Today at lunch with some coworkers, I mentioned how much I love Pixar movies, and how I'm looking forward to seeing Up! However, I lamented that Pixar has yet to release a movie with a central female character, and only two of the movies, A Bug's Life and The Incredibles pass the female character test devised by my Internet friend Starfoxy.
Her test has two requirements:
- There must be at least two female characters
- At some point, the female characters need to have a conversation with each other about something other than a man
Of course, the test doesn't even mandate a central female character. It looks like Pixar's next film is going to feature a central female lead, but it's advertised as the "frirst Pixar fairytale," and of course that female lead is a princess.
As Linda Holmes so aptly said on NPR:
Of the ten movies [Pixar has] released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."
So here's hoping Pixar can give us a movie about Dory the forgetful, spontaneous tang fish. For a similar commentary, click here.
7 comments:
ALISA? Where have you been? I stumbled onto your blog from Mike Weiss's, and I got his from Mike Olsen's.
I do enjoy your commentary blog post about Pixar Woman. It's so true- and the one female character that everyone loves in the Incredibles, just happens to be insanely sexy and not realistic at all. Ahhhhh!
I am so glad to get caught up with you and what you're up to. Thank you for posting about MaeLynn. I would have had no idea otherwise. Maybe it was meant to be that I just stumbled onto all these blogs. I am going to be faithfully following MaeLynn's journey through her cousin's blog if I can stand to read it through the tears.
I love Starfoxy's second requirement. I never thought about it before, but thanks for bringing it to my attention! We went to see Up a couple weeks ago and loved it. I am so excited to introduce Theo to all the Pixar movies when he's older. I feel like they are going to be a great canon of children's movies to share with him.
Was "Monsters v. Aliens" not Pixar? I guess it wasn't... I thought it was. Oops. :)
You'll have to let me know if you like "Up," I do want to see it and I've been hearing good things about it.
Heidi C - Great to see you on the blog! I just went over to yours and loved catching up. I'm glad you found me!
Heidi E - I think Monster v. Aliens was Dreamworks. The last Pixar was WALL-E.
Up was soooooooooo good! I don't think it makes a difference if you watch it in 3-D. But you have to see it!
My mom took the girls to see Up and really enjoyed it. The kids did too :) We just got back yesterday. I loved seeing your pictures from your trip. My favorite is the one with rows of white umbrellas and chairs.
I think Dori had a complete, no-man conversation with the whale, who was clearly a female. A male whale would have digested Marlin and Dori.
I'd never thought about it before, but I guess Pixar is the anti-Princess movie company. It's kind of refreshing. We have too much pink and purple Disney paraphenelia around our house already.
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