Guest Writers – Page 24

Animated Children’s Films: The Tale of Despereaux

This is a guest review by Robert Poteete.

Out the gate, this movie shows a lot of promise with great animated sequences. There were plenty of visually interesting scenes, such as a giant soup-making Rube Goldberg machine, and an advisor spirit composed of vegetables. The movie also features a rat protagonist who breaks the stereotype of ‘rats are evil,’ and features a mouse protagonist who breaks the stereotype of ‘mice are cowardly.’ And Sigourney Weaver narrates.

But…

The story centers on rescuing a princess, and in a fairly banal way—there is no self-conscious humor at the fact that the passive princess isn’t much of a character, but rather an object of rescue. Oddly, while the princess-rescuing contains the climax, the central conflict of the story resolves through largely unrelated means. This begs the question as to why have a rescue the princess plot at all.

In summary of a convoluted plot, with liberal spoilers: The good rat Roscuro falls into the queen’s sacred soup, which apparently gives her a fatal heart attack. The king then falls into melancholy, which leads the kingdom to suffer bad weather, Fisher King style. The king’s daughter, a Princess named Pea (in the credits, but if she referred by any name other than Princess in the movie I must have missed it), helplessly complains about her father’s melancholy and the weather. Meanwhile, a brave mouse named Despereaux is born, and he chafes against a mouse society which prizes meekness and cowardice. We are also introduced to an overweight swineherd turned servant girl, Miggory Sow, who dreams of being a princess.

By reading forbidden books, Despereaux learns tales of chivalric knighthood and fancies himself a ‘gentleman.’ He meets the princess and falls in love with her beauty. He gets himself in trouble with his mouse society, gets banished from the mouse town, and ends up with the good rat Roscuro. Roscuro tries to emulate Despereaux’s bravery, fails, turns evil, and ropes Miggory Sow into a scheme to kidnap the Princess. Despereaux manages to save the princess, with the help of a reformed Roscuro. And in a largely unrelated subplot, a chef manages to recreate the sacred soup and make the king happy again.

If the plot sounds banal, the dialogue adds nothing. The writers follow the school of “tell, don’t show,” and so we hear about five times through narration how Despereaux the brave mouse believes in honor, truth, chivalry, etc., I suppose in case we forget. (I may watch it again, muted, to test the theory that the dialogue adds nothing, and I encourage the reader to try this as well if so inclined). On other occasions the narrator tells us how Despereaux teaches others the virtues of honor, truth, chivalry etc., and we the audience are likewise left out of how exactly he manages to do this.

The movie DOES pass the Bechdel Test, barely. In one scene the Princess spouts some platitudes at a servant seamstress (no name given). And the female protagonist, Miggory Sow, has some dialogue with the Princess.

On the subject of that female protagonist, because she deserves emphasis: the narrator tells us that Miggory Sow wants to be a princess. The animators decided to make Miggory ugly and identify her with pigs. It’s even in her name! Plus, she gets easily swayed into committing evil acts, because in ‘The Tale of Despereaux,’ ugly correlates with evil and propensity for evil. Have the writers not learned the supposed lesson of ‘Shrek,’ wherein ugliness is not a reflection of virtue?

A muddled moral at the end of the film purports to teach the value of forgiveness, because Roscuro the rat forgives the Princess (or vice versa? The movie makes it unclear), and this turns Roscuro back into a good guy after his brief and wildly successful stint of villainy. And the movie has a strange subplot involving a chef who can summon a magical vegetable-spirit, but this subplot does not get much development despite the fact that it resolves the central conflict of the film. How did the chef learn to summon a magical vegetable-spirit? The movie does not say.

The redeeming point of the movie is its lesson against fear. The heroic protagonist, the titular Despereaux, does not feel fear despite the traditions of his mouse society. That same mouse society does not understand his lack of fear, and labels him a threat to their social order. Despereaux is persecuted and punished, but in the end triumphs because of his courage, and returns to his society to teach them his ways.

But another disturbing trope abused by the movie is that while the ostensibly good-guy Mousetown is visually characterized as European, the evil Rat society is cast as strange and dark and cringingly “Oriental,” with a rat snake charmer, a fat rat borne in a litter (made from a skull!), and rat-odalisques serving disgusting food to lounging rat-satraps. (My partner, who watched the movie with me, argues that the rats represent a thinly-veiled parody of Communist Chinese society.)

Overall the movie contains heroic journeys for the three protagonists. By the end, of course, the inherent courage of the mouse and the reluctant goodness of the rat save the princess, but the actions of the peasant girl do not avail her at all. By accident, Miggory’s long-lost father rediscovers her, and she lives a happier peasant life after that, but she lacks any instrumental effect on the plot other than helping the rats kidnap the princess.

Considering ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ with the lens of how it presents sex/gender stereotypes to kids, it is pretty awful. The women are passive victims: male Roscuro tricks female Miggory into evil, she kidnaps the princess only through Roscuro’s direction, and then herself gets captured through trickery. (Miggory later gets saved… by her father. I see a pattern!). The princess’s virtue constantly conflates with her beauty, just as Miggory’s wickedness correlates with her ugliness. The male characters, on the other hand, act and are capable of heroism, and the movie defines them by their deeds.

On reflection, the movie could have easily avoided a large chunk of its offensive usage of sex/gender stereotypes. The titular hero Despereaux could have been female. A female character insisting on herself as a knight would have been more meaningful, as would her bucking a repressive society insisting on her meekness and cowardice. A female Despereaux would have worked better and been more convincing as an allegory for courage.

But I suppose the most damning criticism of the movie, shared by the children of a friend, is that it is boring. Chivalry really is dead! Thankfully.

—–

Robert Poteete lives in Los Angeles with his partner. He is a lawyer, and tries very hard to be honest about it. He loves comics and animation but cannot draw to save his life.

Animated Children’s Films: From the Archive: Howl’s Moving Castle and Male Adaptations of Female Work

This piece by Emily Belanger originally appeared in June 2011.

The first time I saw Howl’s Moving Castle, five or six years ago, I was delighted. I’d seen Spirited Away, but other than that I’d never seen any Miyazaki films, and as far as Miyazaki films go, HMC is a tad more accessible to Western audiences. Plus, they dubbed the animation so well that a friend convinced me the film was not, in fact, a translation, but that it had originally been done in English.

Well, that wasn’t true. It’s definitely a dubbed film. But I was surprised, a month ago, when my older sister handed me a copy of the book Howl’s Moving Castle and recommended I read it. She said it was a little like The Princess Bride, in that the book was different from the movie but still delightful. And delightful it was – but I was surprised by the ways the story and characters changed when it was transferred from a Welsh novel written by a woman, to a Japanese film directed by a man. Miyazaki did a fantastic job with the film, and I still love it, but his adaptation places more focus on male characters and all but strips Sophie of her power. On the flip side, the film complicates age and evil witches in a really interesting way. I want to make it clear up front that I don’t know enough about Japanese culture and Welsh culture to comment on how culture has impacted this transition. In fact, I haven’t even seen the movie undubbed. Accordingly, this review will compare a book that was published in English, to a version of the film that was released in English though Disney, and which was marketed to an American audience.

First of all, in the movie, Howl is the main event. He’s dashing and pretty, and he swoops into Sophie’s boring life to save her from the soldiers who are flirting with her. Yes, Sophie doesn’t really need saving from those men, and Howl in fact puts her into more danger when the Witch of the Waste sees him with her and decides to put a curse on her, but there’s still something heroic in the gesture. These heroics don’t show up so soon in the book – instead of scaring off unwanted suitors, Howl is the unwanted suitor. Sophie gets nervous when he tries to buy her a drink, so he chuckles, offers to escort her wherever she’s going, and backs off when she doesn’t want him to. And the Witch of the Waste doesn’t curse her because she’s seen with Howl – she curses her because of a misunderstanding and a mistaken identity. I can see why Miyazaki simplified the witch’s motivations here, mind you.

The Witch of the Waste is a complicated character in the book, in ways I won’t fully describe here, since I hope you’ll all read the book for yourselves. But I will say this: while the film complicates the idea of witches by turning the Witch of the Waste into a victim you can sympathize with, who is ultimately an ally, the book complicates the idea of witches in other ways by making Howl’s struggle into one where he’s trying to avoid becoming like the witch. She isn’t evil by virtue of being a powerful woman, (and every powerful woman in the movie is, in fact, evil – even the witch only turns good after losing her powers). She has turned evil over time because she made the same choice Howl made, and his only hope is to undo that choice before it hurts him like it hurt her.

And gaining power in the book doesn’t corrupt all female characters. While the movie carries a warning to all magical beings – all the other wizards and witches in the land are losing their humanity to war – the only witches we meet (Madam Suliman and The Witch of the Waste) use their power for evil, while the wizards we meet (Howl and his apprentice) use their magic to help people/ to hide. In the book, however, we meet several witches who are good, including Howl’s teacher, a woman who teaches magic to Sophie’s sister, and Sophie herself. Yeah, that’s right, Sophie herself has magical powers in the book. In fact, in the book Sophie is able to save Howl because of her magical powers, not because they’re in love – although they are.

And that last point transitions nicely into my last critique of the movie – the movie is more a love story, where the book is more a coming of age story. Accordingly, it follows traditional patterns of love stories in ways that downplay how powerful women are and play up how powerful men are, while also reinforcing the Beauty and the Beast myth that a virtuous woman can save a dark, brooding man from his animalistic nature. In the book, Sophie plays a huge role in defeating the evil force they fight toward the end. In the movie, it’s mostly Howl, and Sophie’s role pertains mostly to Howl’s heart, which, remember, she is moving through their emotional connection and not through her own power. To reiterate: in the movie, her power and influence are defined in relation to Howl, but in the book she has her own power.

Still, there’s a silver lining to all this: the movie and the book are both about a young woman who only finds herself after losing her youth. How feminawesome is that?? Also, the characters are interesting and fleshed out in both mediums, and the movie’s approach to war is interesting. And the animation and music – just incredible. So if you love the movie, I hope you keep on loving it. But take the time to read the book too so you can appreciate the powerful side to Sophie’s nature.

—–

Emily Belanger currently lives in Utah, where she’s completing an MFA in creative writing. When she isn’t writing fiction or teaching, she co-edits Not Another Wave, a feminist blog with an inclusive angle, and writes for Go Girl Magazine, a travel magazine for and by women. She’s originally from rural New Hampshire and misses the humidity very much.

Animated Children’s Films: Anthropomorphism and Sexism in Disney’s The Aristocats*

This is a guest post by Rhea Daniel.

Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, a wealthy retired opera singer, lives in Paris with her cat Duchess and her three kittens Marie, Toulouse and Berlioz. Edgar the butler is surprised to learn that Madame, with no living relatives, plans to bequeath her entire estate to her cats and he is only second in line, all this after his service to her over so many years. Now that is a little unfair, but since the audience’s loyalty would be with the cute set of Aristocats, he becomes the villain when he decides to get rid of cat and kittens at the outset, drugging them and depositing them somewhere outside Paris. Edgar, compared to De Vil, is a bit of diluted villain, so his undoing offers little entertainment. The fun part begins when the Aristocats meet Thomas, a self-professed cat of the free world and make their way back to Paris with his help, meeting many a quirky character on the way.

But (and it’s a big one) in spite of having my undying admiration, Disney almost always manages to do something wrong. Disney’s humanizing its animals is part of its charm, but with that comes the inevitable pressing of human laws of behavior on to the jungle world—take Colonel Hathi bellowing, “A female leading my herd? Utterly preposterous!” in The Jungle Book (1967). Alright, so the Aristocats are household pets, they ought to have absorbed some of the human characteristics of their owners, but then Disney has always been unapologetically sexist, telling from its girls-can’t-draw-but-girls-can-trace rejection letters to aspiring female animators in its early years. The Aristocats aren’t far out of reach of this Disney cliché either. In recent times they’ve been trying to right several wrongs, but they’re still in the process. So, on the insistence that some things are just because, anthropomorphism in Disney cartoons is, safe to say, not just a reflection of the human world but also a reflection of Disney’s sexism.

In the original idea, Duchess isn’t denied agency and protects her children by moving from house to house to escape the villains. But true to Disney law, Duchess does little in The Aristocats beyond flapping her paws and calling “Marie! Toulouse! Berlioz!” every time they get into trouble. Perhaps she’s not used to the rough and tumble of the world outside, being an Aristocat and everything, but do her natural instincts emerge over time? No. Thomas comes along to do most of the work. Though Duchess is curious about Thomas’ world, she is incapable of getting her Aristocatic paws dirty, even if it is to save her children.

At this part when Thomas makes his entrance, though Duchess responds positively to his flirtation, I find his serenading and circling and gawking a tad creepy. I’m unaware if this is a cat ritual, but it so closely resembles human ones that I can’t help but judge Thomas as a bit of a creep. Duchess welcomes the attention with eye contact and by washing herself and giving that trademark Disney lowered eyelashes look. I notice that while her motherly instincts are conspicuously missing (aside from a few gentle admonishments) her sexual ones are intact, especially with her kids nearby. It would all be okay if little Marie didn’t think it was all terribly romantic. It’s cute and harmless when Marie is trying to be like her mother, but not when it’s a child made to imitate adult artifice with no idea of the consequences. We see the same behavior with Shanti in The Jungle Book (1967), pretending to drop her pot as Mowgli is ‘lured’ by her into the Man Village. In the making-of documentary it is revealed that it was what Walt, who took active interest in the making of The Jungle Book before his death, required**. The Aristocats was made after his death but wasn’t too far from his influence, so I take it that this recurring female characteristic is Walt’s legacy. I was a fan of Disney well into my late teens, a large poster of The Little Mermaid (1989) adorning the wall of my room, but as an adult I couldn’t bear to watch it. What changed? Could it possibly the cult built around the Disney Princess, that virginal but seductive monument to girlhood that always seemed unattainable? It seems Disney in 1970 was oblivious to the second-wave feminist movement, still upholding the image of the nymphet. Now that we’ve been screaming it off the rooftops at every opportunity, hopefully they’ve got wind of it.

Which brings me to the second annoying aspect of the movie—Marie. As I watch Marie reinforce her weakness again and again, falling off an automobile, falling into the water, I feel it necessary to point out that her brothers are as the same level of maturity and motor-skill development, so it’s obvious that Marie is chosen to be the weakest link—an essential quality for the lady-in-training. I feel some relief as Marie stands her ground against her brothers when she becomes an object of their derision. Could it be, that in spite of the popular notion that little girls ought to primp, preen and be weak, Marie’s creators have managed to let a bit of spirit trickle into her? They fail again, for if the incorrigible little girl is loud and defensive, it is because she is spoilt, and the adorable Marie, being an aristocat, is definitely spoilt. I ponder a bit longer and look for some respite, but notice a conspicuous lack of female alley cats in that ode to Cathood, Everybody wants to be a Cat. In the real world, an ever-lovin’ female cat of the free world, living off scraps is a troublesome character to deal with. Taking anthropomorphism in all seriousness, she would probably be unkempt, pregnant, a prostitute, or all–not very good kiddy-toon material. If a romanticized feral female feline managed to make it through to the final edit, she would pose, and this I say only within popular notions of how females function, a threat to Duchess. I only consider this briefly as Duchess is regarded with a worshipful gaze yet again and there is no other female to disrupt the feline brotherhood.

Thomas is a wonderful father and the British geese add an entertaining subplot, but as you can see, I had issues with this film, perhaps a bit much? It is after all, a cartoon, an oldish one, reeking of the biases of a now dead dude whose work I can’t help but admire. I’ll justify this with a quote from Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree Jr.)***:

“Consider how odd it would be if all we knew about elephants had been written by elephants. Would we recognise one? What elephant author would describe — or perhaps even perceive — the features which are common to all elephants? We would find ourselves detecting these from indirect clues; for instance, elephant-naturalists would surely tell us that all other animals suffer from noselessness, which obliges them to use their paws in an unnatural way. […] So when the human male describes his world he maps its distances from his unspoken natural center of reference, himself. He calls a swamp “impenetrable,” a dog “loyal” and a woman “short.””

*I’ve deliberately left out the racist stereotyping in The Aristocats because it’s already been addressed in several reviews.

** But the general opinion is that it was tastefully done, so it’s a non-issue.

*** Stolen from here

Rhea got to see a lot of movies as a kid because her family members were obsessive movie-watchers. She frequently finds herself in a bind between her love for art and her feminist conscience. Meanwhile she is trying to be a better writer and artist and you can find her at http://rheadaniel.blogspot.com/

Animated Children’s Films: Why I’m Excited About Pixar’s ‘Brave’ & Its Kick-Ass Female Protagonist…Even If She Is Another Princess

Disney Pixar’s Brave, in theatres June 2012

This is a cross-post from The Opinionesss of the World.

A few days ago, Disney’s Pixar released its trailer for its newest animated film, Brave. Why is this such a huge deal? Why am I so freaking excited to see it?? Because out of the 12 films Pixar has produced, not one has featured a female protagonist. Not one. Until now.

Pixar’s first fairy tale, Brave follows the story of Princess Merida, voiced by Kelly McDonald (Boardwalk Empire, No Country for Old Men). I know. You’re probably thinking ANOTHER princess?! Young girls are entrenched in sexist princess culture. But trust me, this one’s a bit different.

In the Scottish Highlands, “courageous” and “impetuous” Princess Merida is “a skilled archer” who would rather focus on her archery than her role as a docile, demure princess. She defies her parents and tradition, determined to forge her own path in life. But her actions “unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom.” After she turns to a Witch (Julie Walters) who grants her an “ill-fated wish” (yes, this is still a fairy tale), Merida attempts to undo a curse. Her bravery will be tested as she tries to change her fate.

Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), tells her in the trailer:

“A lady enjoys elegant pursuits.”

But Merida replies:

“I want my freedom.”

You go, girl! (Sorry, couldn’t resist the clichéd 90s catchphrase.)

Too many animated films don’t feature girls and women in leading roles. Originally titled Rapunzel, Disney’s Tangled, the most recent animated film featuring a girl, was renamed a gender-neutral title to be less girl-centric. Its marketing didn’t just focus on Rapunzel but featured “bad-boy” thief Flynn Ryder in order to lure a male audience. Lovely. ‘Cause movies shouldn’t be geared to girls, only to boys. You know, ’cause they’re the only ones who really matter.

Male characters dominate animated films. Shrek, Ice Age, Rango, Kung Fu Panda and the entire pantheon of Pixar’s films (Toy Story, Up, Wall-E, etc.) put male roles front and center. Out of Disney’s 51 animated movies, only 12 feature a lead female character. When you DO find an animated female protagonist, she’s usually a princess. Aren’t there any more roles for girls and women?? The exception to this rule are the Japanese-based Studio Ghibli’s films (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Spirited Away) which often feature female leads, sans royal titles and tiaras.

Women rarely direct animated films. Brave is the first Pixar film to feature a woman as director (Brenda Chapman) and all female screenwriters (Brenda Chapman & Irene Mecchi). Although Chapman, who worked on the project for 6 years, was fired (such bullshit) and replaced by Mark Andrews, although she’ll still receive credit as co-director. Yes, women can certainly be perpetrators of sexism, gender stereotypes and tropes. But having more women as writers and directors usually leads to more female protagonists and perspectives.

Inspired by Chapman’s relationship with her daughter, Brave also features two parents, a mother and a father. It’s rare for an animated movie to have a loving mother, considering too many Disney films kill off mothers, demonize stepmothers and solely focus on both daughters’ and sons’ relationships with their fathers.

In her eye-opening book Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, Peggy Orenstein writes about Brave’s premise:

“Sounds promising, though I cannot help but feel, after waiting patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) through twelve genre-busting films about male robots, male superheroes, male cowboys, male rats, male cars, male bugs, male fish, and a small male mailman, that it would have been nice if the movie was not about a princess, even a kick-ass one. Honestly, is that too much to ask?”

Nope. It really shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Yes, Brave features another white girl as a princess. We desperately need more racial diversity in animated films (and live-action ones too). I mean it took Disney only 72 years to have its first African-American princess with Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (seriously, Disney?? What the hell’s wrong with you?!) And we sure as hell don’t need another goddamn princess. Princesses are EVERYWHERE. Christ, even the inquisitive Dora the Explorer has been turned into a freaking princess in some merchandising. Princesses don pink dresses, wear tiaras and wave scepters. Their only goal? To look pretty of course. Their looks matter more than their personalities.

Girlie-girl images saturate the media, telling girls to strive for physical perfection. Too many films focus on girls and young women wishing to be rescued and giving up their voice for love (um, can anyone say The Little Mermaid’s Ariel??). It’s refreshing to have a spunky, outspoken protagonist who’d rather pursue her dreams of archery than aspire to matrimony.

Girls should be valued for their intellect, skills and kindness. Not their beauty. Hopefully, Brave will help shatter the rigid princess imagery, paving the way for more empowered female protagonists. Girls (and boys) deserve better role models than bullshit stereotypes.

‘Brave’ will be released in theatres June 2012.

Megan Kearns is a feminist vegan blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she shares her opinions on gender equality, living cruelty-free, Ellen Ripley and delish vegan cupcakes. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. She is a Monthly Guest Contributor to Bitch Flicks.

Animated Children’s Films: Cinderella

Cinderella (1950)

I would guess that in its long years of making animated features, Disney has made a mint on the princess formula. There is always a brooding prince, handsome, but distracted by his more worldly pursuits (i.e. war, evil, magic, etc.). There is a beautiful yet tragic young woman who is either on-her-knees humble, completely unaware of her high-class lineage, or else common as dirt. It is this woman’s duty to make trouble—stubbornly, stupidly, and innocently; the prince cleans up her mess, the audience rolling their collective eyes, lovingly amused.

In the case of Cinderella, the silly mistakes of losing a shoe and ignoring an expiring spell bring Prince Charming to Cinderella’s doorstep, ready to find his mate no matter how long it takes. This comes after a long and emotionally torturous journey on the part of Cinderella. In its beginning scenes, we see her struggle with housework under the ridiculous demands of her evil Stepmother and Stepsisters. She washes floors while singing prettily, the bubbles harmonizing her melody. It is revealed to us that she used to be rich and spoiled, but destiny wringed her into this incarnation – selfless, lovely, and dutiful. She is the better for it; look what fate made of those Stepsisters – loud, obnoxious, and ugly.

We see the Stepsisters’ true colors when, having been promised by her Stepmother to attend the Prince’s ball, Cinderella pieces together a gown from her real Mother’s dress and beads and cloth trashed by the Stepsisters and collected by Cinderella’s animals friends. As she cleans and cooks (in her Stepmother’s attempt to make her too late to attend the ball), the mice and birds sew together something passable for her to wear. The Stepsisters, recognizing their discarded materials, rip it apart and flounce off, their bustles comically bouncing after them.

It is shocking to see such a comely, self-possessed woman ripped apart as such. But a fairy godmother replaces the dress with a blue, glittering number, complete with absurd ear-covering headpiece. Cinderella floats into the ball and the rest is history. Beauty trumps power once again.

Watching Cinderella again for the first time since I was a child, it was amazing to me that time and again Disney portrays women as either bitches or victims. Ursula, Maleficent, Snow White’s Queen, the Queen of Hearts and of course Cinderella’s stepmother Lady Tremaine are all evil women, jealous of the beauty and innocence of their younger counterparts. One by one they seek to quell romance, passion, and everything else good from the lives of the eventual princesses by seeking power, wealth, and beauty of their own. Only a man can save these women from their pitiful disputes, damaging though they are. Perhaps the notion of a man wielding this type of power over a young, beautiful woman was a little too akin to rape for Disney’s taste. Either way, the Disney-fication of evil into an older, vindictive woman promotes an attitude that women are either a victim or seeking to be a victim; a mentality that when unleashed in the real world leads to horrific statements like, “She was asking for it.”

Newer Disney movies rely much less on this format; I think of such movies as Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas whose end result of marriage contradicts a much more liberated adventure. In 1950, however, romance, passion, and entertainment could only be accomplished via marriage. True love was confirmed by a man deigning to step from his elevated social status to marry a woman of common birth. (A scheme that, as it usually turned out, wasn’t necessary because said princess is in fact rich or royal or whatever.) And marriage was enough to fill a plot. Jane Austen’s scheming ladies were a prototype for Disney princess movies. The goal is love, sure, but wealth and security sweeten the deal, too.

The problem I have most with Cinderella, though, is in the sweet density of Cinderella herself. “Have faith in your dreams and someday /Your rainbow will come smiling through/ No matter how your heart is grieving /If you keep on believing/ The dream that you wish will come true,” Cinderella croons as she prepares herself for another day of back-breaking, selfless labor. This kind of ignorant rhetoric endorses a blind acceptance of the status quo. Cinderella does not believe she can affect change in her own life. She will wait with faith and something good is bound to happen. Of course, as Disney shows us, it does; Prince Charming really does come and all is happily ever after. It negates a choice and, above all, this is the importance of the feminist movement – to allow the Cinderellas of the world to say “Fuck you” to all the evil power-mongers and be on their way – Prince or no. If women had just kept on believing, their dreams would definitely not have come true. Action in the form of choice is the truest path to liberation.

It is no coincidence that Cinderella was made in 1950. It was the era of writing the standards for the modern housewife; principles of which were impossible for any woman to attain without depression or at least a nasty drinking habit. This archetypal housewife has become the subject of so many books and movies (see The Hours, Far From Heaven, Revolutionary Road, etc.). The era was the springing board for Second Wave feminism. As nostalgia, it is still fun to watch a movie like Cinderella. Perhaps, if nothing else, we can enjoy these movies as a relic of the era – a document of history and ideas that are, luckily, past.

Olivia Bernal is a public school English teacher from Kansas. She reviews books at The Independent Book Review.

Animated Children’s Films: James and the Giant Peach

Based on the book by Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach has been a favorite movie of mine since childhood. After all, what kid wouldn’t love a cast of singing and dancing insects?

(Before I go into a review of the movie, I must state that I have never read the book, and do not know how closely the movie follows. Any comments I make are on the film alone, not the book.)

Directed by Henry Selick, the story revolves around a boy named James, who after the death of both parents, ends up a slave to his two cruel aunts, Sponge and Spiker. After an encounter with a strange man promising him “marvelous things,” James receives a bag of magical sprites, (crocodile tongues boiled in the skull of a dead witch for 40 days and 40 nights, the gizzard of a pig, the fingers of a young monkey, the beak of a parrot and three spoonfuls of sugar to be exact), that inadvertently end up planting themselves within a barren peach tree. An enormous peach sprouts from the tree at contact, which James later escapes into, turning into a claymation version of himself. Alongside a band of personified insects, the group sail across the ocean on the peach, encountering various trials as they head towards their destination in New York City.

The aunts, Sponge and Spiker, are two of the worst people to ever grace the silver screen, with their terrible abuse of young James setting the stage for the adventure ahead. They serve as the main antagonists of the story, chasing James across land and sea to recapture him.

The Aunts are horrific caretakers; starving, beating, and emotionally abusing James relentlessly. Mind you, this is a movie for children. And like in most children’s movies, the Aunts’ outward appearance reflects their inner evil. Both women are made to look terrifyingly cruel and yet simultaneously clown-like, dressed in orange-red wigs and slathered on make-up. During their first 20 minutes on screen, the two women participate in dozens of morally reprehensible practices, everything from shameless vanity to verbally attacking a woman and her children.

The fact that the villains are female does not bother me, nor that they are portrayed as greedy, selfish people. After all, women are just as capable as men of committing child abuse. However, while the style of the movie is very dark and Tim Burton-esque, I can’t help but wish that the Aunts’ appearances were not related to their evil. Too often in the world of children’s movies a villain need only be identified by their ugly appearance, as if that is a symptom of inner ugliness. Just look at most Disney movies from the past century!

The women’s abuse of James was also very dramatic and purposeful, most likely so that the children watching the movie could understand James’ need for immediate escape. The film could have used the Aunts as an opportunity to delve into the other types of child-abuse, but instead meant to focus on the strong atmosphere of fantastical adventure. (With a story that involves death by Rhinoceros, skeleton pirates, and mechanical sharks, it is easy to understand why the people themselves are wildly unrealistic. The world itself is wildly unrealistic.)

Transformed by the sprites themselves, James finds a group man-sized insects living within the giant peach, each with a unique personality that relates to their species. There is a smart, cultured grasshopper; a kind, nurturing ladybug; a rough-talking, comedic centipede; a neurotic, blind earthworm; a poetic, intelligent spider; and a deaf, elderly glowworm.

The spider, glowworm, and ladybug are all female, each very different and yet immensely likeable. It’s great to see several types of female personalities represented, though perhaps they are a little clichéd. Miss Spider is the typical sensual seductress, the Ladybug a doting mother-figure. The glow-worm has no real part except serving as a lantern inside the peach, and occasionally mishearing a phrase for laughs.

James: “The man said marvelous things would happen!”

Glowworm: “Did you say marvelous pigs in satin?”

Miss Spider in particular is a great female character; strong, smart, and willing to stand up for herself and those she cares about. Despite her reputation as a killer and cave-dweller, she repeatedly defends James and wards off the assumptions the other insects have made-about her. From the moment she is introduced in her personified form, you can’t help but like her. She doesn’t take anyone’s crap.

Ladybug comes off as an older, traditional woman, complete with a flowered hat and overfilled purse. She is kindly, though strict about manners and being polite. When describing what each bug hopes to find in New York City, Ladybug is most concerned with seeing flowers and children. And while Ladybug does resemble an Aunt of mine to disturbing proportions, I felt like she had no purpose in the story other than to serve as James’ replacement mother/grandmother. While the other insects are having swashbuckling adventures and near death experiences, Ladybug is just scenery, screaming and cheering in the correct places. Which is odd, because every insect has a large amount of screen time devoted to their stories and transformation, minus the glowworm and ladybug. Both female characters. In the end, it was James, Miss Spider, Centipede, Earthworm, and Grasshopper who repeatedly saved the day. Ladybug was just there to reassure James of himself whenever fear or doubt overtook him.

Despite this unfortunate exclusion, I still would highly recommend the film to anyone who is interested. It is visually stunning, undoubtedly original, and teaches a lesson about family that is quite touching.

From a feminist perspective, my favorite thing about the film is that it doesn’t pay any attention to sex at all. At no point are the Aunts’ criticized for being a disappointment to the name of maternal women. At no point is Miss Spider treated differently because she is female. No, almost every character has an inner and outer struggle, each reaching a defining moment in the plot where they must test themselves to save those they love. Together, the insects and James form a makeshift family, each working equally with one another to build a happy life in their new home. (And the boy who plays James is too cute for words, all his emotions and inner growth come off as genuine. You can’t help but cheer for him as he finally stands up to his aunts.)

Overall, James and the Giant Peach is an excellent movie, and I would suggest it to any parent or person who likes stories of adventure and fantasy. Any warnings I would give would refer only to the dark nature of the beginning of the film, and to any people who may be afraid of giant, rampaging rhinoceroses.

Libby White is a senior at the University of Tennessee, studying Marketing and Spanish full-time. Her parents were in the Navy for most of her life, so she got to see the world at a young age, and learn about cultures outside her own. Her mother in particular has had a huge influence on her, as she was a woman in the military at a time when men dominated the field. Her determination and hard-work to survive in an environment where she was not welcomed has made Libby respect the constant struggle of women today.

Animated Children’s Films: 101 Dalmatians!

This is a guest post from Sade Nickels.

Could it possible be an animated Disney movie that has ladiez in it that isn’t about princesses!?! Yes, but this movie’s treatment of women is still distasteful at best. When I first thought about writing about this movie, I thought the question that I wanted to address was of what qualities or characteristics Disney uses to mark Cruella de Ville, the individual, as a villain. However, after watching the first 15 minutes of the film, I realized that the problematic portrayal of women in the movie extends far beyond Cruella. The real question is of what aspects or lifestyle choices of women does Disney want to villanize in the form of Cruella DeVille.

Cruella is a single, loud, independent woman who is bad, bad, BAD! We know this because of her older, androgynous appearance, misandry and verbal harassment of men, poor driving skills, disinterest in the nuclear family, obsession with material items…oh, and her love of skinning helpless, small animals. We know she is especially bad when she is compared to her “school chum” Anita (the owner of Perdita–the mom dog).

Anita is everything Cruella is not: married and pursuing a nuclear family, kind, loving, quiet and beautiful. The audience knows that she is a “good” character after the male dog protagonist approves of her to be his “pet’s” mate based on her wide-eyed, willowy and naive beauty. Helene Stanley provided the live-reference to Anita’s physical form just as she did for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella characters (maybe this is a princess movie after all).

The only thing that we know about the relationship between Anita and Cruella is that they are friends from school. Cruella drops by Anita’s house to degrade her husband and home, and to size up those puppies for their fur (though the two’s conversation did manage to pass the Bechdel Test). Anita and Cruella are polar opposites despite both being young, seemingly well-off, educated women. Just as Cruella’s obsession and insatiable need is for material goods, Anita has an inexhaustible desire to love and help all living things (probably because of that whole maternal need thing, amirightfellas?!?).

This movie was released in 1961 and grossed the most money out of any film that year. These two facts are interesting because 1961 was one year after birth control had been legalized and was right before Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique. When One Hundred and One Dalmatians came out, new pathways were being forged for and by women in a highly publicized way. Perhaps this movie is a reaction to current changes in the country. To Disney, “the world was such a wholesome place until Cruella, Cruella de Ville.” If only ladies would stop being deviant and get back to those good, old, traditional family values!

What sucks, sucks, sucks the most is that Cruella isn’t even a formidable villain in this movie (which she should be since her character was based off the ever-impressive Tallulah Bankhead). It is never expressed if she has a career. She is a bad driver (lady drivers, right?!). Heck, she can’t even skin the puppies herself. Though that would have been a little too explicit. Her hired henchman don’t respect her: Her hired henchman don’t respect her: Cruella’s comeuppance is being told to “shut up!” by one of her hired helpers. Zoinks!

Jeez, oh man, does this movie have lots of problems. In case anyone else is interested in revisiting this movie, there are other interpretations to be had of it.

Queer Reading

Cruella is very kind to Anita and very cruel to her husband Roger. Is it because she is in love with Anita?
Cruella’s henchman (or Baduns), Jasper and Horace, are both dudes and always together. They are often thwarted in a very slapstick manner. Almost always all the time they end up in some sort of sexually compromising position. See for yourself (note the pink underwear).

Race and Class

First! There are SO many racial and class problems in this movie. My MAIN issue are the race ones. The first being that Pongo, the dad dalmation, is only attracted to another dalmation. Hmmm…
Second! When the dogs are running back to London and they are escaping Cruella, they meet up with a labrador who gets them a ride to the city. In order to sneak onto the van the dogs get covered in soot to look like labs (as Pongo says, “That’s the stuff the blacker the better!”). Dog blackface?
Third! When the dogs arrive back home Rodger (the human dad character) starts singing about how they (the humans) will start a Dalmatian Plantation. Ok, so I know the words rhyme and all, but it is still in poor taste. Oh great, there is a song about it.

Whew! Well, that is all folks. Would LOVE to read your comments.

—–

Sade Nickels is a toddler teacher in Seattle who enjoys getting tattoos, reading children’s books and thinking about radicalism.

Animated Children’s Films: Is Smurfette Giving it Away? Let Your Kids Decide

My younger daughters are obsessed with their Smurf Village. They build things, create and sustain communities, plant virtual peas that need to be watered. In general, they have an excellent pseudo SIM experience, only with little blue guys. Civilization building is fun for boys and girls. My involvement in Smurfland is limited to checking in now and then to make sure, when my kids are in school, that the plants get watered and don’t die.

‘Til I heard the question, “Mom, can I buy Smurfette?”

Of course she wants Smurfette. What girl doesn’t love Smurfette? I loved Smurfette. My sister loved Smurfette. She’s fabulous. She’s fun. She’s blue. Now she’s Katy Perry, for goodness sake.

“What are you buying her for?” I asked.

Blank looks.

“What do you mean?”

“Who else can you buy? And what for? ‘Cause your village is filled with hundreds of frantically busy little blue dudes hoeing and hammering?”

I was happy and relieved to hear that other Smurfs were also available for premium purchase: Tailor, Miner, Farmer and a handful of others, almost all eponymously named for their JOBS (a handful for their vices, like Lazy).

But, the one female Smurf?

No job. Not even a personality trait like, Lazy or Vanity (who, by the way is a male, but has a pink mirror, because, please, we all know that vanity is a female trait).

Smurfette?

She’s named for her VAGINA. Know any boys or men with the diminuitive “ette” at the end of their names? It’s usually a dead giveaway.

She does nothing except be female, the token ‘non-male’ – the one who deviates from the norm, which in this case is 50,000 blue boys with floppy white tams who apparently have magical maleparthenogenesis capabilities. Nada but little tail-wagging lusciousness. I know. I know. It’s just a game, a story, right?

And what, exactly, does the Smurf village story teach boys and girls about being Smurfette? It tells them that:

· Smurfs are boys

· She’s defined by her sex, reduced entirely to her femaleness, which is after all simply not-maleness

· She was created to wreak havoc on the utopian male world (what else is new?)

· She doesn’t work, have a job, or serve any “real” function

· She’s super pretty, did I say that?

· Oh, I almost forgot, Smurfette is expensive, the most expensive one for sale

My kids get to download apps on my Ipad in exchange for cultural deconstruction credits (woo-hoo, party time in our house!). So, before they could sign on to play in Smurfland, they had to tell me what The Smurfette Principle was. They already knew that it was bad enough that there is only one female Smurf, who, by the way, serves two purposes 1) she was created to sow dissention and jealousy among the males and 2) she’s there to show that the little blue men aren’t…shhh…gay. But, actually selling her, for being female. IT SUCKS. I know, blah blah feminist blah. So boring.

Don’t I know there are really serious things happening? And Nicholas Kristof, thank goodness, writes about them as much as possible. For example, girls being sold into slavery in other parts of the world.

That’s right. Slavery. And why?

Because they’re perceived as sub-human. They’re commodities. Something you trade, buy and sell. Sounding familiar?

“Are you serious???” you say. Cute, innocent, wholesome Smurfs, little blue memes of subtle but virulent sexism? No way. This is America. Not only do women have nothing to complain about, but for some people we’re destroying all the men. At the very least, we’re the good guys and gals. The genuinely most fair and equal place in the world…those are the core tenants of American Exceptionalism. We are better than the rest of the world.

So, no, it’s not just a story. It’s our culture and we get to make it. Then it makes us. That Smurf story is no different from 80% of the hyper-gendered stories we tell our kids. And if you find that hard to believe go visit The Geena Davis Institute Web Site where you will find hard stats.

‘Cause we’re at the stage in this country where the true hard work of equality has to take place. This is the land where culture’s destructive and dangerous messages about gender hierarchies and power are not delivered with blunt force trauma (like stoning a young girl for being raped, which is so obviously wrong), but rather through fun and entertaining games and movies.

Why would I let my children play culture-shaping games involving the commoditization and sale of the only girl in the land without explaining it? It would be like serving them lard for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then pretending not to know why they were having heart attacks at 35.

Anyway, before saying anything to my daughter (in age appropriate ways, for those of you who are praying for my children’s eternal salvation), I let my daughter purchase Smurfette to see what exactly she would do once unleashed onto the Smurf Village. Turns out she sweetly and innocently skips around town blowing heart kisses and distributing power credits to every little blue boy she swings by.

She should be careful. People will talk.

Besides, I’m kinda stuck on the idea that my daughters and I, my mother and sister, my sisters-in-law, my nieces and my female friends are fully human, not deviant from anything. Silly me. I must be a bitter, angry feminist. Oh, I forgot ugly. And old.

Soraya Chemaly writes feminist satire. She is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project and The Huffington Post. She is also the creator of the retired blogs: Poog, a Goop Spoof and The Guide to Manic Moms.

Animated Children’s Films: Nightmare Revisited

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

This Halloween my husband and I stayed in and cuddled up with Funfetti cupcakes and a movie. We capped off our week-long 90’s Halloween movie marathon with a favorite from my childhood, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ve probably seen this film a hundred times. I know all of the songs by heart. I remember watching it on VHS when it first came out, which is making me feel increasingly old. But as is the case with several things from my childhood, some of the nostalgia wears thin when subjected to critical analysis.

For one thing, as I would love to describe to my five-year-old self, the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel test. To refresh your memory, passing the Bechdel test means a film has to have two female characters (with names) who talk to each other about something besides men. That’s it, and yet even this very basic requirement is usually too much for Hollywood to handle. Sally the rag doll and Shock, the witch trick-or-treater, only talk to men. According to Wikipedia, the two witches aren’t given names in the film, only later in a video game. But even without the name part, they only talk to and about Jack. This sends the message to boys and girls alike that female characters do not have anything substantial to contribute to the dialogue or the plot of the film. Girls and women do not, apparently, have anything interesting or relevant to say to one another, and children internalize that very deeply. While this was probably unintentional, the effect is still the same.

Shock

Maybe you’re thinking that’s a bit harsh. After all, the named female characters do seem to have quite a bit of agency. Shock is frustrated with her “dumb” cohorts and seems to be the brains of the outfit. She is quick to point out flaws in their plans and ultimately decides the best method to kidnap Santa Claus. But her development as a character ends with that scene. Shock is a naughty child motivated by nothing apart from her desire to do mischief. While there is nothing wrong with this type of character per se, there is something wrong with the fact that she represents half of the named female cast. And, while Shock is admittedly fun, I feel she does not do justice to Catherine O’Hara’s talent.

This brings me to Sally, also voiced by O’Hara. On the surface, Sally is the perfect heroine. She is constantly outsmarting her doddering caretaker, Doctor Finklestein. She repeatedly slips “deadly nightshade” into his food, putting him to sleep so she can wander free. Her knowledge of herbs and potions is a serious inspiration to Jack in his quest for the meaning of Christmas. He even asks her to make his “Sandy Claws” suit, because she is the only one “clever enough” to do it. She has the foresight to know his plan will be a disaster, so she tries to stop Christmas with fog juice. Then, she rushes to the aid of Santa Claus, leading him to tell Jack, “The next time you get the urge to take over someone else’s holiday, I’d listen to her! She’s the only one who makes any sense around this insane asylum!” Jack eventually realizes that he was a fool not to listen to Sally, or notice her affection for him.

Sally

So, my five-year-old self loved Sally mostly because she is smart and resourceful. But Sally isn’t defined by her intelligence. She is defined by her relationships to the men in the story. Five-year-old me never bothered to question why she was the property of her creepy father in the first place. And while Jack is motivated by his role in the community and a quest for self-discovery, Sally is only driven by her desire to be with Jack. After Doctor Finklestein declares Sally to be too much trouble, he sets about building a new female companion who won’t disagree with him or run away. Sally’s world, which revolves around being with Jack and taking care of him, is at peace when he finally notices her and wants to be with her.

I still like the film. It gets me feeling all fuzzy inside and it serves the double purpose of celebrating Halloween and getting me amped up for Christmas. But I’m not five anymore. We live in a very complicated world where many changes need to take place, and girls and boys need to see these changes in the media they consume. Maybe someday Tim Burton could revamp the film and have Sally take over as mayor of Halloween Town (because seriously, that guy is an incompetent idiot). Maybe Shock could apprentice under the two witches and learn a useful trade to put her wits to better use. Maybe somewhere in Halloween Town, two women could talk to each other about something—anything—and the town could join us all in the 21st century. That sounds more like a Halloween classic I would want children to see.

Jessica Critcher loves to write about feminism and gender issues, and she is a regular contributor to Gender Focus. While she loves living in Boston, she often misses Honolulu, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English (and forgot that there was such a thing as snow).

Animated Children’s Films: Magical Girlhoods in the Films of Studio Ghibli

“For the people who used to be ten years old, and the people who are going to be ten years old.”

— Director Hayao Miyazaki on Spirited Away

The films of Studio Ghibli provide their viewers with a rich variety of female characters from warrior princesses to love-struck adolescents, curious toddlers to powerful witches. These characters owe a great deal to the prototypes of European fairy tales and Japanese folklore and in many ways are traditional versions and depictions of femininities, but there’s an underlying sense of joy for feminist viewers in that these girls and women are active, subjective and thoroughly engaging. I’m focusing here on young girls in the lighter end of Ghibli’s production including sisters Mei and Satsuke in My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service and Chihiro in Spirited Away.


Spirited Away

Ghibli films tend to blend fantasy and reality so that magic and flight are acceptable parts of the worlds the characters inhabit. Girls especially tend to possess magic powers or particular appreciation of them and this is shown in an unexceptional manner. While Kiki raises some eyebrows in her new town, it’s because the townsfolk don’t see many witches, not because they don’t believe in their existence. Similarly, although Kiki is an outsider, there is a distinct lack of threat to her for being so. In Ghibli worlds girls are fully entitled to fly on broomsticks, as long as they don’t congest traffic, and 13 year olds are allowed to pursue their cultural practices of living alone. In My Neighbour Totoro when Mei tells Satsuke and their father about her encounter with Totoro, after initial disbelief they embrace the truth that there are friendly nature spirits in the area, even leading to father taking the girls to pay their respects to the forest’s deities.

This acceptance of magic is refreshing and marks a clear difference to American cartoons where ironic references are embedded in children’s fantasy to appeal to parents. In this way parents are encouraged to indulge, but secretly laugh at their children’s engagement with fantasy. There’s no knowing irony in Ghibli films, instead they are focussed on telling children’s stories for children and the lack of distinct boundaries between the magic and the mundane are part of this child-centred view. That the protagonists are predominantly female makes for a collection of films focussed on girls’ adventures and triumphs where girls’ experiences are trusted and valued.

Children, like women, are often depicted as having a close connection to the supernatural; that they can see things the rest of us cannot. Indeed Mei and Satsuke seem privileged more than anything to be invited to join the Totoros’ night-time nature ritual. Dancing and flying with creatures the rest of the world (the Ghibli world at least) would revere but aren’t lucky enough to encounter. Chihiro doesn’t have a natural affinity for magic but she’s gifted in the solving of magical problems like how to clean a dirty river spirit.

Mei, Satsuke, Kiki and Chihiro all work within the magical world as part of their quest narratives. Mei and Satsuke are dealing with the illness and potential death of their mother and a move to a new home. Kiki has moved away from her parents according to witch culture and Chihiro seeks the return of her parents from the spiritual realm where she’s been trapped and they’ve been turned into pigs.

My Neighbor Totoro

In all three stories there’s also the seeking of identity for the girls, especially and most literally for Chihiro for she has her very name stolen by a witch. In their quests for self-hood and identity all four characters go through similar trials and experiences: the absence of parental influence, the access to magical powers, the physical manifestations of anxieties such as the dust bunnies that feature in both My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away.

The absence of parents is a common way to allow independence to young females from fairy tales to Jane Austen and unlike for orphaned boys in fiction it can also represent a removal of patriarchal influence in general. It’s not just that these girls don’t have parents guiding them or checking up on them; they are also free to create their own rules of engagement with the world.

One way that all four girls find meaning and self is through work. Satsuke in school and house work, Mei despite being very young does gardening, Kiki sets up her delivery service and Chihiro works in the bath house. All of them do a lot of cleaning. There’s an interesting mix of public and private here and certainly the suggestion that domestic labour can be especially rewarding (for example Kiki’s paid work can provide anxieties and problems). But is the culturally feminine nature of this work an issue? In Chihiro’s case cleaning is linked to subservience and being a captive to the domestic but for the others (and eventually for her) it’s a tool of empowerment and liberation. Does such labour inevitably have negative associations of female drudgery?

Another way that selfhood and identity is achieved by these girls is by flight. Most obviously for Kiki where her broomstick is literally the means of earning a living and saving a friend’s life but also in how Totoro and Cat Bus fly Mei and Satsuke away from their worries and later to their mother. Chihiro’s flight is more anxious, as her encounters with magic are generally, but still serves to move her closer to self discovery by being the time she gives Haku his name so leading her to the rediscovery of her own.

Kiki’s Delivery Service

Work as empowerment isn’t the only moral message in these films, with ecological messages also being played out. In My Neighbour Totoro there’s the idyllic agricultural setting as well as the Totoros and other spirits of the forest. In Spirited Away rivers like Haku’s have been filled in because of the greed of humans. The messages of conservation, respect of nature (and blaming of humans as nature’s destroyers) are not as forcefully applied as in, for example, Princess Mononoke but neither are they subtle. While this preaching could be tiresome in other films, because of their earnestness and how the protagonists are fully on message it’s actually pleasant. Although nurturing the planet back to health is presented as an ungendered activity the films together can be viewed as showing the next generation of empowered young women actively making progress and solutions to the problems inflicted on the world by older generations. This also applies economically where Kiki and Chihiro’s enterprising labours lead to success for both. Chihiro especially is placed at the beginning of the film in the context of a Japan after economic downturn and reckless financial behaviour by her elders (as reported by her father) damaging Japan as a whole and its youth implicitly.

Not everybody believes that Ghibli heroines represent empowered femininities. I’ve been rather selective in the choice of films to cover but even if I’d widened the selection I stand by my view. Ponyo for example wasn’t included as its heroine isn’t really a girl but although it’s a variation on the disempowering The Little Mermaid the core message is rather different. Ponyo accepts a loss of powers because they were never entirely hers and the sea’s power remains with the feminine; Ponyo’s sea-goddess mother.

There’s been significant note of the glimpses of knickers we get in Ghibli films like when Kiki is flying and generally when there’s any rough and tumble. There’s merit in the argument that this could be voyeuristic representations of young girls but it can also be seen as further expressing their freedom and activity. These girls don’t worry about skirts riding up because they totally lack vanity and are preoccupied with altogether more important missions. We’re not given alluring peeps at nubile bodies but girls in action which female bodies so rarely are; that gaze is usually reserved for male bodies. If female passivity is alluring then the kinetic energy of these girls places them beyond that.

What’s pleasurable about these films from a feminist perspective is their alliance with joyful, engaged and active girlhoods. These girls don’t wait for princes and don’t focus on their appearances but determinedly pursue their missions, however difficult.

____

Rosalind Kemp is a film studies graduate living in Brighton, UK. She’s particularly interested in female coming of age stories, film noir and European films where people talk a lot but not much happens.

Animated Children’s Films: Megamind: A Damsel Who Can Hold Her Own

Megamind (2010)

Dreamworks’ animations, in my personal opinion, do some amazing portrayals of their female characters. Unlike other animation studios, where female characters have a cookie cutter personality and want to find true love, Dreamworks gives their female characters more goals than that. And one of my favorite–and I think one of the best examples of this–is Roxanne Ritchi from the movie Megamind.

The plot of Megamind is that he’s from a planet that was destroyed and his arch rival Metroman is from the neighboring planet which was also destroyed. While Metroman’s escape vessel lands in a good and wealthy home, Megamind’s vessel lands in a prison yard where he is raised by criminals. Not only that, but Metroman grows up with great social skills and is incredibly attractive, while Megamind has a hard time pronouncing certain words and doesn’t look at all human so he has a harder time trying to fit in. Consequently, Megamind grows up to be an evil villain while Metroman becomes the good superhero who always wins. We also have Roxanne Ritchi, our damsel in distress, who is constantly being kidnapped by Megamind and saved by Metroman.

If this plot sounds at all familiar, it is because it is a lot like Superman–with Superman being Metroman, Brainaic being Megamind, Lois Lane being Roxanne Ritchi and even Jimmy Olsen as Hal Stewart. I’ve personally always loved Lois Lane since I used to read a lot of the old Superman comics. Lois Lane was originally created in 1938. She was really dedicated to her work, she was very headstrong and stubborn and she rarely took orders from her male co-workers. But of course, she has earned the title of being the damsel in distress for being constantly saved by Superman. The fascinating thing about her, though, is her personality was created in the late thirties when none of those qualities were considered attractive for a woman. Even Superman wasn’t always attracted to her because of these traits.

Roxanne Ritchi, voiced by Tina Fey

I’m only discussing Lois Lane because of her parallel self, Roxanne Ritchi, who can only really separate herself from Lois Lane because she does not love Metroman/Superman. Now of course, there have been several different portrayals of Lois Lane where she’s terrified when kidnapped or she is bored of it because it has happened so much. For Roxanne Ritchi, she’s been kidnapped so much by Megamind that even when she is sitting in a death machine she has no problem taunting the evil villain. She even blows a spider in his face.

In this specific kidnapping, we see that Megamind has (supposedly) killed Metroman and so he proceeds to take over the city. What I really love about Roxanne Ritchi comes out during this part of the movie, where she is the only news reporter to question Megamind, she insults him on air, and isn’t willing to stand around and do nothing.

She visits the Metroman-dedicated Museum where she runs into Bernard. Unknowingly to her, Megamind is also visiting the museum to say his last goodbyes to Metroman. He disguises himself as Bernard and has a heart to heart with Roxanne about how much he misses Metroman. It is through this conversation that Roxanne says, “Heroes are not born, they are created.”

Megamind takes this to mean that he can create a new superhero to fight while Roxanne takes her own advice and takes matters into her own hands. She does this by sneaking into Megamind’s lair, taking pictures, researching who Megamind is and also trying to duplicate the notes she found in his lair to understand what his ultimate plan is. While she’s doing all this, Megamind is actually accompanying her but is disguised as ‘Bernard’. Over time, Roxanne falls for ‘Bernard’.

I personally really love that this feeling for ‘Bernard’ wasn’t instant and that she had to slowly move past the mourning of a superhero (who she probably considered to be more of a friend than anything else) in order to really care for ‘Bernard’.

Hal and Roxanne

Now, Megamind has created a new superhero through Hal Stewart who I haven’t really discussed yet. Hal Stewart is Roxanne’s cameraman who loves Roxanne in that sort of creepy stalker way; he even has a poster of her saying good night to him above his bed. Roxanne, of course, is not at all interested but when Hal becomes a superhero he thinks everything is going to turn around. So he tries to woo Roxanne but that is dramatically unsuccessful. It could have been that he is still not her type or the fact that he was throwing her around like a football; I’ll let you decide on that.

After her encounter with the new Hal Stewart, she rushes to her date ‘Bernard’ and reveals what just happened. It is through this date that she kisses ‘Bernard’ but his disguise malfunctions and is revealed to be Megamind. (F.Y.I. This is one of the best kiss scenes I’ve ever seen.) What follows is one of my absolute favorite scenes in any movie ever, where Megamind tries to convince her to come back to him because she said never judge a book by its cover. Roxanne immediately counters that he killed Metroman, destroyed the city and is in fact evil. I personally love that Roxanne isn’t going to take any of this crap and does a good job reminding the audience that she has every reason to leave Megamind.

When we get to the end of the movie, Roxanne tries to reason with Hal because he is about to destroy the city. Hal has proven in very little time that he is much more threatening than Megamind ever was. What ends up happening, though, is that he ties her up to a building and calls out for Megamind to face him. But even now, when Hal is about to take down the entire building, Roxanne still tries to reason with him. This is the very essence of what it means to be a strong character. It is not actually about being physically strong, or incredibly intelligent; it is about still trying to accomplish your goal even when there is no hope.

Of course, Megamind saves her and the big epic fight scene happens between Hal and Megamind. At a certain point of the fight Megamind is losing and you can see Roxanne running up from behind with a broken metal sign. Which is amazing to see this character still have her goal of stopping Hal. Unfortunately, that is short-lived because when Hal throws Megamind up into the air, Roxanne drops her sign and gets backed up into a fountain where she has no weapon to defend herself. I can’t help but slap my face every time at this moment because she had every inch of determination in her face when she had that metal sign. She was clearly going to wham Hal with it. Even though she was going to lose that fight, she still had that raw determination.

I still don’t understand why she dropped that damn sign.

There is another little detail about this final scene that I’m going to sound like a jerk for pointing out but I really, really, really have to.

Her nails are polished pink.

Why do I point this out? Because she doesn’t have her nails done in any other scene. She didn’t have them done when she went out on her date with ‘Bernard’. So that means that at some point between realizing that the love of her life was actually a super villian and that the crazy stalker co-worker now is destroying the city, she got her nails done.

Maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t already established that she didn’t put that much stock in her appearance. There are two times in this movie where her hair gets messed up or face is really dirty and she doesn’t take the time to fix it. She just goes on with her job or goes on her date.

But really, I take very few issues with the movie Megamind, and Roxanne is a fantastic character. She isn’t the main focus of the plot but the people at Dreamworks still took the time and thought to develop who she is, what her goals in life are, and what is going to motivate her through the story.

Even though Roxanne is pretty much the only female character of this movie, I want to take a second to talk about the great background characters. If anyone else noticed, the background characters, who are both male and female, come in many different sizes and races. I really want to point this out because there are other females who are bigger, have different shaped faces and don’t all look alike. Along with this, there are parts where there are a bunch of cops and the number of female cops is equal to the amount of male. And really, thank you Dreamworks for not putting the women cops in skirts, I really appreciate it. These all are very small details, but they do register in young kids’ minds.

When you have these small details and a great supporting character like Roxanne, you already have a great movie. There are many other reasons why Megamind is a great movie but seeing a well-rounded character like Roxanne is just so amazing. I’m so happy that children saw this movie where even the damsel in distress proves to have so much going on under the surface.

J. Lee Milliren is an active feminist currently in her last year at the Art Institutes International Minnesota where she will earn her bachelor degree in Media Arts and Animation. She takes a critical eye to how characters are portrayed in films.

Animated Children’s Films: Mulan: The Twinkie Defense

Disney’s Mulan (1998)

Much has been written about Mulan since its release in 1998, largely because the intentions of the film-makers are so obvious, and so crass. If you buy into the movie’s ethos, you’ll believe that Mulan is a truly border-crossing story, bringing the best of classic Chinese culture to a global audience with – gasp! – a female action hero at its center. You can quit the revolution now, kids, ‘cos Disney says that post-colonialism and post-feminism are here to stay.

If you watch the actual movie, as I did, as a European expat teaching in a Hong Kong international school and grappling with cross-cultural questions on a daily basis (you try teaching A Bridge To Terabithia to a class of city-dwelling Chinese boys) — not so much. Mulan has always been a problematic text for me because it tries so hard to be culturally sensitive and gender-aware that it positively creaks, and those creaks can be heard by the least-savvy member of the target audience. Its sins are not the sins of historical omission of, say, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, but are all the more egregious because they come from a place of awareness. Mulan is an attempt to fix something that was perceived to be, if not wrong, unbalanced. This clumsy attempt to wedge The Ballad of Mulan into the rigid, alien form of a Disney narrative (which, among other things, demands musical numbers, a comic sidekick and a Prince Charming to come home with at the end) doesn’t fix anything, and only serves to remind us what is broken about our global culture. The road to hell is, as ever, paved with good intentions, particularly when it heads from the West to the East.

Back in the mid-1990s, Disney had a very specific agenda when it came to China. They wanted to get back into the regime’s good books after the PR disaster that was Kundun. They wanted to replicate the success of 1994’s The Lion King in the region. And they wanted to soften up the government and local politicians when it came to breaking ground on Hong Kong Disneyland, and paving the way for the Shanghai park. What better way to win friends and influence people than by honoring a popular Chinese legend in the form of a Disney film?

So, ever mindful of the accusations of racial insensitivity that had been tossed at Aladdin and Pocahontas, and anxious to get it right this time, Disney sent key artists on the movie to China, for a three-week tour of Chinese history and culture. Three weeks! You can totally “do China” in three weeks. This was enough to give them all the visual reference points they needed, and the whistle-stop, touristic nature of their impressions is very much in evidence on the screen. Every Chinese guided tour cliché is tossed into the scenery hotchpotch, from limestone mountains to the Great Wall to the Forbidden City. This isn’t so bad – other Disney movies are set in a vague Mittel-Europe of mountains, forests and lakes – but the loving attention paid to trotting out the visual truisms of courtyard complexes, brush calligraphy, cherry blossoms et al is just window-dressing. Mulan does look like China, but only if you’re leafing through your holiday photos back in your Florida office.

It’s a shame the screenwriters weren’t sent on the same tour. Mulan is peppered with crass jokes about Chinese food orders (because that’s what Americans can relate to about Chinese culture, right?), disrespectful references to ancestor worship, superficial homage to Buddhist practice and some kung-fu styling, of the Carradine kind. Given that Wu Xia is a rich, diverse, centuries old storytelling tradition, it also seems a shame that the writers didn’t draw more deeply on those perspectives. Instead, they send Mulan on a tired, Western Hero’s Journey, plugging her variables into the 12-step formula tried and tested by countless Hollywood protagonists. She doesn’t ever think like a Chinese woman. She’s never more American than when her rebellious individualism (bombing the mountaintop) wins the day – her filial obedience was only ever lip service paid as a convenience in Act One. Even in Han Dynasty China, it seems, it’s best to follow the American Way.

There’s nothing particularly Chinese about Mulan herself, who is so brutally meant to be not-Disney Princess and not-Caucasian it hurts to look at her for long. Poor little Other. She’s shown wearing Japanese make up, and has a facial structure more suggestive of Vietnamese than Chinese (Disney really was embracing post-colonialism). For half the movie, she also has to be not-female. The lack of detail on a 2-D Disney face meant the animators had to design her as able to switch between genders via her hair – and something subtle going on with her eyebrows. The resulting face evokes, more than anything, a pre-op kathoey who hasn’t yet taken advantage of Thailand’s booming plastic surgery clinics in order to make zer gender-reassignment complete.

Oh, Mulan. She’s meant to be non-offensive, and she ends up being not-anything. Despite claims to the contrary, she’s not a feminist hero. She has to dress as a boy to achieve selfhood, and refuses political influence in order to return to the domestic constraints of her father and husband-to-be. The movie itself doesn’t even pass the Bechdel test, if you consider that the only topic the other female characters discuss is Mulan’s marriageability – a hypothetical relationship with a man. The final defeat of the antagonist is achieved by the male Mushu riding on a phallic firecracker, as Mulan flails helplessly at his feet. Positive female role model? Case closed.

Nonetheless, Mulan did brisk business worldwide – apart from in China. It perhaps had most impact on second or third-gen Asian-Americans, who could relate to the over-simplified view of China, and feel a connection with this stereotypical version of “their” culture, lacking many other reference points. For Asian-Americans across the board, not just Chinese-Americans, Mulan’s brown, angular features represented something vaguely familiar, which made a delightful change. For Chinese-Chinese, Mulan was a thoughtless Western blunder. For Asian-Americans, particularly little girls, Mulan was a rare screen representation of aspects of their selves. Mulan drove the story, at the center of almost every scene, instead of pushed to the periphery as a “typical Asian” shopkeeper, geek, or whore. They could even purchase Mulan merch – although it’s still impossible to buy a doll, a t-shirt or a pin showing Mulan in warrior mode, she’s always got her hair down, and is wearing her hanfu frock. For a generation of Twinkies, Asian on the outside, American on the inside, Mulan was significant, a role model in the Disney pantheon of princesses. It didn’t matter that she was a bit low-rent (no castle, not really a princess), and she hadn’t snagged a proposal by the end of the movie (that happily ever after is a ‘maybe’), she allowed Asian-American girls, many of them adopted, to hold their heads high. And for that alone, you have to love her.

Mulan wouldn’t seem like such a frustrating, failed attempt to push gender and cultural boundaries if it had been followed up by other stories of empowered female warrior heroes. A Disney version of Joan of Arc or Boudicca could have been a blast. Unfortunately, since 1998, it’s been pretty much princess as usual. On the bright side, Disney achieved some of their other goals with Mulan. Hong Kong Disneyland (itself the subject of accusations of crass cultural insensitivity) has been doing brisk business since 2005, thanks to a US$2.9billion investment by Hong Kong taxpayers (of which I was one). The majority of tourists are from mainland China. They come to marvel at Western icons like Mickey, and an all-American Main Street that’s a replica of the one in Anaheim. Thanks to the ubiquitous presence of Mulan images, they stick around. It feels a tiny bit more like they might have a stake in the happiest place on earth.

Karina Wilson currently lives in Los Angeles and works as a writer and story consultant. She reviews movies for Planet Fury, writes about horror literature at LitReactor and horror films at Horror Film History. Her teaching site, Mediaknowall, has guided media studies students for more than a decade.