When plus size company Lane Bryant’s sexy TV ad was supposedly censored by ABC as inappropriate for “Dancing With the Stars” audiences, there were calls of hypocrisy. After all, TV networks don’t seem to have an issue showing lingerie ads for Victoria’s Secret (or even the much touted half naked extravaganza ‘Victoria’s Secret Special.”) Still, TV executives seemed to feel that fat girls shouldn’t show cleavage. Ironic, since big girls are more likely to have big breasts, but I guess natural is what’s offensive here.
ABC is now denying it ever censored the ad. Lane Bryant still claims the ad was censored. Either way, I’m having trouble leaping on the feminist band wagon burning up the blogosphere defending this commercial and demanding it be aired. Fat women should be allowed to be objectified too, dammit!
I had the same negative reaction when Mo’Nique hosted a fat girl beauty contest for TV. I didn’t think it was so awesome that large women were gaining entry into the world of the skinny, finally allowed to compete against each other so a panel of judges could decide who was the prettiest.
I was also bummed when “High School Musical” featured a fat cheerleader and everyone called that progressive and “so PC.” Cheerleaders are just bad for women. I don’t care if they’re fat or of color or have athletic skill. Being a cheerleader is the definition of being the sideshow, her role is to make the main event look good; she is not and never will be the star. Cheerleader obsession is like teen training ground for the perfect heterosexual relationship; it’s like wife school. The hot girl cheers on her talented guy, standing by her quarterback, loyally, faithfully, whether he wins or loses; her admiration is constant and her love is true.
www.salon.com
Another recent example of fake feminist progress is Angelina Jolie’s much touted role Salt, originally written “for a guy,” a guy like Tom Cruise! Scott Mendelson wrote about EW’s self congratulatory cover story on how progressive the movie is on his blog. Mendelson has this quote from EW:
“In the original script, there was a huge sequence where Edwin Salt (the original male protagonist) saves his wife, who’s in danger,” says Noyce. “And what we found in the new script, it seemed to castrate his character a little. So we had to change the nature of that relationship.”
Mendelson writes:
So, hidden in an article on how “Salt” is oh-so-empowering for female action heroes is this tidbit. The filmmakers believe that it was perfectly OK for the spouse to be rescued from mortal danger if said love interest was a girl, but not if the romantic partner was a man. Apparently, it’s great if the action hero is a girl, as long as she doesn’t have the opportunity to one-up any male counterparts or reverse the oldest cliche in the action-film handbook.
What a bummer. The supposedly feminist “Salt” remains safely within the gender boundaries of every classic Disney movie, and is it even possible to be “a little castrated?”
Update: Jezebel posts a leaked memo from ABC to Lane Bryant, showing that, contrary to its claims, the network did refuse to air the ad.
Second update: To the offended commenters, just like I tell my six year old, “fat” is not a bad word! Nor is “large” nor is “chubby.” People who are upset I used the word “fat” to describe the plus size model in the photo are reinforcing the values of a society that thinks one woman’s size is so preferable to another’s. And yes, of course size is relative, as is height, weight, age etc. Compared to certain groups of people, in various societies, the Lane Bryant model would not be fat or plus size.
Third update: Ashley Grant, the Lane Bryant model, says on ET she thinks her breasts were too big, bigger than the Victoria’s Secret models and that’s why her ad was censored.
I don’t watch “Dancing with the Stars” but seeing the clips on my TV right now, the costumes on those women look like my three year old got near them with her scissors; they’re missing whole sections.
While I was posting this story last night, Joy Behar was on TV with Pamela Anderson as a guest, showing clips of half dressed Pam doing splits, again and again, over her dance partner. If ABC censored big breasts during its cartoon hour, that would be one thing, but during “Dancing With the Stars” gives a whole new meaning to the term “double standard.”
The L.A.-based Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is set to release this summer the findings of a lengthy study on gender roles in movies and TV shows aimed at viewers 11 and under. The org is also planning a daylong conference in L.A. this fall. The institute has a programming unit dubbed See Jane that aims to work with execs, creatives and other industry orgs to encourage the inclusion of a wider range of femme characters in kid-oriented programming.
Academy Award winning actress Geena Davis says, “Kids need to see entertainment where females are valued as much as males.”
Here is her institute’s mission:
While watching children’s television programs and videos with her then 2-year old daughter, Academy Award winner Geena Davis noticed a remarkable imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. From that small starting point, Davis went on to raise funds for the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment.
The research showed that in the top-grossing G-rated films from 1990-2005, there were three male characters for every one female – a statistic that did not improve over time.
The concern was clear: What message does this send to young children?
I can’t wait for this new study. Thank you to Geena Davis for recognizing the gender bias in kids movies and doing something to change it. Go Thelma!
After watching Joy Behar’s show on the Oscar curse, and hearing a male guest suggest that when actresses are “given this giant gold ballast, men get insecure.” Also, feeling that the curse is another way of letting women know they can’t have it all, I decided to start a movement.
“How to Train Your Dragon” is a great movie; I was riveted from start to finish. The story is compelling and the animation is wonderful. A misfit boy, Hiccup, refuses to kill the dragons who relentlessly attack his Viking village, even as everyone around him, who he loves and respects, viciously slaughters them. Hiccup, instead, befriends and trains the creatures, ultimately bringing peace to his people.
But why couldn’t Hiccup have been a girl? Why couldn’t the dragon in the title have been female?
This movie, like most modern day animation blockbusters, does throw girls a few bones. There are two main characters that are girls; Astrid and Ruffnut are both good fighters, but they are clearly in supporting roles. Their job in the movie, as for most girls in most movies, is to help propel the guy, in this case, Hiccup, to greatness. Astrid and Ruffnut preform their archetypal tasks as helpmeets very well. Rah rah.
There are a few minor, minor roles for adult female Vikings, drawn as fat rather than strong, shown mostly in crowd scenes, never getting more than one line at a time. Hiccup’s father is a main character; he’s the leader of the tribe. His mother– surprise, surprise– is dead, so unusual for the mom to be killed off in a kids’ movie. She’s mentioned just once, when Hiccup’s dad hands his son a helmet which he tells his son used to be half of his mother’s breast plate. Ha ha.
The repetitive gender dynamic of boy-leader/ girl-follower is troubling because, like it or not, Hollywood provides our kids with some of their earliest leadership training. The star of the movie is the leader of the movie. Hiccup demonstrates all the skills of a truly visionary and effective leader: he’s smart, compassionate, creative, listens to his own truth, advocates for causes he believes in, builds constituencies, and trains his team. The girls’ critical choice in the movie is whether or not to follow him.
What gets me about “How to Train your Dragon” is here was a prefect opportunity to put a girl in the star role, even without messing too much with Hollywood’s beloved gender stereotypes.
In “How to Train Your Dragon” Hiccup was already stretching the bounds of accepted masculinity by being so skinny and sweet compared with the muscley, hairy, slow-thinking, Popeye-on-steroids Vikings. Hiccup redefined bravery by refusing to kill. Why not go just a little further and make the character a girl? Apparently, DreamWorks is still too afraid, or too unimaginative, to come out with a movie starring a female, so I guess a skinny, weak boy is the next best thing.
How is Astrid finally convinced to put her trust in Hiccup instead of in his father, the tribe’s real leader? Hiccup takes her for a ride on his trained dragon, Toothless. As she dares to climb behind him on the saddle, grinning and clinging to his back, she reminded me of watching “Superman” as a kid, seeing Lois Lane dazzled by handsome Christopher Reeve as he flew her through the starry night or myself, cruising down a freeway in Austin, on the back of my boyfriend’s motorcycle, in awe at the sunset in the giant Texas sky. Yeah, it’s seductive and all, but why can’t Hollywood give girls the chance to be the hotties in the driver’s seat?
There’s one more female in this movie, blink and you’ll miss they call her a she. Spoiler alert: it turns out all the dragons are stealing food to feed a secret, hidden, giant, boss dragon, “like worker bees to a queen,” Hiccup discovers. I’m going to look at this paradoxically minor/ major female role as subversively feminist, and awarding the movie an extra G for it, though I don’t know how many people who see the movie will get that part is a female one.
“How to Train Your Dragon” gets a GG/S rating: some girlpower, some stereotyping.
For those of you who are going to comment boys will see movies about girls, girls will not see movies about boys, please see this post.
Pink was not always the color of girlie girls. Once upon a time, pink was associated with boys because of its closeness to red, considered a hyper-masculine, power color. Blue was feminine and the color of the role model for all good girls: the Virgin Mary. Animated girl icons Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland were always shown in blue.
He writes: “The saccharine, confectionary pink objects that fill my images of little girls and their accessories reveal a pervasive and culturally manipulated expression of femininity and a desire to be seen. To make these images, I arrange and display the cotton – candy colored belongings of several children in their rooms.”
Finally, Christmas is over and I am so sick of the whole thing; instead of subjecting my family to my endless frustration with all the lame toys out there marketed to girls, I’m going to blog. I’m the mother of three daughters, ages 6 years to ten months, and I’d like to connect with some like-minded parents looking for products for girls and get some help exchanging information and rating products and media (movies, books, cartoons etc.)
The toy industry acts as if boys and girls are polar opposites (you know the drill– Mars and Venus) One thing that drives me crazy– dolls marketed to boys are called “action figures.” Dolls marketed to girls are called dolls. While boy dolls usually frown and look tough, girl “dolls” almost always smile, their eyes often looking upward. This smile tyranny is one of the most annoying forms of sexism and it manages to cross all kinds of class lines. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked by a homeless person, given him money or not, and he calls out to me: “Smile, Baby.” And speaking of the ubiquitous, submissive smiling female, a friend came to visit me in San Francisco, the father of a three year old, and told me when they were driving down Broadway, where all the strip joints were, there was a giant photo featuring an exotic dancer and his daughter pointed, shouting: “Ariel!”
Second thing that drives me crazy– so many girls toys with the focus on dressing them up and fashion. My three year old got Polly Pocket for Christmas. I can’t stand Polly Pocket. I call her Polly Prostitute, partly due to her fashion choices which include thigh high boots in every shade of pastel and minis that barely cover her ass. This tiny plastic doll has about 50 million tinier little plastic outfits, impossible to keep track of– I mean a hairband with kitty ears smaller than my pinky nail. My nine month old has practically choked on a fllourescent stilleto more than once. I admit, dressing tiny Polly in her tiny clothing has honed my daughter’s fine motor skills into nothing less than phenomenal, but I hate that she is being trained to focus an inordinate amount of time and energy on getting dressed. My three year old also received magnetic, smiling girls with magentic clothing and you change their outfits, mix and match. Again, she is learning matching skills but the dressing is too much. I am going to get the names and the prices of these toys for you and post them because I would like this bog to be informational as well as commentary.
Another thing that drove me crazy this year, Rudolph the Red Nosed Renideer, I bought the dvd for my kids. And yes, we actually had a great time watching it under blankets, sitting by the fire, but I can’t get past that there are NO girl reindeers. There’s a big scene where the boy reindeers compete and learn how to fly (“playing reindeeer games”) There is only one girl- Clarisse: she does not fly or even aspire to fly; she gets the role of cheerleader. My daughter had a friend in pre-school, and I live in San Francisco, supposedly an open and liberal city– the kids in that school put on a Christmas play and the girls were not allowed to be reindeers or Santa because those were boy roles. That sucks. There are no girl elves in the Rudolph movie with speaking parts. There is Herbie, the elf who doesn’t fit in “a misfit,” and I do like the message of embracing your individuality. I can’t help but think Herbie is kind of a gay character, he’s the only elf with good hair– or possibly hair at all– and its a great message to find strength in your differences and to to be yourself. Speaking of which, Santa is extremely critical and only likes Rudolph when he realizes what Rudolph can do for him. Kind of lame, maybe a typical stren father figure role. My husband pointed out, when I complained, that Santa is under a lot of pressure, he’s got a big job to do; he has to know he can rely on his team and that sled is going to fly.
On this blog, I’m going to be rating toys and films, not on sex and violence, but on stereotyping because that’s the kind of imagery that is most damaging to kids– boys and girls both. Three S’s is the worst rating, three Gs for girls, is the best gender rolemodeling. Rudolph gets SS, it doesn’t get three S’s because Clarisse and Rudolph’s mom do stand up for themselves and refuse when Rudolph’s dad tells them to stay home, that its man’s work to find and rescue Rudolph. (I know this only because my six yesr old told me, I missed that part while re-stocking their bowls of cheez-its.) The message of indiviuality is important though with the almost total lack of girls in this story, its kind of like when you go to a private school info night (you can tell what else I’ve been doing) and the head of school tells you how imprtant diversity is to them but there’s no diversity at their school– it’s an intellectual idea, not made into an experience or a reality except in the most limited way.
I am not one of those mom’s who never let’s my kid watch TV (though I am pretty strict about how much) or who only likes wooden toys. I think we all live in the world and I’d like to help them to figure out how to be naviagte it, appropriating toys that are sexist whenever possible, however they can, rather than attempting to isolate them. I’m not “against” Barbie, I think she, like any toy, can be used as a creative outlet. I think “forbidding” toys is like “forbidding candy” which I also don’t do; it only makes kids want them more. That said, I don’t go out of my way to bring that stuff in my home, and I try to get as excited as possible about stuff that I think is good for them.
Let me know about great toys for girls or the ones that drive you crazy and why, what you’ve seen out there, what you’ve liked, what your kids have liked. If you are a girl older than my own, I’d love your comments.
Here’s something I wrote a couple years ago for the San Jose Mercury News on the same topic that kind of inspired me to do this blog. I think you are not allowed to post articles in their full form but as far as I can tell, this one is not anywhere on the internet anymore given the long time lapse so I’m just gong to put it up and hope I don’t get in trouble.
Phooey on `Ratatouille’: Female leads lacking in kid films
STUDIOS ACKNOWLEDGE, ACCEPT SEXISM
By Margot Magowan
Article Launched: 07/06/2007 01:32:35 AM PDT
“Ratatouille” made $47 million opening weekend, but as I watched the
film with my 4-year-old daughter, I felt depressed. There was nary a
female rat in sight. I’d forked over $9 so my daughter could get yet
another lesson in sexism direct from Pixar or Disney: No matter if
you’re a rodent, car, or fish – boys are the ones with the starring
roles while girls are relegated to sidekicks.
“Cars,” “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Lion King,” “Monsters Inc.”
each features a male hero and multiple male characters; often a token
female is around to help propel one of the guys to greatness.
“Ratatouille” faithfully follows suit. Colette, a female human sous
chef, even justifies her secondary role in the film with a brief
monologue on misogyny: “Do you know how hard I had to work to get
ahead in this male-dominated kitchen?” she yells at our hero.
The speech is there to throw girls a bone, and you can find this
gesture in most modern day motion picture cartoons. It’s that nod to
the audience: unlike all those cartoons of yesteryear, we know this is
sexist, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
When I complained to my mom and sister: “Why couldn’t Ratatouille have
been female? Why no girls – again?” They said, “Didn’t you hear
Colette’s talk? That’s how it is in the real world.” OK, let me get
this straight: It’s just fine to stretch our imaginations to believe
in a talking rat who can cook, but when it comes to gender
roles, we admire realism and authenticity?
When my daughter goes to the movies, she sees animals talk, fairies or
unicorns prance around, witches cast evil spells, but she’s never
shown a magical land where boys and girls are treated equally, where
gender doesn’t matter. Why can’t Pixar or Disney allow her the fantasy
of equality?
After I saw “The Lion King,” I wanted to know: Why couldn’t the
lionesses have attacked weak, old Scar? Why did they have to wait
around for Simba to come back to Pride Rock to help them? I was told:
that’s how it is in nature – lionesses need a male to lead the pride.
So a lion can be best friends with a warthog and a meerkat without
gobbling them up, but a lioness heading a pride? That could never
happen in the animal kingdom!
Pixar has yet to allow girls any starring roles, but Disney permits it
if she’s a princess. Audiences can count on the contemporary princess
movie to throw girls their bone: Unlike princesses of the past who
happily went off with the first guy who kissed them out of
unconsciousness, these modern girls get to choose whom they marry.
Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine put up a huge stink, stubbornly refusing
betrothal to the obvious choice. But these elaborate shows of
independence are bases for entire plot lines, keeping the princesses
stories almost entirely focused on marriage: rebellion within the
safest possible framework.
When my daughter was watching “Mulan” – probably the most feminist of
all the motion picture cartoons – dress up as a boy to fight in a war,
she asked me, “Why can’t girls fight?” Before she can even understand
how Mulan is empowering, first she has to understand sexism. But does
she need to know, at age 4, about sexism? Does she need to know people
still believe girls can’t do so many things, like cook in a top-tier
French kitchen? Why can’t she just see a girl chef making great food,
receiving acclaim for her talent, being helped along by a girl rat or
sous chef boy?
The hyper-concern for gender accuracy in the fantasy world extends to
things like plush toys – when I refer to my kid’s animals as “she,”
adults invariably do a double take, checking for manes or tusks: even
female toys must stay in their place. And of course, toys are a big
part of the problem. With today’s mass marketing, all these movie
characters live on as action figures, dolls, games, on T-shirts and
cereal boxes. On my daughter’s kite, her beach ball, her pull-ups, the
trifecta of Jasmine, Belle and Ariel smile shyly. My daughter wasn’t
born with this fairy tale-princess fantasy embedded in her brain, but
like any kid, she’s self-centered. She likes the movies that are all
about her. Females are half of the population. We pay our $10 just
like everyone else. When can we get more representation in our movies?
How long do we have to wait?
Pixar is made up of a bunch of guy geeks. Disney’s top brass is
practically all male. Maybe when we get more female studio heads, more
female directors and producers and writers, we’ll see groups of girls
having adventures; girl heroes doing cool, brave things in starring
roles where marriage may never be mentioned at all. Maybe then people
will wake up, finally recognize the radical lack of imagination going
on in our make believe worlds; Princess Charming finally rescues
Scooby Doo isn’t bad. I was thrilled that my daughter preferred it to all the princess moview. It’s all about solving mysteries. There are three males, one is a dog and the title charcacter. Being the title character is prime real estate and a girl character rarely wins it unless she’s a princess. Shaggy and Scooby are the stars and role model male friendship. Many kids movies are full of females who hate eachother– wicked stepmother and jealous stepsisters. Scooby Doo is your classic guy buddy movie. Velma is a strong character, the smartest of the bunch. Th eproblem is because she is smart, she seems to be unable to be attractive. daphne is obviously the hot girl– played my Sarah Michelle Gellar in the movie version, and Daphne is always worried about her hair and always wants to go shopping. The rest of the gang is often telling her to get over this and Daphne can come through with solving a riddle or saving someone from a monster. Often the wicked characters are female also. All in all, I’m pretty happy when my kids opt for Scooby Doo.
ABC is now denying it ever censored the ad. Lane Bryant still claims the ad was censored. Either way, I’m having trouble leaping on the feminist band wagon burning up the blogosphere defending this commercial and demanding it be aired. Fat women should be allowed to be objectified too, dammit!
www.salon.com
