Yesterday, I took my three daughters ages 4, 7, and 10, to see “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.” We all enjoyed the movie. The animation was great, though the story was a little weak. I didn’t really understand why the evil guy had to do his evil deeds. But here’s the real problem with the movie. Here are the main characters:
There are 5 males and 2 females. The female ape, Barb, is the sidekick to the evil villain and the female human, Sam Sparks, is the sidekick for the hero. Sam is a classic Minority Feisty. She is a great character, smart, compassionate, and brave. She’s a scientist. But her role in the movie is to support the hero.
The last 6 movies I’ve seen with my daughters– “Despicable Me,” “Monsters Inc,” “Smurfs 2,” “Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters” “Turbo” and “Planes, all reviewed on Reel Girl, have the same pathetic gender ratio.
Females are half of the kid population so why are they conistently presented as a minority in movies made for children?
See Reel Girls’ Gallery of Girls Gone Missing From Children’s Movies in 2013
The thing that I find irritating about sidekicks like Sam who basically fit the model of the TV wife is that she is so capable. What I mean is, in many ways she is more capable than the male protagonist. We, the audience, know that she’s right most of the time. In other movies, this character is even more capable than the male protagonist who is a bumbling idiot. It’s the commercial with the smart wife who rolls her eyes at her foolish husband. It’s the beautiful, smart housewife married to the schlubby buffoon who is always making the mistake that sets off the plot for the episode. If these female characters are so smart and capable, why are they so comfortable taking a backseat to the male protagonists?
Here is a two good blogposts to check out.
Lettrist’s In Hollywood Hives, the Males Rule By NATALIE ANGIER: http://lettrist.blogspot.com/2007/11/in-hollywood-hives-males-rule.html?m=0
This blogpost is about the prelavence of gender confused honeybees and ants and the overwhelmingly male casts among animal characters in childrens’ and family friendly media. Most animals, including humans, have a 50/50 sex ratio, slugs, most snails, earthworms, and leeches are hermaphrodites, and ants and eusocial bees and wasps are overwhelmingly female.
Redeemed Reader’s Sex, Cats, and Stereotypes: http://www.redeemedreader.com/2011/05/sex-cats-and-stereotypes/
This blogpost is about female gender stereotypes vs male gender stereotypes. It says that girls and women are expected to be the stabilizers in society. Even though girls and women are seen as emotional and boys and men are seen as stoic, it seems more wrong for the girl of woman to act rowdy than for the boy or man to do so. For, example, The Cat in The Hat, who is actually supposed to be androgynous as described by the blogpost, wreaks havoc in Sally and Conrad’s house. The blog says that it would take some effort to imagine a female Cat in The Hat because acting rowdy is seen as a stereotypically male behavior. Also, his/her muzzle is big and wide, more of a tomcat trait than a female cat trait, making it even harder to imagine him/her as female.
Thank you for this, LOVE natalie angier and her book Woman, an Intimate Geography ( i think thats the title)