squeetus

The amazing shrinking women...roles

Thanks for all your thoughtful comments on the last post. Many of you commented on the need for "strong female characters." Hey, I'm all for it, but what I hope for more than anything is real female characters, which would be a nice mix of all kinds of types and personalities, alongside real male characters. But, lamentably, all I'm gunning for at this point is any female characters. Kids notice gender. They notice that most of the characters on the screen are male. They absorb this and make decisions about the world and about themselves. I know I did.

Jessica notes that most animators are men and they naturally gravitate toward characters who are male.  I can understand that with regards to the main character. I'm a girl, I've written 10 books, and 8 of them have female main characters. But my books also have a lot of male characters. This isn't an effort for me. It would feel unnatural to only write girls. Boys are a part of this world. I like boys. I find them as interesting and worth writing about as girls. I have to believe that the men making movies feel the same way about those creatures of the opposite gender. So I don't understand the lack of female supporting characters. I'm honestly confused. Whatever the reason, and I think it's pointless to speculate on motives, the lack of cartoony girls is undeniable.

Now, having female-led movies for kids is always going to be a battle. We've been told that if Rapunzel's Revenge becomes a movie, we'd have to change the name and make Jack the main character.  It costs a lot of money to make a movie, especially an animated movie that takes years, hundreds of people, and tens of millions of dollars. Investors can't afford to take a chance on that. They usually go with what's proven to sell - male-led family movies.

Heather pointed out that the Japanese don't have this hang-up. The recent Ponyo is a great example of a cast that is rich in both male and female characters. But we poor Americans don't seem to get behind this. Recent movies that had multiple female characters didn't do well, like the fabulous Coraline and Princess and the Frog. There are plenty of male-led animated movies that haven't done well too, but there are far fewer female-led ones, and when those don't make money, Hollywood accountants blame the girls. And who knows, maybe they're right? (Oh, I hope they're not.)

But they examine the evidence. Here are a few of the highest grossing animated movies of all time:
Ice Age
Toy Story
Madagascar
Shrek
Finding Nemo
Up
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters, Inc.
Cars
Ratatouille
I have nothing against these movies. I adore many of them. But look at their male:female ratios. It's kind of shocking what we just accept as normal. Can you imagine a reverse? An Ice Age-type movie where every character (except one who dies at the beginning) is female? The same goes for Up. There's one female (a hippo) on the entire island of Madagascar. Kung Fu Panda (awesome movie) has two female warriors in it. Great! (neither, by the way, gets to be funny) But look at the ratio overall of named characters - I count it 10:2. Imagine a movie with 10 girls and 2 boys! And Ratatouille...I love you, Brad Bird, and everything you do with a passionate love, but there was one named female in the entire movie. Couldn't there have been a single female rat? I think in part this goes back to the "girls aren't funny" belief. Minor characters in animated movies are usually there for comic relief, and until girls are seen as having humor potential, they don't get to make up the supporting cast.

Some commenters mentioned Barbie movies as a resource for girl characters. Amen. And notice that they are all straight to video. (Side note: Mattel once expressed interest in making Princess Academy into a Barbie movie.)

I can't change the fact that most animators and Hollywood movie execs are men and naturally write and make stories about boys and men.  But it's that supporting cast that really bothers me. It feels unnatural, forced, to have 10 males per 1 or 2 females. I don't believe it. I don't like what it says to both my son and my daughter. I wish it would change.

And what changes things is money. Even more specifically: the Opening Weekend. That's all that really matters. If women and girls flood movie theaters the opening weekend in support of movies that are led by or even have a realistic ratio of female characters, those accountants will notice and things will change.

Also, ladies, any of you pining for a career in movie making or animation? You go, girls. You go.

Girls aren't funny and other life lessons

Just reading about Disney renaming their upcoming Rapunzel movie "Tangled" so that it won't seem "girly." Sales for Princess and the Frog weren't as high as they wanted, and they blame the word princess. The LA Times says, "The makeover of "Rapunzel" is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success." Forget the girl audience. They'll watch anything. Unless a movie appeals to boys, it'll flop.

Is this true? Or is it a self-fulfilling policy?

I wonder. I wonder how many boys really refused to go see Princess and the Frog, or loudly protested, or claimed to hate it. I wonder if it doesn't go down that way at all. I wonder if instead we're to blame, we the mothers, we the parents. Are we predetermining what our sons will watch and enjoy? Preparing for a family movie night, do we look over the movies and decide that a "princess" movie won't please the boy child, so look for something else? I know I've talked about this before here, but this is something that deeply concerns me.

Take a look at the animated movies on your shelves. Pick up the ones produced in the last ten years or so. List the main 10 characters. What are their genders? The main character is almost surely male, but putting that aside, just list the supporting characters by gender. Shockingly, often the ratio will be 1:10 in favor of male. You might find 3:10 occasionally, unless it's The Incredibles, the rare exception. In the actual human and animal world, 50% of the population is female. But not in the animated world. How do they reproduce? One girl for every ten boys? Those poor animated creatures are going to go extinct! Females are so rare, you'd think the studios were making Reservoir Dogs for kids.

Now look at those rare girl characters. Are they funny? Unless it's Dori in Finding Nemo (in an ocean dangerously near extinction based on the lack of female aquatic life), the humorous characters are probably male. So many stereotypes we reinforce: girls aren't leaders, girls aren't important enough to be main characters, girls don't matter to the story, girls aren't interesting and they most certainly aren't funny.

Of course this isn't limited to animated movies: Batman, Superman, Ironman, Spiderman...where oh where is Wonder Woman? Thank goodness for X-Men. (Bless you, Chris Claremont!)

My call to arms. Mothers dear, don't let's do this. Don't let's raise our boys to only watch "boy" movies or only read "boy" books. They, just as much as our girls, need to accept and cheer girl heroes, need to believe girls to be interesting and worthwhile. The book world has no shortage of fascinating and varied girl characters, both leading and supporting. But the movie world over the past 10-20 years has slowly been weeding them out. And I don't blame Hollywood. Hollywood follows the money. We need to put our money where our mouth is. Support movies starring girls. Dads, your influence can be powerful here. Take your boys to see movies about girls and boys. Your little girls are watching. We can tell them all we want how wonderful and important they are, but kids learn by example. They believe what they see. So let's show 'em.

Steppin' out with my baby

Dean and I got back today from a semi-last minute trip to Arizona. We hopped on a plane, flew to Phoenix, drove to our hotel, changed clothes, drove to a movie theater, and attended a private premiere of a movie that's really been suffering lately for lack of publicity. It's called Twilight.

Here I am in my Newbery dress (only worn once) with Stephenie (Meyer), her significant male, and my significant male dressed in a purple suit. Yes he is. I love him so much.

The fresh-after movie glow. I really loved it. No, not everyone will, and that's okay. But I have to say...Rob did it. He brung it. I asked Dean after, "Could you sense his animal magnetism?" Nope. He couldn't. But he did like the vampire fights.

 

Clearly still feeling tipsy from the movie, I pose with our rental car. Now you should know, I reserved the cheapest economy car from the cheapest rental place offered on travelocity. But when we got there, they apparently had a spare Mustang. It really was so sweet to drive. We're not car people, but we had to admit--it doesn't handle like the minivan.

 

And...things continue to devolve. Hey, I was in a fancy dress on a fancy car! Dean said I looked like I'd been hit by the car, but I so think I look like a calandar pinup girl. A chaste calandar. In an old folks home, perhaps. Someplace with dim lighting and no television.

Anyhoo, it was a good time. Dean said he felt like he was taking me to prom. And it was weird not to sleep next to a baby monitor. It's always wonderful to see Stephenie, who is all grace and goodness, and I think this movie is going to make a lot of people very happy...

Off the air

We did it--we are officially TV free! Well, we still have a television (one), but no cable, no antennae. Dean and I were looking at our cable bill last month and realizing that we were paying $75 a month and watching TV maybe three times. That's $25 a shot. Ridiculous. So it's gone, baby. It'll be DVDs and downloads from here on out.

We weren't following any shows anyway. There are three uber-popular shows on that I have actually tried on multiple occasions to watch and enjoy...and I am horrified. The writing is terrible, the storytelling is clumsy, the acting is wanting. Why don't movie and TV makers invest more in a good script? It's shocking.

Okay, in my idea of good writing, anyway. I feel a little discouraged that shows I think are brilliant tend to be canceled before their time. Are my standards and likes so much different than everyone else? Off the top of my head, some of my favorite shows from the last few years:

• Firefly
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• Arrested Development
• The Office
• Wonderfalls
• Battlestar Galactica
• Justice League (and Justice League Unlimited)
• Veronica Mars

The last one we just discovered, watching the DVDs. The acting is tremendous, the dialog is top notch. It lasted three seasons before getting the boot. It makes me sad that those storytellers who are doing such a brilliant job and not stooping to cheap thrills and formula aren't being rewarded. The medium of television discourages risk taking, because it must be popular on a wide scale to be successful. As downloadable shows increase, there will be a much wider variety of entertainment. I'm willing to wager that in ten years, the way we view television will be revolutionized.

More author interviews to come...

All about Brad

I've just put together that one person is responsible for three of my absolute favorite animated movies of all time:
The Incredibles
The Iron Giant
The Family Dog (this was an animated short that appeared on Amazing Stories like 20 years ago, and my family has the entire episode memorized. Seriously. Every word.)

The man's name? Brad Bird. Super genius, apparently. If you haven't seen The Iron Giant, this is one worth owning, a fun and lovely story of boy-meets-giant-robot. Great family flick. And if you know much of my husband, you'll see the particular appeal a giant robot story has for us.

Now if we could somehow scheme to add rapunzel's revenge to his list of stellar productions...