. Also of note, the villain’s daughter, Abigail (Katie Holmes), is depicted as a brave test pilot, and her fate is key to the film’s climax.
Big Hero 6 will most strongly appeal to older kids. The heavier questions may be lost on younger children, and some of the fight and chase scenes are a bit violent (bloodless, and no more so than similar films) and frenetic. Adults will (or at least should) appreciate the themes, the gender equity, and the racial diversity of the characters. Most importantly, the film excels at imparting a sense of wonder about science. By showing strong, capable female characters, this film will, I hope, encourage both girls and boys to develop an interest in science.
The film has a trim 102-minute running time, so a six-minute appetizer, Feast (2014), precedes it. The story is told from the visual perspective of a young Boston Terrier, and quickly jumps from a series of hungry-dog sight gags to a saccharine love-marriage-baby-carriage parable. Despite having the look of an experimental short, the animation and the story are deliberate, targeted, and all conventional Disney fluff.
So bad men and flawed women are killed, and ultimately, the alpha male uses violence to save his woman-property (Sharon), the chaste mother, and the child. Pod People would be just another 80’s Spanish mockbuster if not for one glimmer of a redeeming female character: Trumpy’s mother. Compelling female monsters are rare; most tend to be some variation of the sexy flawed woman, the sexy vampire/succubus, or the sexy space woman. Trumpy’s mom doesn’t fit the sexy cliché.
I was born in the 80’s, and the 80’s are in me. When I hear that harem pants are back, I’m all like “XXL in gold lamé, please.” Watching a bad 80’s science fiction movie is like being born again: loud, frightening, painful, and (ultimately) so worth it. From Escape From New York to Robocop, cheesy 80’s movies have an essential optimism that often defies the best dark intentions of their screenwriters and production designers. Maybe this was due to subconscious anticipation of the “digital cinematography” revolution? Of course, 80’s movies also often contain a startling amount of misogyny, sexism, chauvinism, homophobia, and racism. This is unfortunate, but useful in its own way. Just as negative space is useful for defining an object, bad movies are useful for defining what a good movie isn’t. The Pod People is a negative space movie.
You may be familiar with Pod People from the third season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (ep. 0303, really the best way to watch it). Originally released as Los Nuevos Extraterrestres in Spain in 1983, Pod People answers the question: what if E.T., but they’re a psychopath? Directed by Juan Piquer Simón and starring a smorgasbord of European actors, this movie is ranked #28 on IMDB’s Bottom 100 list.
The Pod People movie poster
The film open on several men (poachers, we learn hours and hours and hours later) driving into the woods to poach. A bright light streaks across the sky and crashes to Earth, prompting one of the men to investigate (on his own, of course). He finds a cave glowing with unholy red light; inside he finds a clutch of large eggs. Inexplicably offended, he proceeds to destroy them, but is slain by a POV monster before the last, portentous, egg can be smashed.
Tommy (Óscar Martín) is a child living in isolation in the forest with his subservient mother Molly (Concha Cuetos) and his curmudgeonly uncle, Bill (Manuel Pereiro). While out collecting bugs, he finds the cave and brings the surviving egg home. The egg hatches and overnight the spawn grows as large as Tommy. He names it “Trumpy” because it looks like an abbreviated elephant. Trumpy impresses Tommy with some bootleg E.T. stop-motion psychokinesis. Meanwhile, Rick (Ian Sera) and his so-called bandmates Brian (Emilio Linder), Kathy (Sara Palmer), Sharon (Nina Ferrer), and Tracy (Maria Albert) stop at Tommy’s house for help after honorary band member Lara (Susanna Bequer) is injured in a fall while running from Mother Monster.
Trumpy’s mom soon goes on to kill another poacher, as well as bandmates Brian and Tracy. Eventually, Trumpy’s mother sneaks into the house and kills Kathy while she’s taking a shower. Summoned by the screaming, Bill wounds Trumpy’s mom with a rifle. The remaining men pursue the alien as she retreats to the woods. Trumpy, hiding through all this, then reappears in the house, frightening Molly and Sharon . Molly tries to shoot Trumpy, but Tommy shields the alien while they exit out the back door. Molly and Sharon follow Tommy into the woods. Trumpy and his mother have a quick reunion before she is shot to death by Rick (at least she gets to kill Bill first). Trumpy recedes into the bush, and the survivors return to the cabin. The end.
Like I said, this was a bad movie. It featured poor lighting, creepy dubbing, questionable continuity, and jarring scene changes. I will say that it’s amazing the they were able to make Trumpy and his mother so damned creepy on such a low budget.
Trumpy
Unexpectedly, the movie actually passes the Bechdel test. Technically. Midway through, Tracy and Molly share a scene where they discuss cooking. However, since this dialogue occurs in the context of a conversation about attracting men, one might argue that it doesn’t count. Later, there is a short bit of dialogue where Sharon admonishes Kathy against taking a shower while a killer is on the loose (a good idea, it turned out).
Pod People is a trove of clichéd horror and alien movie tropes, and this certainly applies to the portrayals of the female characters. We see Molly, the subservient mother figure, focused entirely on caring for the Man, Uncle Bill (Her brother? Her late husband’s brother? Some guy? Thanks for the help, movie) or the Child, Tommy. Her chaste devotion keeps her upright through the last frame. By contrast, Lara the Slut/Rich Bitch is depicted as a grown woman with the mind of child, which makes the earnest delivery of her sex-focused dialogue extra creepy. She shows no guilt over insinuating herself into camping trip for the sole purpose of sexy times with Rick, even though she knows that Sharon (Rick’s girlfriend) will be there and is not about that polyamory life. Of course, as punishment for her entitlement and sluttery, Lara is the first of the bandmates to die.
Tracy is the Ugly Girl/Odd Duck. Unlike the other women, she is not paired up with a male character, and spends almost all of her screen time lamenting about how she can’t attract a man. She meets her end in the back of a motorhome, while Tommy looks on through a telescope. It was an unsettling scene to watch. Even the crew of the SOL note that Tracy’s death scene seems…rapey. After the screaming and gyrations subside, her lifeless body is thrown from the camper like so much trash. Kathy’s death, by way of an extraterrestrial POV variation on the Psycho-Shower scene, is less disturbing but leaves another young, female character just as dead.
Sharon survives. Throughout the movie she is little more than a prop, prone to arguing and alternatively pursued or spurned by Rick. If the first act, when she learns the Lara will be coming on the camping trip, there is a scene where Rick silences her protests by grabbing her upper arms with his meat hooks and forcible pulling her in for kiss. Simón probably this would come across as romantic, because women love to be sexually assaulted, right?
So bad men and flawed women are killed, and ultimately, the alpha male uses violence to save his woman-property (Sharon), the chaste mother, and the child. Pod People would be just another 80’s Spanish mockbuster if not for one glimmer of a redeeming female character: Trumpy’s mother. Compelling female monsters are rare; most tend to be some variation of the sexy flawed woman, the sexy vampire/succubus, or the sexy space woman. Trumpy’s mom doesn’t fit the sexy cliché. Understandably angry about the mindless murder of her unborn progeny, her initial attempts at contact with humanity are met with screams and violent gestures. It’s no wonder she lashes out. She’s a strikingly sympathetic character, and I found myself rooting for her to just nuke the whole planet from orbit. Maybe in the sequel, Pod Peoples?
Andé Morgan writes about culture, politics, race, and LGBTQ issues. Her perspective stems from a life spent always on the boundary: white and black, rich and poor, masculine and feminine. She takes shelter under the transgender umbrella.
Check out her blog, NoAccommodation, and tweets at @noaccommodation and @andemorgan.
Mattie wears dark, loose, practical clothing. She climbs trees and carries weapons. She shows utter disdain for male privilege or La Boeuf’s pervy allusions to sexual contact. She has no interest in the older men for romance or protection. She is only concerned with their usefulness to her task, and she uses her will and her reasoning rather than seduction to convince them. Steinfeld’s Mattie emanates competence and confidence.
Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross
This cross-post by Andé Morgan previously appeared at her blog No Accommodation and appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.
Enter the Wayback Machine in your mind and go back to 2011. This was an era with only one Smurfs and only two Hangovers. More original fare like Rango and Super 8 was somewhat overshadowed by superhero movies, which were HUGE, and the sequelmatic masterpieces that were Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That’s OK, originality is overrated. For example, my favorite wide release of late 2010-early 2011 was True Grit. Based on the 1968 serial novel by Charles Portis, True Grit the movie had been done by The Duke in 1969. And by done I mean it did well; it was a financial and critical success and gave John Wayne his only Oscar. Nevermind that the script was less than faithful to the source material, or that Mammon possessed Paramount to spawn a horrific sequel, Rooster Cogburn.
Let me get my bias out front: I am a fan of the Coen Brothers, but I don’t always drink the Kool-Aid (am I the only person who thought Fargo and No Country for Old Men were just OK?). However, I loved True Grit. I don’t think it is hyperbole to call it a masterpiece. It represents an increasingly rare combination of excellent screenwriting, gripping cinematography, high production value, and masterful acting in a wide release film. Its story of vengeance is timeless, but the setting is as uniquely American as apple pie, Duck Dynasty, and gun violence.
To summarize: in the American Old West (Oklahoma and Arkansas were part of the Old West in 1877), Mattie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld in the 2010 film) loses her father when he is murdered by his hired hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She enlists the help of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) to bring the fugitive Chaney to justice. Because she is an adolescent female, no one takes her seriously until the strength of her persistence wins out. Vengeance is hers in the end, but not without cost.
All of the incarnations of True Grit are popular fodder for analysis from a feminist perspective not only because it is well-known and well-respected as an “American” story, but also because it is an unusual story. It features a young, female protagonist with a single-minded focus on violent vengeance. Any analysis would be remiss to ignore that a) the serial was written in 1968, and Portis would undoubtedly be aware of the second-wave feminist movement and b) the 2010 film was written, directed, and produced by the Coen Brothers, who know how to do subtle development of nuanced characters and big-picture themes. The original 1969 film is less profitable for analysis. In their hurry to cash in on the popularity of the novel and John Wayne, the studio focused on the Rooster character. Mattie (referred to as a “tomboy” by promotional materials of the time) exists as a novelty and a variation on the damsel in distress.
While the 2010 film does pass the Bechdel Test on the slightest of technicalities, no one is going to confuse it with Melancholia. The plot of True Grit is an interesting variation of the Women in Fridges meme because the roles are a reversal of the usual young female victim and older male protagonist structure. In this way Mattie is much more of a Dark Knight than a Marvelous fighting fuck toy. The overarching patriarchal heterosexist concern is obvious: neither children nor women are allowed to crave bloody vengeance. Vengeance is a privilege reserved for good-but-violent men whose women-property are raped or destroyed.
Mattie wears dark, loose, practical clothing. She climbs trees and carries weapons. She shows utter disdain for male privilege or La Boeuf’s pervy allusions to sexual contact. She has no interest in the older men for romance or protection. She is only concerned with their usefulness to her task, and she uses her will and her reasoning rather than seduction to convince them. Steinfeld’s Mattie emanates competence and confidence.
While many in the blogosphere were quick to use Mattie’s stoicism, blood lust, and independence as examples of why True Grit should be considered a feminist movie, others, such as Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency, have remarked that those same attributes argue against that designation. Rather, the adoption of these characteristics by a female protagonist constitutes an enshrinement of male privilege and traditional action-movie-masculine vales rather than an assertion of feminist values. By contrast, a feminist True Grit would emphasize cooperation, empathy, and non-violent conflict resolution. Without delving into the deeper arguments raised by this argument (e.g., what exactly are feminist values and are they necessarily exclusive of all traditionally masculine values), I can say that my initial reaction was to agree with Sarkeesian. Too often we see action movies that “counterbalance” a “masculine” (and usually secondary) female character by either putting her in a skin-tight suit, giving her a fatal personality flaw, or by implying that she is worthy of death for her perceived masculinity (I’m looking at you, Kick-Ass 2).
Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn
However, after some reflection I tend to agree more with Amanda Marcotte’s argument that True Grit should not be analyzed in the same way as more typical westerns or action movies. The subtleties in the source material and in the Coen Brothers’ delivery lend themselves to deeper interpretation. True Grit comments on many things: the unfair treatment of Native Americans (the hanging scene); the corruption of justice in our legal system (the courtroom scene); and the fact that there is often very little space between the “bad” and the “good” in this world (Chaney’s dialogue with Mattie at the creek and mine; Ned’s dialogue with Rooster).
As Marcotte points out, to understand the commentary on the development of Mattie as a young woman, we must look to the ending. Marcotte notes the shared symbology of Rooster’s missing eye and (adult) Mattie’s missing arm. By engaging in violence and by accepting the traditionally masculine values of vengeance, both Mattie and Rooster literally and figuratively lost part of themselves. As viewers, we are left to wonder: did Mattie’s consumption by vengeance as a young woman rob her of spiritual wholeness in adulthood? Does the adult Mattie feel that she was wrong to pursue vengeance? I do disagree with Marcotte’s assertion that True Grit is a feminist movie because the bleakness of the ending serves as an ultimate repudiation of traditional action-movie-masculine values. Instead, I see the ending as commentary on the infectious, long-lasting, and ultimately detrimental nature of violence as a human trait. Consequently, I conclude that while Mattie Ross may be considered a feminist character (loosely) True Grit is neither a feminist movie nor a movie that reinforces the patriarchal heterosexist narrative. It is a human condition movie, and one worth watching.
As for Hallie Steinfeld, she’s been getting work, and recently played Petra Arkanin in the film adaption of Ender’s Game. I’d like to see it, but damn you Orson Scott Card!
Andé Morgan’s perspective stems from a life spent always on the boundary: white and black, rich and poor, masculine and feminine. She takes shelter under the transgender umbrella.
