Author Archives: margotmagowan

Why I give money to the Geena Davis Institute

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To me, it’s pretty obvious that females– half of the kid population– are presented as a tiny minority in animated movies. It’s also obvious that Hollywood’s manufactured minority translates to minimal female representation in everything from toys and clothing to icons on diapers, and, most tragically, into children’s imaginary play.

The Geena Davis Institute is the only organization that I know of which does major studies to calculate statistics on the lack of females in children’s media. This lack, by the way, is consistent whether kids are watching PBS or Disney.

Here’s a recent interview from Yonhap News (ever heard of it?…Emphasis below is mine)

While watching television programs with my daughter, I was astounded by the lack of female characters,” Davis said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. “This maybe (is the reason why) I decided to help improve the situation.”
In 2004, Davis founded the research-based organization to work within the media and entertainment industries to engage, educate and influence the need for gender balance, a reduction of stereotypes and the creation of a wide variety of female characters.

Since then, the institute has been at the forefront of changing the portrayal of females and gender stereotypes, by commissioning large research projects on gender in film and television.

The institute holds a biennial symposium to release its research and showcase it to producers in the film industry. The actress also regularly meets with movie and animated film producers in attempts to change how they think about gender balance.

Despite her efforts, Davis said there is still “no improvement because the ratio of female to male characters has been exactly the same since 1946.”

“If we add female characters at the rate they have been, we will have equality in 700 years,” the actress said, citing a study. “It’s the same thing in other sectors of the society. If we add women to congress (at the current rate), it will take 500 years (to reach equality.)“…

“We are raising funds for the first global study on gender depiction in the media,” Davis said.

I give money to the Geena Davis Institute because the world likes to see numbers before actually creating change. Those numbers get publicized, and that, hopefully, convinces parents that this radical sexism is not the “opinion” of  a few, but factual and rampant. If you see what I see, protect your children’s imagination. There is no good reason for the fantasy world to be sexist.

Donate to the Geena Davis Institute now. Help spread the word and change the world.  Here is the link.

Fairy or fashion model? Disney’s direct to DVD girl ghetto

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Reading this week’s People Magazine, I saw this ad for “Secret of the Wings:”

So this is how Disney prefers to allow females to be front and center: Go straight to DVD (or, alternatively, a 1:46 minute homage) and pose animated, magical creatures like fashion models.

In your wildest imagination, can you picture male, fantasy creatures advertising a DVD in People, standing just like this? Why is it so rare for females to get to star in major-motion pictures made for kids? Why is the imaginary world so sexist?

Girls gone missing from kids’ movies: “Wreck-It Ralph”

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Another day of driving my three year old daughter to school, another day she gets to see, and point at, a giant animated sexist ad go past her plastered on the side of a bus. Another day that my daughter gets to learn, along with the rest of the kids in America, that boys are more important than girls.

Do you know that in 2012 Hollywood won’t allow females to be in the title of movies for children? Yet, after “ParaNorman” and “Frankenweenie,” we get “Wreck-It Ralph” making three in a row of animated movies named for their male stars? In fantasy world, children are supposed to dream big, let their imaginations go wild, and anything should be possible, unless, of course, you happen to be female.

Parents, it’s not OK that kidworld shows males front and center, while females get sidelined and represented as a minority again and again and again.

Read Reel Girl’s review of the movie “Wreck it Ralph and the Minority Feisty.”

Disney throws girls a bone in YouTube video

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Dear Disney,

Thanks so much for this feel good video “I Am a Princess.”  It’s so great that you think girls are important. But you know what might be more convincing, and make more of an impact, than a 1:46 minute video on YouTube? If half of the characters in your big budget, animated, major-motion-pictures were female.

Females make up about 16% of characters in animated movies for kids.

Ending your little YouTube video with a quote from Rapunzel about how she never breaks a promise is sweet. But allowing Rapunzel to headline her own movie– instead of switching it “Tangled” because you didn’t want a girl’s name in the title— would’ve been much sweeter. As long as Disney keeps pumping out movies that star males while girls go missing, all the 2 minute YouTube videos in the world aren’t going to be empowering.

I hope the public doesn’t buy this patronizing attempt at PR.

Riding bitch

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Just posted about one of my favorite Halloween books, The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches. It’s got sisters, a great mom, a cross-gender friendship, and magical power. What more could I ask for? Well, check this out:

Yesterday, when I posted about how the female in so much media is constantly moored on the back of the bike or the back of the Hippogriff, someone told me there is a term for that position: “riding bitch.” With 258,000 matches, Google agrees.

Here, in the story, Roger decides it would be more fun to be a witch than a ghost. He was right.

Savor this image. I wish that, both in fiction and in reality, more females got the chance to steer their own way.

Halloween book rec: The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches

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Since monster movies for kids starring girls seem so rare, I thought I’d tell you about one of my children’s favorite Halloween books.

The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches is about three witch sisters. The youngest one, Wendy, always gets left out because she can’t do anything cool. On Halloween, her broom is broken, and she is left alone to take care of the house. A boy, Roger, dressed up as a ghost trick-or-treats at Wendy’s house. Roger convinces Wendy that all she needs to trick-or-treat is a new broom. Not realizing she’s a real witch, he takes her to his house to get one. It is at the Roger’s house, that Wendy discovers her power. She makes Roger’s old house broom fly. Roger and his mother are amazed and impressed. More adventures ensue and that culminate with Wendy making her first real friend and also, her sisters coming to respect and including her.

The book we have is  an I Can Read it and has been a favorite for learning how to read.

Reel Girl rates The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches ***HHH***

Can you answer these 3 questions about Disney on Ice?

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My 3 year old daughter and I were driving to school this morning when a giant ad for Disney on Ice plastered to the side of a bus passed right by her window.

When I see an image like this, I wonder why I ever hear parents shrug about their daughter’s princess obsession, saying something like, “Girls will be girls.”

I have three questions for you:

(1) How many characters are there on this poster?

(2) How many of those characters are female?

(3) How many of those females are princesses?

Reel Girl’s list of monster movies starring females

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This Halloween season, Hollywood put out not one, but three new monster movies that star males. Once again, in children’s movies, male characters are in the majority while female characters are in the minority. You can read about these new movies in Reel Girl’s post Girls gone missing in new Halloween movies for kids.

The Reel Girl community put together a list of monster movies starring females that you can screen this Halloween and show your kids that girls and boys are equally important. There is no reason for kidworld or fantasy world to be sexist.

So here are the historical exceptions we found, but a few things first:

Given the slim pickings, we took some liberties here with what really qualifies as a monster movie. Teen movies are not included, these are recs for young kids who you’d think would be too young to be learning about sexism.

I have not seen several of these movies, and must admit the poster for “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” so dominated by Jim Carey, who takes over every movie he is in, as well as the boy leading the pack of kids, makes me a nervous. The Corpsebride rec comes from a source I trust, but I personally didn’t see it when it came out, pre-Reel Girl, because I couldn’t stomach another animated bride. I hear this movie is great though, and I’m going to rent it.

“Coraline” is one of my absolute, favorite animated movies. Some little kids get scared, but, I think  repetitive sexism is scarier to expose your kids to than any monster. My younger one loved it and my older one was the most frightened, though a couple years later she loves it as well. And the book, too.

This is a list in progress. Please send in your suggestions.

Coraline

Kiki’s Delivery Service

CorpseBride

My Neighbor Totoro

Wizard of Oz

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Monsters and Aliens

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Hocus Pocus

 

The girl on the back of the bike

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I recently posted on how the image on the cover of Harry Potter, Book 3, of Hermione clinging to Harry’s back as they flew on the Hippogriff, bummed me out. This image of male driving and the girl along for the ride is ubiquitous in the imaginary world. You almost never see a girl in front and a boy behind, or even a girl alone, and also, it’s extremely rare to see a girl on a female magical creature.

After my post, Orlando wrote in this comment:

Shall I share with you the moment when I learned to loathe Kerouac? This is it (from “On the Road”):
“In the empty Houston streets of four o’clock in the morning a motorcycle kid suddenly roared through, all bespangled and bedecked with glittering buttons, visor, slick black jacket, a Texas poet of the night, girl gripped on his back like a papoose, hair flying, onward-going, singing.”
Familiar image? What happened was two people went past; what they saw was one person plus accessories.

The Kerouac quote pretty much epitomizes the poetic subjugation of women in that repetitive image (coupled with the the adventurous title of the book, of course.) Kerouac is such a good writer and he does this image so well. And again, the image/ narrative would not be a problem if it were one of many; it is its dominance over our imaginations, the way other narratives have become restricted and repressed, even in fantasy, that is the tragedy.