Pixar can do better

(Warning: I do spoil a small part of Toy Story 3 here. If you haven’t seen the movie, you may want to wait to read this.)

So I went to see Toy Story 3 last weekend, and it’s a fun, warm, funny movie – with several grievously sexist moments.

And you know what? I’ve had enough.

SO. I plan to talk to Pixar. Somehow. I haven’t decided yet how: a letter, a meeting, a website…we’ll see. In the meantime I am gathering my arguments and debating techniques.

I’ve started a page at facebook for this quest and would love it if you would become a fan and forward it to your friends.

The following is my first draft of a list of the changes that we need to see from Pixar. It’s in the form of a list but I am not sold on submitting anything like this – I am just trying to get thoughts, and especially research, in order. My goal is to have solid research available to back up each of my claims, so that we can clearly state:

x hurts kids as shown by this research. You have done x in your movies, like this. You need to hire a consultant for your scripts to prevent these damaging, unnecessary themes from appearing in your movies.

The research to support these claims is where YOU come in!

I would like help gathering research to support my hypotheses.Take a look at the list below.  If any of you feel inspired (in all of YOUR spare time), feel free to start googling (as I will be doing) and point me to any links you find. Also, I invite you to critique any of the below. I don’t care if the final project is my words or not: I want it powerful and accurate.

Obviously this is just a first draft/collection of ideas. i would hope to send something shorter (we’ll see) and very tightly written. Also I left a few angry passages in there, which I will probably take out, but this is the first adrenaline rush. 🙂

And if you have any other resources that can help, or any connections to Pixar, please let me know! Thanks for any help!!!!!

THE LIST SO FAR:

A) Making fun of men who transgress gender lines hurts kids.

Case 1: “Why do people always call me a girls’ toy?” (Ken, TS3 ). Effects: This implies that 1) there should be a rigid boundary between girls toys and boys toys 2) girl’s toys are inferior, which means that girls are inferior, and 3) there is something wrong with a feminine man like Ken. Which leads to misogyny, sexism, and homophobia.

Case 2: Similarly, Ken is laughed at for having “girl’s handwriting.” Girl’s handwriting is seen as silly and there is something deeply wrong with Ken for writing that way. Effects : Again, kids are taught that the gender boundaries are sacrosanct and inviolable, and those who transgress are ridiculed…and that the girl’s side is less valued than the boy’s side. 

B) Telling stories where women need to be rescued
hurts kids.

In the end of TS3 , Jessie is
“saved” by Buzz in a very obviously cliched and evocative pose, like in
an old western. This very emphasized and powerful scene is shown as a
reason for Jessie to love Buzz even more. Jessie was a perfectly strong
female character in her own right and there was no reason to set her
up as a damsel in distress.

Effects:
Damsels in distress create the expectation that women are powerless and
need to be saved by men, which damages both girls and boys by 1)
teaching them that the roles of Savior and Damsel are the most
important roles they can have and 2) teaching girls that they can’t
take care of themselves.

C) Showing men kissing women
against their will hurts kids and leads to date rape.

This one is truly egregious. In Ratatouille , there are THREE
females – two characters and one bridal caketopper – that are kissed
against their will. Each of these is presented as humorous or romantic.

Effects : 1) Kids learn that when girls say no,
it is romantic of funny to kiss them anyway, which can lead pretty
directly to date rape. 2) Girls learn that what they want or say is not
important, and that what a guy really wants is for them to submit.

Pixar writers, I assume that some of those “production
babies” are your little kids. If your precious little girl is raped in
college, or your gorgeous little boy is the one who misread signals and
thought he wasn’t really raping her because she seemed to want it,
well…you will have your own selves and these ludicrous moments in
Ratatouille to blame as being part of the culture that confused little
kids as to whether No really means No.

D) Showing
bikini-clad, voiceless women as supreme objects of desire hurts kids.

In Night and Day, the two transparent beings fight
over one image only: hot skinny bikini girls. They are clearly implied
to be straight males in the Tex Avery vein.
Effects
: 1) Kids learn that hot skinny bikini girls are a very important form
of beauty, which leads to a hugely unrealistic image of women’s worth
and bodies. Girls learn that in order to be interesting they need to be
skinny, half-naked, and sexualized. (This is identically presented in
Knick Knack .) This leads to anorexia and girls prioritizing
their looks over their studies and their emotional health, and so much
more…

E) Leaving women out of the central protagonist
role in some of the world’s most popular movies for TEN MOVIES IN A
ROW hurts kids.

Pixar, as I think has been well
covered elsewhere, puts females in:

– helpless
bystander/sidekick/love interest roles roles (Jesse & Bo Peep, in
Toy story 1,2,3 , the older Princess in A Bug’s Life ,
Kevin (who even has a boy’s name) and Ellie in Up ), Colette
in Ratatouille

– nameless sexpot roles (the
bikini-wearers in Night and Day and Knick Knack ,

– shrill harridan roles (the girlfriend and the investigator in Monsters
inc ; Mrs. Potato Head in Toy story 1,2,3 )

– and secondary little girl roles (Molly in TS1,2,3, Bonnie in TS3, Boo
in Monsters Inc, the little princess ant in Bug’s Life ).

Arguably the best roles for women so far in Pixar movies have been
Helen Parr and her daughter Violet in The Incredibles , Eve
(who saves Wall-E once – awesome!), Dory (who had a full personality
and a central role in the plot) Ellie (who we adored, even as she died
before the movie even started) and Boo (who was a toddler, but at least
who was beloved and in most of the central scenes).

None of
these women, of course, were the main protagonists.

Effects:
kids learn that girls’ stories are not interesting,
valuable, or worth telling. Kids learn that boys’ stories are
universal, and girls stories are just for girls. Kids learn that boys
are better, more interesting, and more valued.

I think I speak
for hundreds of thousands of girls and women when I say it is time to
tell Ellie’s story, and not once, but in several movies. Folks,
Hayao Miyazaki does this brilliantly. What in the world could be
holding you back?

Extras:

Things I don’t necessarily plan to include at this point, but could use
research for anyway:

i) Films that are written as if
the LGBT world doesn’t exist hurts kids.

There are
not, and never have been, and gay characters in Pixar films.

Effects
: Obviously, this leads to homophobia as kids learn that the world
only includes straight people, straight parents, straight toys,
straight cars, and straight bugs. If straight is seen as the norm, and
gay is the deviant, well, Matthew Shephard can tell you what this
eventually leads to.

ii) Making disabled characters
overwhelmingly evil hurts kids.

Pixar has a long
history of demonizing people with disabilities or whose bodies are
different from the “norm.” The villain in Ratatouille is made
fun of for being short; the bad grasshopper in A Bug’s Life
has a disfigured eye; the scary toys in Spike’s room in Toy Story
are all damaged or disabled in some way; the prospector and
Lotsahugging Bear (TS2 and TS3 ) both walk with canes;
Lotsahugging even uses a wheelchair/toy truck.

Effects
: kids learn that disability is something that is evil and that they
can tell if someone is bad by whether they are broken. This leads to
disabled individuals being invisible, infantilized, or feared,
including disabled kids.

(To be fair, Finding Nemo
and Up both have disabled characters who are portrayed very
positively, so I was hoping very hard that Pixar was moving on from
this unnecessary crutch; however, Lotsahugging bear is a big
step backwards.)

iii) We don’t even need to go into
detail about how Making the Bad Guy Brown Hurts Kids.

Pixar has also demonized and “othered” at least one brown person. This
was in Ratatouille , when we actually had a dark-skinned,
mustached, accented villain in a case of ludicrously old-fashioned
racism that seemed to hark from 1950’s Disney. Effects: kids who
associate brown skin with evil are more likely to hold racist beliefs
and think brown kids are evil, criminals, or dumb. Both white and brown
kids learn this. One study I know I’d include if I use this argument:
the latest film about children rejecting brown dolls.

OTOH,
the kid in Up and Bonnie from Ts3 both seemed to be
brown kids who were portrayed as full, positive characters. So I am
hoping that Pixar has realized this error and will continue to correct
it.

OK, I think that’s it for now. Let me know what you find,
research-wise, and/or anything else you think! Become a fan on facebook
& pass the word! Together we can change the world! 🙂