Category Archives: Movies

Rare sighting! “The Ballad of Nessie”

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Finding a girl lead in an animated kids’ movie may be as rare as a sighting of the Loch Ness monster. Literally. Have you ever heard of “The Ballad of Nessie”? Here’s the poster:

On Friday, I took my four year old daughter to see “Winnie the Pooh.” Before the feature began, there was a super cool short called “The Ballad of Nessie.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

Set in the bonny blue highlands of Scotland, The Ballad of Nessie is a whimsical and colorful tall tale about the friendly Loch Ness Monster, Nessie, and how she and her best friend MacQuack the rubber duck came to live in the moor they now call home. Setting the adventure into motion is a greedy land developer named MacFroogle, who decided to build a mini-golf empire on top of Nessie’s home.

This movie clearly showcases a female character. The narrative is her quest. But did you get that part about “short”? Blink and you’ll miss it (as we almost did because we were late for “Pooh.”) It’s five minutes long.

If you’ve spotted the Nessie poster in your town or city or on TV, please report the sighting to ReelGirl. Even better, take a photo and send it in. And Keep letting ReelGirl know about any other sightings of female leads in kids’ animated movies.

WSJ reports Disney to create more animated series for boys

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is about to launch a major new line up of boy based animated programming. And all this time, I thought kids needed to see more animated female characters. Wow, I was totally wrong.

The WSJ reports:

This summer, kids TV programmers are a little boy crazy. That’s because boys watch more animated series than girls and represent a lucrative sales opportunity for videogames, toys and sports merchandise.

OK, lets stop there. I have a question not addressed here or in any depth anywhere in this article. Why do “boys watch more animated series than girls”?

I’m going to go out a limb here and suggest the reason is because animated series, and the movies derived from them, continually and relentlessly leave girl characters out. When “The Smurfs” (adapted from the TV series) hits movie theaters at the end of the month, kids will see one girl Smurf (Smurfette) among nine boy Smurfs (Brainy, Jokey, Chef, Handy etc.) This boy/girl ratio is so ubiquitous in kids’ cartoons that twenty years ago, Katha Pollitt coined the term “the Smurfette principle” to describe it. Did you get that part about twenty years ago? That’s right, no advances for gender equality in Smurfville for two decades.

So here’s a marketing proposal for Disney: instead of putting out the message that girls somehow “age out” of animation, why not, instead, create some cooler cartoon characters that represent half of the kid population besides princesses or long-eyelashed sidekicks? Girls don’t need less programming, they need more. Concluding that girls lose interest in cartoons after the slim pickings offered to them is a like serving a vegetarian a bacon cheeseburger and then deciding she doesn’t like food.

Later in the article, the idea that girls just grow out of animation is repeated when Ron Geraci, head of research at Viacom, is quoted saying: “Girls migrate out of animation more quickly than boys.”

But again, there are no statistics or mention at all about the lack of female leads in animation. There are only references to the non-animated Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato. EW.com recently reported that when Pixar releases Brave in 2012 audiences will see the studio’s first animated film featuring a female lead in its 25 year history. Twenty-five years! Yet Disney somehow sees the need to create more animated programming for boys. And what about “Family Guy,” “The Simpsons,” “South Park”– all popular cartoons for grown-ups. Note to Disney: No one “ages out” of cartoons.

Continuing…

Starting Sept. 1, Perry will make a guest appearance on some four million packages of Nesquik, replacing Nestle/ Nesquik bunny. And he is the focal point of a promotional tour of a 4,000-pound Airstream trailer converted into a “platy-bus”; fans can climb aboard and play 3-D videogames set for release with the Aug. 5 premiere of Disney’s TV movie “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension.

Thank you to the WSJ for laying out here how the Disney marketing machine works. (1) Create programs for boys about boys (2) Put images of boys on every space available on products marketed to kids– cereal boxes, diapers, chocolate milk (3) Create video games based on the boy cartoons (4) Conclude only boys like video games

Here’s the unreported side effect: When girls go missing from kids programming, kids of both genders learn that girls are less important than boys.

Now a quote from Disney’s Senior VP:

“We definitely set out to create a boy’s franchise. That was our goal. That group was underserved,” says Adam Sanderson, senior vice president, franchise management, at Disney-ABC Television Group.

Underserved? What?

But here’s my favorite part of the article:

Some time after viewers hit age 6, story lines that appeal to girls-about friendship, romance, gossiping-start to make boys cringe. Boys like TV shows about robots and action. They prefer shows with male leads.

Ok, we are talking about 6 – 11 year old girls here. Romance? Gossip? I guess the boy version of ‘friendship’ would be a ‘buddy movie, kind of like how dolls for boys are called ‘action figures.’ But instead of ignoring these inane gender stereotypes, Disney perpetuates them, working hard to segregate the sexes. For those choices made by high up Disney Execs, girls suffer.

Animation is better than live action when it comes to boy-friendly story lines, says Stuart Snyder, president and chief operating officer of the Time Warner unit that includes Cartoon Network. “You can’t always do the most adventurous things in real life,” he says.

Tragically, if you happen to be a girl, you can’t do the most adventurous things in the animated world either. Hopefully, you’re into gossip and romance.

Coming in 2012: Pixar’s first female lead in 25 year history

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And now for some good news: EW.com reports that in June 2012, when Pixar releases ‘Brave,’ audiences will meet Merida “the very first female lead character in the 25 year history of the acclaimed animated studio.” I know– the exception proves the rule and it’s been a long, long wait for just one girl, brave as she may be, (and we still have a year to go) but I am so excited for this movie. It looks amazing! Check out the preview here.

When I started this blog, ReelGirl, a friend of mine gave me a book she bought at a garage sale that I LOVED called Brave Margaret. It’s about an Irish woman who overcomes enormous obstacles, slaying a beast and saving her love. I couldn’t believe my friend picked up this incredible story that I’d never heard of before at a garage sale.  Its illustrations and story are so fabulous. Could this mysterious book be the basis of the story for Pixar’s movie? Check out my review of Brave Margaret here.

There’s one more story I’m thinking of that reminds me of Pixar’s movie, the book Brave Martha. Though Martha is French, this story is about a brave girl who saves a French town from a dragon. This book is written and illustrated by my godmother, the great Susan Roth. Check it out here.

You can order Brave Margaret on Amazon here. Order Brave Martha here.

(I can’t help but notice all these courageous girls have names that begin with M.)

It’s not about Nemo

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For the record: I love Nemo. I love The Lion King. I love Winnie the Pooh, Buzz Lightyear and Woody. I thought “How to Train Your Dragon” was amazing. You can read my review of it  here. I just wanted to know: Why not a girl starring in this movie? And I don’t mean a smart, brave girl who gets who helps the boy along on his quest (the subject of the movie and its title.) I mean: Why not a female hero of the movie? Why not a female dragon that she trains?

It’s no fun picking on lovable cartoon characters! That issue is at the very heart of the problem. These movies repeatedly charm us and our kids into celebrating the same old gender stereotypes generation after generation.

Furthermore, I don’t believe these limited gender roles are based on some Pixar/ Disney conspiracy. I think the guys who run these movie studios really believe their movies are great. And in many ways they are. But the problem is that the movie makers are not really thinking about girls. While they’re not thinking about them, they’re programming them in showing them, repeatedly, that girls are less important than boys.

The studio heads are not offering up this limited programming because they’re mean, bad men, but just because they are men. Mostly, little girls aren’t that important in their worlds, fantasy or reality. (Though I have to ask– I know they were never girls, but don’t they have daughters?)

When studio heads get complaints about leaving girls out, I honestly think they’re surprised. Maybe the more they hear it, the more they won’t be, but I don’t think their intention is to be sexist and keep women down. If women ran Hollywood by the same majority– and had run the entire world and written its major narratives for thousands of years, since the Bible, since before the Bible–  men would repeatedly be assigned the roles of boyfriend or sidekick. Art is derivative. Everyone knows that. But enough already! It’s time to wake up. The year is 2011. We moms of daughters pay our $10 for a movie like everyone else. Its not good for our sons either, or anyone, to limit kids’ imaginations so relentlessly.

Sorry, Nemo, but it’s your turn to swim over to the left.

Will the real Winnie the Pooh please stand up?

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Many commenters are defending Disney’s Winnie Pooh movie, so I thought I’d respond in one post.

One commenter wrote  that the picture of the Pooh movie featured in ReelGirl’s gallery of girls gone missing from kids movies in 2011 was not the actual movie poster. The commenter wrote that the real movie poster does, in fact, include Kanga. So below is the poster that I think the commenter was referring to. You can see Kanga on the far left along with her male pals Piglet, Owl,  Pooh, Tigger, Eyeore, Rabbit, and her son Roo. (Not pictured: Christopher Robin.)

Other commenters argued the Pooh characters are androgynous. If this is true, why are they played (except for Mom Roo) by male voices? Or, are you all saying that male is the same as androgynous? If that is the point, which some commenters also made, just imagine what it would be like if you every time you read the so-called androgynous “he” you read “she” instead. It would feel strange and jarring and you’d wonder why females were privileged while males were left out. Then, after a while, you’d get so used to males being invisible, the language would seem ‘natural’; you’d stop noticing the exclusion at all.

Still more Pooh defenders wrote: The characters come out of a classic story by A. A. Milne, how can I blame Hollywood?

This point contradicts the former one that the characters are androgynous, but that aside– this is Hollywood! It’s the so-called post-feminist year of 2011. Hollywood adapts and serializes. It’s supposed to know no bounds to its awesome creativity (see interview with Ed Catmull).

Hollywood invents rats that cook (male rats) and lions that pal around with warthogs (male lions, male warthogs) Is it asking too much for Hollywood to stretch its commitment to accurate portrayal of Winnie the Pooh’s Taoist bear or moping donkey to include a few more females in the gang than A. A. Milne, perhaps, initially intended? Pooh’s own advertising on this poster reads: “An all-new story.” Obviously, the remade story is supposed to be part of the appeal. So remake it!

If it is really just asking way too much to include girls in endlessly recycled classics, could Hollywood then, perhaps, opt to create new story lines (and toys, diaper logos, and video games that follow) based on original narratives that star girls front and center not limited to princesses? Can we please stop literally programming every generation to embrace anew thousand year old gender stereotypes?

Pixar/ Disney movies get triple S for stereotyping, not suitable for kids

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Kidsmovies.com posted a link to ReelGirl’s gallery of girls gone missing pics of 2011 movie posters. The banner at the top of the kidsmovies site features its own unintended (I think) same-old-same-old-boy based line up: Curious George, Nemo, Toy Story 3, Tangled, Gnomeo and Juliet, Up, Kung Fu Panda (I’m guessing, the picture is the top of Jack Black’s head) and Horton. The only girl front and center out of 9 movie posters is Rapunzel (typical rescue story- can you see why girls are obsessed with princesses? Without that storyline girls hardly exist in kids movies at all.)

There’s not a single poster that features multiple girls and no boys in this particular montage. If I seem like I’m nitpicking, it’s because this same, repetitive ratio is EVERYWHERE! (See the kidsmovies.com gallery here.)

And here’s the irony. Pixar and Disney head, Ed Catmull, is continually celebrated for his creativity, out of the box thinking, and taking chances. Here’s an excerpt from a typical glowing profile (this one on SFGate):

The president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation has a low profile outside of industry circles, but he’s one of the main architects behind the studio’s creativity-driven foundation. And he’s intent on keeping things unpredictable, fighting “conservative forces” that have made the golden ages of other cinematic movements all too brief…

But with Lucas, Catmull and later Jobs in charge, creative types at Pixar were encouraged to take chances. And the results changed the animation genre.

“Ed Catmull brought that to the culture of Pixar, in the sense that he wants people to try stuff,” Lasseter says. “If it doesn’t work, fine. In fact, sometimes you get more excited when it doesn’t work. And that’s the total opposite of Hollywood, where people are so scared to try different things. They’re risk-averse.”

The 30-minute speech that follows is filled with Ed-isms. Anybody should be able to talk to anybody else at any time… It’s OK to be surprised in meetings… Don’t be afraid to fail..

“It’s so easy to go to a conservative place. You know something that works, and you don’t want to change,” Catmull says. “We’re always going to have something that is a little chaotic and messy. …As a company we’re just trying to allow unpredictable things to happen.”

Conservative forces? Keeping things unpredictable? If women were running these animation studios, you’d never hear a quote like “unpredictable” to describe the slew of Pixar/ Disney movies where girls are continually relegated to the role of sidekick or princess. Instead of a G Rating, too many Pixar/ Disney movies should get a Triple S for major stereotyping, not suitable for kids. Makes you wonder how many women are in the MPAA? Or have ever headed the MPAA? Stay tuned.

Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows?

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Girlw/Pen‘s Natalie Wilson asks: why are strong female protagonists missing from so many YA books? She wishes Harry’s series belonged to Hermione, or at least there were more series centered around Hermione-like characters. Wilson posts a link to my gallery of girls-gone-missing posters for kids’ movies and writes the ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows’ film could’ve been included in the list. She’s right. Here’s my comment on her blog:

Thanks for this piece and posting the link to my depressing gallery. Kudos for dealing with Harry Potter. I didn’t include the poster even though, as you write, it would completely fit because it breaks my heart.

The Harry Potter series got my seven year old daughter to read 700 page books. And its by a single mom! But why not a girl wizard as the main character? And why does the writer call herself the gender ambiguous J.K.? Maybe she figured, given the total sexism in kidworld, a male hero is the best way to sell books. Maybe she figured she might not get published at all if she wrote ‘Hermonie Granger and the Sorcerer’s Stone.’ If so, given the climate in Hollywood and publishing, maybe she made the right choice for herself as a writer, deciding the world was only ready for the girl to be a sidekick– but she’d give her a really good part, make her really smart, and not the love interest of the main character.

S.E. Hinton wrote ‘The Outsiders’ about a boy gang to much acclaim. Maybe in 2011, women writers still exist in the world of George Eliot more than anyone admits.

2011 kids’ movie titles feature 11 male stars

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Disney’s male execs famously switched a movie title from ‘Rapunzel’ to ‘Tangled’ to conceal the female star. But in 2011, I count 11 titles that refer to the movie’s male star including Adventures of Tintin, Arthur’s Christmas, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Kung Fu Panda, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Puss in Boots, Winnie the Pooh, Rango, Happy Feet 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, and The Zookeeper.

Male execs justify this blatant sexism by repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) stating: boys won’t go to see movies about girls but girls are AOK seeing movies about boys. So you see, this Hollywood preference isn’t about sexism; it’s just biology. What’s a movie mogul to do about that?

OK, in what other instance do the preferences of five year olds dictate the choices of CEOs of multinational companies? They don’t. Ever.

Movies star boys for one reason– because men make the movies! Men are the producers, directors, and the stars. Sexism in kids movies has nothing to do with children and everything to do with grown-ups, particularly Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Johnny Depp, Jim Carey, Antonio Banderas, Hank Azaria, Paul Reubens and on and on and on.

If women were running Hollywood by the same kind of majority, they’d be shrugging their shoulders and get quoted in the LA Times saying: “Girls just won’t spend their allowance on movies if we put a boy in the title. Go figure.”

See the sexist gallery of 2011 kids movie posters here.

Girls gone missing: kids’ movie posters in 2011

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The year is 2011. You are a seven year old girl looking out the back seat car window. Unless you catch a glimpse of ‘Hoodwinked 2’ or ‘Judy Moody’ these are the pictures you see. In your world, boys are front and center. You are a sidekick or just not there at all.

Update: I’ve updated Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing From Kids Films in 2011 to include posters that had not been released over the summer when I initially posted the gallery.

I also, sadly, added Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter and love Hermione, but it is true, as commenters pointed out, the movie is clearly Harry’s quest, Harry is the star. The newly added “Hugo” also has a strong girl character, but token strong girls are not enough. Harry Potter and Hugo are also both titled for the male star, whereas Disney execs famously switched the title of Rapunzel to Tangled specifically not to highlight the female star. It’s amazing to me that this blatant sexism goes on in media marketed to little kids.

When kids see, again and again and again, that girls are relegated to supporting roles, both genders learn that girls are less important than boys. This is a terrible lesson for a new generation of children to be learning.

Movies included in the Gallery are ‘appropriate’ for little kids. My three daughters are ages 2 – 8.

 Disney's Winnie the Pooh movie poster

The ‘Smurfette principle’ coming soon to a theater near you

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In 1991, when I was still in college, feminist critic Katha Pollitt wrote about the ‘Smurfette principle‘ for the New York Times: the idea that kids’ narratives too often allow just one lone female character to exist in a group of males. Twenty years later, when I have three young daughters, Hollywood’s major studios are releasing two movies this July: ‘Winnie the Pooh‘ and ‘The Smurfs.’ Both potential summer blockbusters are based on the same sexist casting Pollitt pointed out in her ’91 piece, showing Smurfville and Pooh Corner are just as resistant to the ERA as Washington DC.

Here’s Pollitt in ’91:

Contemporary shows are either essentially all-male, like “Garfield,” or are organized on what I call the Smurfette principle: a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined. In the worst cartoons — the ones that blend seamlessly into the animated cereal commercials — the female is usually a little-sister type, a bunny in a pink dress and hair ribbons who tags along with the adventurous bears and badgers. But the Smurfette principle rules the more carefully made shows, too. Thus, Kanga, the only female in “Winnie-the-Pooh,” is a mother. Piggy, of “Muppet Babies,” is a pint-size version of Miss Piggy, the camp glamour queen of the Muppet movies. April, of the wildly popular “Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles,” functions as a girl Friday to a quartet of male superheroes. The message is clear. Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.

Just yesterday, I blogged about the pathetic 8 to 1 male/ female ratio in the new ‘Winnie the Pooh‘ which scores one lower than ‘The Smurfs’ at 9 to 1.

As Pollitt alluded to in ’91, the ‘Smurfette principle’ isn’t only about numbers. Male smurfs’ names alone attribute personality and/ or skill to their characters and include Gutsy, Jokey, Baker, Handy, and Brainy. So they are brave, smart, funny, useful and can cook.

And oh, can they cook! Lest you have any doubt that life imitates art and art imitates life, Baker Smurf is played by real life acclaimed chef Wolfgang Puck. Not Alice Waters. And the Smurfette’s moniker? Her name tells us she’s the coquette; her skill is her smile.

But back to numbers, there are real life consequences for forcing half of the population into a tiny minority. ‘The Smurfs’ assigns real life men nine great roles. That’s nine big salaries going to stars who include George Lopez, Paul Reubens, and, aforementioned Wolfgang Puck. Oh, forgot to mention Hank Azaria who gets to star as the bad guy– Gargamel. The main female role is played by twenty six year old Katy Perry, so even in cartoonworld, the girl must be young and pretty if she wants a big part. Does this makes you wonder about who’s doing the hiring?

All the top positions on ‘The Smurfs’ from Director to Producers are 100% male including writer credits, casting, music composition, and cinematography.

The mirror image gender disparity of top jobs in the real world and star roles in kids movies is not some crazy coincidence. Fantasy world is an opportunity to show kids they can dream big, not dream in stereotype. Until females can get gender equality in their imaginations, they won’t get it in reality.