It’s been over a year since the family hit Frozen graced screens, although you wouldn’t know it considering how widespread its popularity has become. The popularity isn’t all that mysterious once you break it down; it has some seriously catchy tunes, and seems to be the flag-bearing standard for what Disney’s current line up is trying to accomplish, namely, producing stories about feisty, tougher princesses who don’t necessarily need a man (though that might be nice); stories about the relationships between women in all of their complexities.
But there’s a gaping hole in these newer films that will likely not be addressed in coming attractions. Can you guess what it is?
Where are all the periphery female characters in Tangled, Frozen, and Brave?
Look, we’ve got two main female characters in Tangled (Rapunzel and Mother Gothel), Brave (Merida and Elinor), and Frozen (Elsa and Anna). Tangled features brief, silent, and grave moments from Rapunzel’s true mother, and all of these films show the occasional peasant woman or palace worker. There are female rock trolls that look exactly like male rock trolls in Frozen, and the whole group basically function as a chorus anyhow. There’s a short cameo by a witch in Brave. And outside of these fleeting examples, every single character of note is male. All of them. Literally.
And yes, this is a problem in practically every movie we watch. Films like Guardians of the Galaxy round out their casts with the likes of Peter Serafinowicz and John C. Reilly, parts that could just as easily have been played by women. (And before you mention Glenn Close and Karen Gillan, I feel the pressing need to point out that in the main heroic crew we have a 4-to-1 male to female ratio, so no, they’re not enough to even the playing field.) Even movies like Pacific Rim, which make more of an effort than usual to display racial diversity, still wind up with casts full of dudes. In dramas you might fair slightly better, but in comedies you generally don’t—unless they’re being directed by Paul Feig.
So the problem is chronic, but it’s more painful to see this trend in films that are targeted specifically at young girls. Or at least, ostensibly targeted that way. And perhaps that’s the real problem—that Disney doesn’t really care about films that cater to women unless they are still guaranteed a male audience. Disney, with their infamous line of princesses, an entertainment empire where girls are supposed to belong (provided that they’re thin and able-bodied and straight and primarily white, of course). Disney, with their new breed of princess films, ones that deconstruct earlier problem tropes from their vault, encouraging girls not to see True Love™ with a Handsome Prince™ as the primary goal of their lives. Movies that make it clear that falling in love takes more than a day—it can sometimes take a whole week! Movies that prove that the love you have for your family can sometimes hurt you… or it can save you when you are hurting.
This new era of films, represented by these three movies, are meant to bring young girls up with new ideas about what constitutes a fairy tale. But are they really doing the job when even the most basic concepts of equality—like having a truly gender-balanced cast of characters—remain undepicted?
Both Tangled and Brave had different titles (Rapunzel and The Bear and the Bow) when their production began. In the case of Tangled, Disney made it clear that the name change was due to the fact that the film wasn’t just about a princess—it was about both Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder as a duo. They felt that calling the story by the princess’s name when she wasn’t the sole central figure was misleading. (For some reason?) When The Bear and the Bow was changed to Brave, fans worried that perhaps a similar issue was at hand; while bears and bows are not considered “feminine” items, the original title sounded far more like a fairy tale, and perhaps Disney and Pixar were concerned that it wouldn’t sell to the usual Pixar audience—which we assume they believe includes a lot of little boys, judging from the change to Tangled‘s title.
So… how to counter these female leading ladies and make certain that boys will still find themselves represented into the tale? Surround them with bands of men, of course! When Rapunzel and Flynn leave her tower, they wind up at a tavern filed with a variety of surly guys who want to turn Flynn over to the crown and collect the reward on his head. Rapunzel sings them a song about following your dreams, and the haggard crew reveal that they all have softer sides. Later, they come to Flynn’s rescue so he can run back to his lady love. And the two accomplices to Flynn’s recent crime, stealing the lost princess’s tiara? Two burly twin brothers.
In Brave, Merida has a literal band of brothers, plus a few kingdom’s worth of kings and their sons who have all arrived to offer her suitors. None of these men has brought along a sister or a mother who Merida or Queen Elinor might have a chat with. Instead, they fight amongst themselves throughout the majority of the film. And just when it seems that Merida and her mother (who is now a bear) might go off together and have a real adventure that leads to some heartfelt understanding, they are required to rush back to the castle—inadvertently checking in on all the menfolk and their shenanigans. Oh, and the evil attack-bear who makes up the plot’s main antagonist is also a guy. I guess they were worried that boys would get bored watching a movie about a mom and daughter getting to have some fun for a change?
For Frozen’s count, practically every advisor and guest who speaks during Elsa’s festivities is male. I’d barely count the trolls as having genders since, outside of the grandfather, they register largely as a single unit. And while it’s nice that Disney seems to have slipped in their first (secret) onscreen gay couple in the form of the shopkeeper Oaken and his husband and four kids, they’re still two more guys. The soldiers are men, the guards are men, Olaf is male-seeming (if snowmen really have gender as we account for it), even the FREAKING REINDEER IS A GUY. (So is Rapunzel’s chameleon buddy Pascal in Tangled, since we’re keeping track.) In fact, I could go into a whole side rant about how every prominent animal sidekick in a Disney film is a dude for some reason. Let’s try and find one who isn’t—I guess Cleo from Pinocchio? Pretty sure that’s it.
It’s difficult to satisfactorily explain the gender imbalance when these three movies all take place in magical made-up kingdoms. Even Brave, which went a little farther down the road of historical accuracy, could have handled this imbalance differently. For example, what if Merida had triplet sisters? They would have been young enough to keep out of the fight between their older sis and Queen Elinor, but it also would have meant that the people Merida felt closest to in her family weren’t all male. She could have had a strong relationship with her young sisters, which actually would have helped to soothe the entirely gendered aspects of the argument she and her mother are having throughout the film. What Queen Elinor really wants is for Merida to accept some responsibility in her life—but when the entire fight gets codified using terms like “ladylike” and “graceful,” Elinor seems like a parent who is disappointed at her daughter for not fitting into the stereotypical gender boxes. It weakens the whole narrative.
Why Olaf or Sven couldn’t have been female is beyond me, where Frozen is concerned. At the very least, some of the dignitaries who stay behind with Prince Hans once Elsa runs away could have been ladies. And in a kingdom like Arendelle—where none of the subjects seem to balk even slightly at the idea of accepting a female monarch without a husband—it would have been equally compelling to see some women in their army. Both Elsa and Anna are forces to be reckoned with; we should know that the rest of the women in their kingdom are too. Otherwise the message boils down to princesses are special! Only princesses. So you better want to be a princess.
For Tangled’s part, it would have been pretty adorable if Pascal—or Maximus the war horse!—had been lady animals. Or even better, that band of gruff ruffians at the tavern? Women. Just, the whole lot of them. Why not? Or if Flynn had been pulling his heist with twin sisters. And I’m sure someone is saying “But if they were ladies, he would have flirted with them!” But you know, he could have just… not. He doesn’t have to be interested in every age-appropriate female with a pulse just because he’s a scamp.
All three of these films feature specific and wonderfully complicated relationships between women. From the misunderstandings and mutual hurt between Merida and Elinor to the emotional manipulation and continual backhanding that Mother Gothel inflicts on Rapunzel to the deep abiding bond and need that exists between Anna and Elsa—these are all relationships that we should find on screen. Not just for young girls, for all children. But when you omit other women from these worlds, you rob the entire story of its credibility. Other stories have reason built in; Mulan goes off to war to fight in place of her father, so she was never going to be training amidst an army of women. In Mulan, the reason for making that critical choice is a logical one that is explained within the context of the narrative. But Tangled, Brave, and Frozen have no narrative reasons for the absence of women. What’s Arendelle’s excuse?
It is wonderful to put the focus on interpersonal relationships between women, but every single one of these examples is a familial one. Mothers and daughters and sisters. Without the presence of periphery characters, the films prevent young girls from gleaning a true sense of familiarity and never challenge lame stereotypes. Girls are friends with other girls. Girls and boys form strong friendships and bonds as well. Women can be found in taverns (doing something other than serving the ale) and armies and political spheres and heists. Women are everywhere. And they matter, even when they’re not royalty.
Is it telling that the few Disney princess films that do feature periphery female relationships also contain protagonists of color? Remember Pocahontas’ friend Nakoma? Remember Lottie trying to help Tiana get the money she needed to open her restaurant? Multiple examples in a single work are still hard to come by, but these characters are not difficult to conceive of. If the new generation of animated Disney films are attempting to do better, they cannot afford to shy away from a more realistic balance in their narratives. They should know that two female central characters who only speak to men when they are not speaking to each other are not good enough.
Disney may be attempting to restructure its mythos but until they get over the really meaningful hurdles these movies will always feel a tad disingenuous. If they want to bring their princess line into the modern world, they can do better and more. They have enough money and power to burn on getting it right. Until then, it’s the same old story—with a slightly more conscientious sheen.
Emmet Asher-Perrin had a fit as an adult when she realized that Jasmine’s tiger, Rajah, was not a girl. She’s still mad about it, really. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr. Read more of her work here and elsewhere.
The criticism of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie is a little unfair. Your gripe is really an issue with the source material rather than the movie – the makers of the movie could hardly crowbar in a couple of extra female characters into the “main heroic crew” – that would just be an affirmative action hiring and raise much bigger issues.
I also don’t see why everyone assumes Oaken is gay or that the man in the sauna is his husband. It could be his brother with neices and nephews. Disney isn’t saying one way or the other, but I don’t think that everyone saying Oaken is gay is spot on as well. Disney likely made it purposefully ambiguous to appease both crowds.
@Edward Barron – Re: “affirmative action hiring.”–Actually, that is a practice known as “Genderblind casting,” and it’s pretty great! You can get some amazing layers out of stories that you never knew were there before when you genderblind cast.
@1
No, the call-out of GotG is completely fair, after all the comics that the movie was inspired by had plenty of other female characters on the team that could have been brought in: namely Mantis, Moondragon and Quasar (Phylla-Vell). Heck, Moondragon or Phylla would be even more awesome since they’d also count for LGBT representation. I’ll be super disappointed if not one of those ladies doesn’t appear in the sequel, since they’re among my favorite Guardian characters.
And wow, if hiring more women to be in that film is a call for affirmative action in your eyes, you really are proving that study that men see a room of 1/3 women is a majority female, which is really really sad.
But yeah, it defintely would have been nice to have more female side characters. Especially since in the Snow Queen story that Frozen is (loosely) based-off, apparantely all the side-characters /were/ originally female. Also how awesome it would have been if one of the burly tavern dwellers in Tangled was a big tough lady!
@Emmet Asher-Perrin – Then is would not have been GOTG. It has an established roster. It would have been more “affirmative action hiring” and very much less “genderblind”.
To my mind the critical mistake Brave made was “it won’t count as cultural appropriation if the people whose culture we appropriate would pass for white in the contemporary US”, fwiw.
@robertx – I don’t get your arguement? Marvel specifically chose the main hero roster from the GotG comics which contains significantly more than five characters, including several different women. (the currently comic run of Guardians is based specifically off the roster chosen for the film, but the script was written off the 2008 series). True, choosing different characters would create different dynamics and character interactions, but that’s a place where the sequel can expand and improve the gender balance. This is the comic genre, superhero teams do not remain static.
And since this article is about the gender of SUPPORTING characters, you could genderblind cast the members of the Ravengers or the Xandar military and still have very much the same exact film.
I think in regards to the comic relief, Disney prefers male characters because it’s the safe choice. It’s easier to present a goofy/ stupid/ clumsy/ undignified man. It avoids all the criticism which would inevitably follow if they did the same to a woman. I think, right or wrong, it’s seen as more acceptable to laugh at men’s foibles. Not just in films but in everything, advertising especially.
@EmmetAOBrien
Who’s culture were they appropriating in Brave? It was a story set in Scotland, full of Scotish characters played almost entirely by Scotish actors.
while i don’t approve of how the gender balances (or imbalances) in society have been represented, i also don’t take too much to heart. i grew up watching these movies, loving these movies, pretending i was in their universes. looking back, i think they might have actually encouraged my growth in the STEM field, since i was already anticipating a role in which i would be a lone woman in a forest of men. Jasmine holds her own while running around with Aladdin and weilds her power confidently. Ariel falls for a guy she just met but she also has the tenacity and strength to pursue her dreams even when it seems like they’re impossible to attain.
although i am not a girly-girl by any means (my daughter loves pink and sparkles which my friends and family find amusingly ironic) i also understand that girlie things have their place. my daughter’s closet may be abundant in the pink department, but the toys that get the most action in our house are legos (original, not the friends line), cars, airplanes, and rockets. she likes Disney/Pixar’s Cars and Planes at least as much, if not more than, the classic princess movies like Sleeping Beauty and the Little Mermaid.
as a female aerospace engineer working on the future of manned spaceflight, i know that situations like those highlighted here are real but i also know they only have as much power as you give them. generalities are not realities unless you embrace and embody them.
All that you say is probably true and Gender Blind casting is a great and intriguing practice , even if I believe there are some roles that are more interesting played by women and vice versa – think about boomer or skorpion in BattleStar Galactica). So I completely (well almost) agree with you on this. But what about the fact that in recent Disney’s movies there is NO interesting male character? Because I read a lot of disney’s mis-representation of girls (true!) but what about we boys?
In recent Disney’s features they -male charcater I mean- are all a) terrible villains (where terribile means “blah, should we be afraid of you?” b) idiots (see ALL the male characters in Brave exeption made for the father – because he is a cute idiot but all the same…) c) loners/weirdos/umm (which would not be a problem IF said loner would reveal a great sould/mind/whatever but… see FROZEN) d) sidekicks/childrens/animals etc.
Even Flynn in Tangled is neither interesting nor a good male-role model.
wrt guardians of the galaxy, Groot is a tree. In an article about gender, I feel it is important to note that the heroic group is 3-1-1, which is pretty progressive.
You know, I’ve seen a lot of criticisms of Brave, which is a movie I love (despite the dudebro commentary of replacement director Mark Andrews, and generally some squickiness about the behind the scenes stuff), and I’ve dismissed a lot of it out of hand.
This criticism is completely valid, and important.
@GOTG discussion: Guardians is a movie that’s even FURTHER behind the curve here, because of the way the leads are treated. EVEN IF we accept the argument that 4-1 male is just the composition of the crew because source material, which seems dubious to me… but EVEN IF we accept that idea, Gamora, Nebula, and Nova Prime are all criminally underserved from the first.
Gamora’s big character development moment comes in the first act of the movie, when she declares that she’s betraying Ronan because he treats her so horribly — but all we’ve seen is one scene where he clearly values her above everyone else in the room. It’s a moment with no setup that’s simply told to the audience. Compare this with Rocket, whose big moment is his emotional breakdown about being treated like an animal, midway through the film after we’ve watched him get bullied and mocked by every non-Groot speaking role for a solid hour. The breakdown is set up and earned.
That’s just the one that stood out the most to me. Gamora has no character development after the first fifteen minutes other than “falls for Chris Pratt.” And of course there was that whole action figure fiasco. The entirety of Nebula’s character development is that she’s Blue and Kicks Ass. Take a minute to consider how much more well rounded of a character Corpsman Dey is than Nova Prime, how much more he gets to do and how much more of his history is implied through his interactions with the rest of the cast.
So Guardians isn’t even in this same discussion. Guardians isn’t yet at the point of wondering where the strong secondary cast of women is. It’s still only at the point of wondering where the hell the strong core cast went in the development.
If you look way back, (way, way back), women were generally depicted in as basically lesser beings on screen. Feedback occurred, and the industry surrendered, and now women aren’t (by and large) deliberately depicted with negative qualities unless those qualities are the focus of their arc.
As a consequence of this principal, the only really “safe” role to put a girl in for your new IP is that of protagonist or antagonist. Both of those characters will receive careful examination, and you get to ‘justify’ if you will, the flaws you give them. If the heroine is lazy or greedy or racist or whatever she’ll fix that during the show. If the antagonist is jealous or hateful or malignant she’ll get her comuppance.
But the side characters experience no change over the course of a show, so if you make a side character a woman, and make her flawed, then you will draw fire from reviewers. Imagine Aladdin if the Sultan is a girl (nothing about the role really demands he be a dude). Now protests point out that all you are apparently a troglydite who thinks a woman can’t see through Jaffar’s schemes. Imagine the tavern scene in Tangled the author referenced, but gender swapped. Can you actually imagine that scene? “Prince Mansplains Following Dreams to Whole Room of Ladies, They Obey His Orders?”
The problem, of course, is the old chestnut from the xkcd comic. Dude’s flaws are their own, lady flaws mean that that’s the authors view of all woman.
@A guy – This is a similar situation to Olaf, though; while a snowman doesn’t really have a gender per se, Olaf is voiced by a man and referred to as “him.” Same thing with Groot. I know that in the comics they make more of a point on Groot’s genderlessness, but the film really didn’t make any effort at all in that regard.
“I could go into a whole side rant about how every prominent animal sidekick in a Disney film is a dude for some reason. Let’s try and find one who isn’t—I guess Cleo from Pinocchio?”
I guess Disney’s Robin Hood doesn’t count, because they were _all_ animals, sidekicks and protagonists and all. But they did have a few female secondary characters who didn’t fall into the “female in need of rescuing” trope. Lady Kluck kicked ass!
@14: “If you look way back, (way, way back), women were generally depicted in as basically lesser beings on screen.”
Well, you can only look so far back if we’re talking about film, so it’s not THAT far back. ~100 years ish.
That said: That simply isn’t true, and is the kind of easy generality we fall into when we’re talking about social movements. This whole “Oh There Was a Social Movement That Made These People Equal But Before That It Was Just Accepted That These People Were Lesser.” It’s not how it works. The struggle always precedes the movement, and you always find shockingly progressive creative work that predates what we think of as the moment things changed. Watch old movies. There are more His Girl Fridays than there are Buffy the Vampire Slayers.
I first noticed this trope when I was reading books. There were so many books I read with Strong Female Protagonists but I didn’t like them all that much. It took me a while to realize that the reason I didn’t like many of them was the fact that the supporting casts for these females were almost almost male (to allow for multiple love interests perhaps?) with maybe a female antagonist thrown in.
I do wish Disney would get a little bit braver, even with their comic relief characters. It wouldn’t have been too much to ask to make a couple of the pub brawlers from Tangled female. Plus, they have already proven that they can make silly female characters e.g. Cinderella’s fairy godmother, and the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty.
Every journey starts with a single step. We have seen many strides in more equal representation in the past few years, and will see many more in the future. Films that deliberately mine fable and fairy tales have a longer way to travel because the sources they draw on are all so typed to certain types of gender expectations.
@8
Though Brave certainly had some fun at the expense of a goofy/clumsy woman, though she came across as more of a victim of the triplets than the straight up buffoonery of the warrior men.
And I agree the overall point, but I don’t agree that we should discount the trolls when we’re already discussing periphery characters. They clearly have genders (just as I think Olaf is rather clearly male with a male name and voiced by a male actor who doesn’t sound like he’s trying a gender neutral voice), but that doesn’t really detract from the overall point.
For the record, I loved all 3 of these movies (except Brave maybe…I found it a little dull at parts). But, yeah! My husband and I were talking about something similar to this a few nights ago – mainly that while the Bechdel test isn’t really an automatic ‘this story portrays women well’ assurance, it’s telling how few works can even meet the low bar it sets. Characters tend to default to male, and are only female if the plot requires it becuase they are going to be a mother, love interest, daughter, rape victim, etc. – and I’m not saying any of those particular character types/plot points are bad, but I think it is more uncommon to find female characters who DON’T fulfill those roles. I can understand a little bit the irritation at feeling like people should ‘go out of their way’ to include female characters as tokens, but the more I think about it, it’s really kind of strange that including female characters is something a person has to ‘go out of their way’ to do.
Regarding ‘affirmative action’ casting or whatever we are calling it, I had really mixed feelings about Tauriel being inserted into the Hobbit, which is very lean on female characters. At first I wasn’t a fan of the meddling, and then I decided it was cool to flesh out more of the background and show that female characters exist in this world and do stuff, but then it irritated me again because of course they had to user her to introduce a love plot (I haven’t seen the last movie yet though, so no spoilers!).
I always felt Lady & the Tramp, 101 Dalamations, Lilo & Stitch, and Sleeping Beauty had a good amount of female characters.
Also this is why Studio Ghibli films are better than Disney and Pixar – female characters everywhere, but the male characters do not become any less complex because of this fact.
Yeah, not going to disagree about Disney shoving male characters to the wayside lately. Maleficent was notorious for this, making the king insane and the Handsome Prince not plot-relevant at all. But the tone of this article is just maddening. “You gave us female-centric storylines breaking the trope of True Love At First Sight With The Handsome Prince! NOT GOOD ENOUGH.”
Compare Arendelle to Elizabethan or Victorian England. A strong female monarch does not change gender policy for the military by default of her gender. Look at the historical period that Brave is apparently set in. Women would not have travelled in those entourages. Also, if the triplets were girls, having them be rambunctious hellions would have not been as believable and probably another point of contention. And not having a female thug in the tavern in Tangled was probably a conscious decision, since to make it believable, she would have had to either be A) a doxy/camp follower, or B) bigger, meaner, and nastier than the men there, which would have brought a slew of complaints as well. These movies all have historical timeframes to consider, and rough-and-tumble women in bars and female soldiers is just not historically accurate.
As for being upset at the fact that none of the animal companions are female? I have an answer for that too. My wife never gets along with female pets, nor they with her. I’m not qualified to guess why, but we have a female cat that bonded with me immediately and male cats that have attached themselves to my wife’s lap. Disney Princesses having male pets seems perfectly logical to us.
We know that Disney politics are skewed. We’ll probably never see a lesbian princess, and we’ll probably never get a Dinsey Prince movie. The damage that certain elements of these movies have done to girls has been written about for years. But Disney is not the end-all-be-all. Frozen did get a ton of play in our house, but you know what got even more in this past year? Despicable Me 1 and 2, and How To Train Your Dragon 2. Both have a much stronger gender dynamic to appease both sides of the line. Heck, Dragon 2 even kills the father to replace him with the mother! How’s that for misandry?
It comes down to this: You can spend your life overreacting about things and looking fr things to gripe about and never be happy, or you can enjoy the stories, the strides that have been made, and take it upon yourself to teach your children about things and not leave it up to Disney to forge their worldview. If fiction is to be all-inclusive, then you can’t get rid of male characters or heterosexual relationships.
@22: That seems apropos to my point that going further back doesn’t demonstrate that things are improving. The Disney movies that pass your test come from: 1955, 1961, 2002, and 1959.
@robertx #5
From the font of all human knowledge, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(2008 team)), here is the list of the members of the team:
Current Members:
Agent Venom
Angela
Captain Marvel
Drax the Destroyer
Gamora
Groot
Rocket Raccoon
Star Lord (leader)
Former Members:
Bug
Cosmo
Iron Man
Jack Flag
Major Victory
Mantis
Martyr
Moondragon
Adam Warlock
Notice that the film chose a subset of the team members for the movie. Also note that there is at least one excluded member that’s female, with a possible second. (Was Carol Danvers the Captain Marvel in Guardians of the Galaxy?) They had choices they could make, and they chose to go 3-1-1.
I would note that the 3 referenced animated movies also showed a distinct lack of people of color. And yet it seems more important to bemoan the lack of gender equity. Interesting.
@14 and @23, I hope the new Tor site has upvotes for comments because I would give you all of mine. Well said, thank you.
So the problem with Frozen, etc, is that they were not made solely for girls?
And incidently, it occurs to me that pretty much everybody in the Tinker-Bell series is female. People seem to be ignoring a film series on the grounds that it gives them what they say they want. I suppose that makes it hard to complain about.
@JasonD
That is the weakest arguement for why animal sidekicks tend to default to male. Maybe it works from your personal experience, but that should not mean it should be the rule for all fictional narratives.
We’re talking about fiction here, fantasy worlds that are written for children that don’t HAVE to conform to real-life history (which chances are, is probably full of exceptions to your perception of gender norms, but those stories just don’t get told). As ever, it is a very strange arguement to make that an animated fairy tale can have a horse act like military commander with dog-like mannerism, but having a female thug is too unrealistic? I don’t buy that.
Also, think about your reaction to the portrayal of the men in Maleficent. That they were one-dimentional and largely irrelevant. Now think of the MULTITUDE of movies where female characters are written the same way, and understand a little about why we write these articles about why female representation in fiction needs to be better.
@15 – I haven’t seen Frozen ( I know, the tragedy), but I don’t know if sounds like a man and referred to as “he” really sets the basis for determining gender, especially as only one character in the movie is preacquainted with Groot and tact isn’t a trait of that character.
I only mention it, because you used it to counter the notion that Guardians of the Galaxy was spreading the wealth character wise. If you were talking about employing female actors in roles, I would completely agree with you.
To address a few common points being made:
“Movies are doing so much better, though–so we should just be happy about that!”
We can do that and still offer critique on where these films fall down. The only way entertainment will continue to do better on representation is by continuing to bring these problems to attention. We can like how these movies are improving and still acknowledge their problems.
“But it wouldn’t actually be realistic for these things to happen in these eras/types of kingdoms/relative locations.”
…These are fictional universes. They are full of rock trolls and magic flowers and people turned into bears. They have no obligation to be in any way similar to history, even if they are taking notes from historical backdrops. If your suspension of debelief extends to witches with magical powers and magical creatures, but not to women serving in armies and carousing in taverns, that’s a problem.
“But Disney is now refusing to create new, good male characters and that’s bad!”
You’ve got all of history to go back and revisit for excellent male fictional characters. More importantly, that’s not really true. I would argue that Flynn Rider and Maleficent‘s Diaval are great male characters and role models. Kristoff is a great guy. Hans isn’t a nice guy, but he’s pretty darned nuanced as a character, more than most Disney villains.
There was no reason why the filmmakers of Guardians of the Galaxy had to go with that particular lineup. The Guardians have been around since 1969 and have had a lot of different people on the team. The Marvel movies haven’t been afraid to mix and match storylines from a variety of eras (as an example, the first Iron Man movie was a kitbash of a story from 1962 and a storyline that ran from 1982-1985, while the third IM film adapted a storyline that ran from 2005-2006), so why not include Moondragon or Nikki or the female iterations of Captain Marvel or Quasar?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@27: Thanks for the props. =)
@29: I never said that having a female thug would be too unrealistic, as those sorts of people did exist historically. I’m just saying that the people who spend their time complaining about such things would complain about that incredibly loudly, and writing a background character like that would just not be worth the headache. Also, my problem with Maleficent was the lack of equal treatment. The women in that movie were elevated, but the men were degraded. Why can’t we have empowerment for one without deflation of the other?
@31: Yes, these are fictional universes, but with real-world counterparts. While we’re picking nits, where are the male witches? Where is the Fairy Godfather? It can come from both sides, if one is only willing to look.
@28 – Not quite right. There are three males that I can think of throughout the Fairy stories – the the love interest fairy thing, the oafish tinker, and the nerdy-uncool-but-not-as-bright-as-Tinker-Bell tinker. In the one movie where Vidia gets captured, the dad is a guy – he’s the one that has no time for his daughter and is shown to be an unbelieving fool of a scientist who misses the important things because of his work and has to learn a lesson. There is also the movie giving backstory to Hook, where all the pirates are really evil (except the Pirate Fairy, who was misguided).
Anyway, I return you to your regularly scheduled thread, in the hopes that I can put the Fairy series out of my head.
@32 I guess they didn’t want to use Carol Danvers because they’re (probably) doing a Captain Marvel origin film in 2018. Also, it would take away Peter Quill’s claim of being the Terran in that side of the Galaxy. But they could have at least included Mantis.
Maybe they will use Moondragon in the sequel, considering she’s supposed to be Drax’s daughter in the original story… although that’s probably irrelevant now that they completely remade Drax’s origin.
I was just about to write a long post then I noticed that Johnnyboy had already said exactly what I was going to say, so I will only add one small point. Imagine if the snowman character in frozen actually had been feminine- a certain subset of the audience to perceive a female buffoon as sexism, despite the fact that they would not perceive a male buffoon as sexism. This perspective is caused by a larger problem with the way society views things: when a woman is written as stupid, it is because she is a woman, when a man is written as stupid, it is because he is a stupid individual. Comedy writers basically have a catch-22 going on, and they choose what seems to be the lesser of two evils.
@36 It’d be pretty silly to argue that the female buffoon makes the movie sexist when it stars two competent and non-buffoon females. Yes, people would probably argue it anyways, but everything is going to upset somebody. Why not pay more attention to one’s choice and err on the side of diversity? I’d also think the defence of ‘we wanted to include more female characters’ would be more pleasant to make than ‘we were afraid of upsetting people.’
one might go so far as to argue that rocket’s gender is immaterial, since it is a one-off science experiment. may as well be neutered, making the count 2-1-1-1.
236: A nigh-meaningless number of people would get up in arms about that. Leaving aside that there isn’t actually a raving hoard of people who complain indiscriminately about things like that, it just doesn’t bear to actual scrutiny. The most obvious example I can think of is Pixar’s Dory: Female. A bufoon. Beloved. So well liked that she’s getting her own entire movie. A different kind of example would be GRRM’s Cersei: A woman. Despicable. Arguably a moron. Virtually nobody claims the character is a sexist representation of women. I can’t think of a good example of a female character that didn’t deserve it getting undo outrage for being a sexist representation.
And already several of the comments are answering the question of WHY this article is calling for more female supporting characters.
Yes, if female characters were to ONLY be portrayed as damsels, or ONLY portrayed as baffoonish, or ONLY portrayed as sexy vamps, then that would be sexist. Because that says that women can only be portrayed a certain way. But if studios were to write MORE female characters in these roles, and write stories that have multiple DIVERSE types of women/girls/feminine robot sidekicks/etc, then suddenly we’d see female characters enjoying the exact same range of roles that men enjoy. Sure there will still be complaints, because society for whatever reason tends to be more critical of female characters with flaws, but that’s the only way to move past that mindset. To start writing variety
(and yes that can go both ways, to write men in roles that are traditionally written for women, so long as it isn’t necessarily taking away roles from women. Switch things up, remain diverse)
I think there are two different complaints here:
(1) Minor characters default to male for no discernible reason except (in many cases) the historical one that males tended to hold the jobs outside the home.
(2) There aren’t enough significant female characters in the major cast, even if the Bechdel test is met.
I think that Disney is doing its best to address (2), but probably not enough for (1). I think it would be interesting to have a show or two quietly and consciously make the decision during casting that “all characters will be female unless there’s a story-driven reason for them to be male”. Don’t make a fuss about it or promote it; just do it! It would be interesting to see how far you could get without people noticing.
But (2) is a bit more complicated:
In Brave, having four female children would have fundamentally changed the gender dynamics. The whole point was that Merida felt all of the weight of “acting like a princess”. If there were more females, then it wouldn’t have made as much sense for the mother to focus just on Merida.
In relation to Tangled, there are quite a lot of female characters in the background (eg the girls who braid Rapunzel’s hair and other townsfolk). In this case I can buy the importance from a story-telling perspective that all early characters Rapunzel encountered were male since she had been told men were pretty universally evil.
In relation to Frozen, you couldn’t really have had more significant female characters than we got. The Duke of Weselton needed to dance with Anna/Elsa, Hans was a love interest — basically you could have switched the gender of Oaken and perhaps some of the palace advisors and that’s about it.
That seems like pretty clear progress to me. Brave and Tangled were both tied up in the gender implications of being female. Frozen had a lot of issues which resonated with female audiences, but despite the “true love” thing I can’t think of a single implied or explicit instance where the narration accepts the concept that “you shouldn’t be doing this, you’re a woman!”
And the problem with Brave and Tangled isn’t that they are bad stories. I don’t think it’s viable to change the cast without changing the story in these cases. Flynn Rider being a good case in point: as written, he is chronically insecure and uncomfortable around women and covers it up with bravado. It makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t want to go heisting with them!
But it’s a reasonable criticism to say that movies we tell with female leads shouldn’t only be stories where gender roles and expectations are prominent.
And @8: Dory was a great goofy female sidekick.
Hey, didn’t Wreck it Ralph come out right between Tangled and Frozen?
No views on the comparative female ratio in that film?
Then again it is set in videogame world where the amount of female characters would be expected to be lower (but that’s another [very similar] kettle of fish).
I could go into a whole side rant about how every prominent animal sidekick in a Disney film is a dude for some reason. Let’s try and find one who isn’t—I guess Cleo from Pinocchio? Pretty sure that’s it.
They are few, certainly, but I’ll add Kevin (the bird) from UP.
While I like this article, it seems pretty one-sided and overlooks a lot for the sake of making a point. While the point may be valid I feel like an article could be written soley for the purpose of countering a lot of your arguement, Emily.
There are plenty of supporting female characters in the Disney multiverse that you overlook, and yes, some are even in the stereotypicaly ‘princess movies’.
– Ms. Pots (Beauty and the Beast)
– An assortment of other female staff members (feather duster, etc.)
– Cinderella’s sisters and mother
– Ursela and Ariel’s sisters
– Every fairy godmother ever (out of necessity?)
Others to consider:
– Dory
– Dumbo’s Elephant crew = all female
– Bambi’s mother and Thumper’s mother/sisters
– The Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland) and other madness…
– Cluck and the female bunny sister and other woodland creatures – Robin Hood.
– Kanga
– Ms. Bianca (The Rescuers – she’s the one really runnning the show)
– “Big Mama” the owl, and Fox’s foster mother – Fox and the Hound.
– Tons of female student friends/bullies/travellers – A Goofy Movie
– Nala? the best friend, Miko the racoon, and the tree spirit in Pocahontas.
– Countless female characters in Toy Story 1,2,and 3.
– Cars 1 and 2, tons of female supporting characters.
– Wreck-it-ralph… Also starring a ‘princess’ as a main character mind you.
However, I do give you credit. The three movies you spotlight do indeed have a lack of female supporting cast members.
This article made me thing that, if the triplits in Brave were girls, I’d personally want them to act the exact same way as they do in the movie. That sort of shinanigans is exactly what my sisters and I got up to when we were kids.
Toy Story has Mom, Molly, Dollie, Barbie, Trixie, and Jessie. I count six, although I could be missing a few. A friend of mine once ranted about “Finding Nemo” being about a boy. I’m pretty sure absolutely nothing–NOTHING–would change in that movie if Nemo were a girl.
It’s a great article, and reminds me of a recent question I had re kids’ adventure movies (a friend called it the Bechdel test for kids): name a live-action movie about a group of kids on an adventure where there’s a mix of boys and girls AND there are more girls than boys. Goonies has two girls; most other movies have a single girl.
And no, all-girl ensembles don’t count. Nor does “My Girl,” which is not an ensemble of kids, but TWO kids. Nor does any one of many single-protagonist movies like Labyrinth. We’re talking ensemble, but with more girls than boys. Actually, even with an equal number. Or even a group of girls with a token boy on the adventure. That would work. Think Sandlot, Goonies, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, etc. Admittedly I haven’t watched a lot of kids’ live-action movies recently, but I can’t think of any that fit this bill.
Let me know what I’m missing, so I can rent it for my girls!
@BMichaels I don’t see how choosing the three most recent animated releases featuring female protagonists is disengenuous. The only thing you listed that came out in the last 5 years is Wreck-It-Ralph which while it does have Vanellopee it’s clearly marketed towards boys with Ralph and Felix being the primary marketing tools and that gives it more leeway in terms of female side characters (and I love that all Sugar Rush drivers are girls).
Same with Toy Story. Marketed to boys (Buzz and Woody), easy to have female supporting cast.
Everything else you’re naming the one or two featured female side characters amongst a sea of male ones.
It’s interesting to compared these Disney films with a cartoon that does include a balance of female and male characters in primary, secondary and tertiary roles, eg, Book 4 of The Legend of Korra. Apart from the main quartet consisting of 2 female and 2 male characters, supporting characters tend to be paired/grouped with characters of the opposite gender, eg. the female antagonist Kuvira is associated with her male fiance Bataar Jr; male ally Varrick is associated with female assistant Zhu Li; recurring adult allies include Tenzin, Bumi and Tonraq (male), plus Lin, Kya and Pema (female); recurring child allies include Jinora and Ikki (female) plus Meelo (male); supporting characters Kai (male) and Opal (female) travel as a pair. In cases where a character has no pair, characters tend to be balanced out by characters of equivalent importance/status/role of the opposite gender, eg. leader Raiko and female leader Suyin both play signifiant roles; Korra seeks aid from both Toph (female) as well as Zaheer (male). Even groups of nameless characters (prisoners, bandits, crowds of citizens, background airbenders) always include females and males. Additionally, Korra’s animal companion Naga is female (other animals are either male or gender-unspecified).
While watching Korra I consciously noticed the inclusion of these female characters. If I’m honest, it actually felt odd to me because it’s so normal for secondary roles being played exclusively by men. Indeed, I initially thought that there must have been a majority of female characters and male characters were lacking in representation. It was only when I sat down to count characters that I realised that Korra features an almost perfect 50:50 gender balance. That’s what I find so fascinating: a 50:50 gender balance feels noticeably weird. It feels like there are somehow “too many” female characters.
So a movie or story has to have balance in every way so that it is acceptable by every possible group or sub group? We need to evaluate the desires of each of these groups so as not to offend any? How about a movie that has a character from every race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, social class, political class, and then also the person that doesn’t represent any of the above and then have each of these have equal time in the movie with equal amount of lines. They each also have to speak in their own languages so as not to offend those that don’t speak english. Oh, and none can be a main character because that would also be unequal. Bet you can’t wait to see this 100 hour masterpiece.
Yeah, I’m all for greater diversity in popular culture, but don’t you think this article is picking some tedious nits? C’mon, there’s being progressive, and then there’s being an accountant.
@49/50: I’m laughing uproariously at your apparent takeaways from this post and its rather insightful comment thread. Whoosh!
#51
Well, I’m glad somebody got something from this silly bean-counting. Shine on, crazy diamond.
When I was a teenager, I saw a Canadian show on PBS that was about a reporter named Ciccone. And what struck me was that the hero of this show was of Italian descent, like me–which was notable, because you just didn’t see Italians hardly at all except when they were playing mobsters.
So as a thought experiment, I went through The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which I had all twelve issues of. The only Italians I found in the entirety of the Marvel Universe of the early 1980s were criminals, many of them in “the Maggia,” Marvel’s version of the Mafia, and the Punisher, who hardly qualifies as a hero. The lone exception was Frog-Man, a joke hero who was the son of a criminal (Leap-Frog).
So basically, Italians could only be bad guys and/or killers and/or comic relief. And that has remained true with appalling consistency. Italians don’t get to be the heroes, they just get to be the goombahs.
Yeah, as an Italian-American, I just love the shit out of that.
Many different writers of Star Trek, whether televised, movie, comics, or prose form, have given us presidents of the Federation. The first ones that were ever established as female were created by me — either in Articles of the Federation or A Time for War, a Time for Peace. That’s it. Every other president that anyone had created for the theoretically egalitarian Federation up to that point had been male.
You call it accounting when we try to actually provide fiction that’s more representative, but the alternative is thoughtlessness and exclusion, and that’s never a right thing.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@53. Thank you. Seriously. You’ve taken your own experience as a person of Italian descent and applied it to people of other under- and/or mis-represented groups. Some people just don’t seem to be capable of such empathy. The more understanding and compassion we can bring to this struggle, the better.
There are far too many walls of text here (and too many comments that seem to simply be arguing back and forth between a few of the posters) to do anything other than respond to the essay itself: the one salient point therein (even when I wouldn’t agree with it in toto) is that the three films, in particular Frozen and Brave, were both marketed and are pointed to as a new dialogue to a young female audience that differed from past works.
IMHO, Brave was a particular failure in that regard; there really isn’t a great deal of difference between the lead and say the character of Lilo (beyond the age/environmental differences) to pick another animated female character from a somewhat older film. I would have preferred a mother/daughter dynamic more akin to The Incredibles, which if I were the father of a young girl I’d be far more prone to want to interest my child in than Brave.
Frozen just isn’t going to ever get praise from me because there was just way too much singing – which is just not anything I enjoy. That said, watching the film at home (especially speeding through the musical numbers), I would say that the fact that it is largely a film about two familial females and largely their relationships with one another and that the film ends with neither of them needing a man to complete them/create the happy ending to the movie, is noteworthy and praiseworthy.
As for the other salient point: the absence of significant female supporting characters is something that exists throughout ALL manner of entertainment: YA books, what are considered great works of literature, films or popcorn movie fare, TV – whether genre based or not, comics from the daily strip to any graphic novel, whether from the Big Two, web comic or indy publisher.
It is also correct to say that there’s absolutely no reason, for example, that the Nova corp could not have been purely female (or largely female, or 50/50), ditto Pacific Rim‘s cast, etc., etc. and it’s essentially the same operating status quo that when casting calls go out, even if they don’t specifiy aging white guy, or young white guy, or dead white guy, or rich white guy – that casting directors (even female casting directors and female writers/producers/directors, etc.) cast from a largely male, and largely pale, pool of prospects.
The prime and perfect example of this is Tilda Swinton’s role in Snowpiercer, which even the director originally envisioned as male, as the graphic novel depicts.
#53
Yeah, it was about Ciccone. He was the lead, right? And that’s exactly where the diversity should be first and foremost, the leading characters, front and center, big Photoshopped faces right on the poster. But supporting characters? Does anyone go to the movies for them?
Sure, I think it’s fine for a cast to be as diverse as possible, all the way back to the extras in the farthest freaking row, but let’s fix the lead problem first. It’s still usually a WASPy male in the captain’s chair, so to speak.
@56: No, not really. Because what happens is that when you have (for example) a woman in a room full of white guys is that you’re just either making a male-fantasy movie but with a different face (see: Aeon Flux) or you are bound by those gender/race dynamics (see: No One Lives Forever). Having different supporting characters allows for different conversations. Even a lack of commentary about character gender/race dynamics is a comment, if you see what I mean (see: Uhura).
I’m very nervous about the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters because it’s like the first female or black President. I want it to be great, but even if it stinks I’m pleased it’s happening. What I don’t want is for it to bomb and then for people to decide that the idea of an all-female ensemble cast “just doesn’t work”.
@48. During Korra’s final season, there were multiple instances where the only speaking characters in a scene were women.
This happens all the time in movies and TV. With men.
The current take on culture pretty much prevents female characters (or non-white characters) from being the random comic relief or henchwoman. Making those side characters female opens you up for criticism that you’re falling into stereotypes or making fun of women. I don’t think the Ellen Degeneris fish from Finding Nemo would even be acceptable to today’s social crusaders as a funny ditz. (“Oh, you think ALL women are stupid and forgetful?!?”) As comment #14 pointed out, female flaws have to be resolved as part of the main plot, which is why the Ellen fish is getting her own sequel.
@59, The current climate is not what makes those characters problematic. As per my discussion with the commenter @48, when you have a show like Korra, that has a vast and diverse cast of women, then these problematic portrayals AREN’T problematic. Then they are just part of the tapestry of the world.
The issue comes into play when there is such a dearth of women characters that these very flawed portrayals are all women have to identify with.
So the solution is again, as the author of this article has put forward, MORE women.
With thanks to a poster on my blog, the Canadian show I was thinking of was Seeing Things, and Ciccone was a reporter, not a cop (I’ve edited post #53 accordingly).
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@55–I don’t think that the positive parts of Brave, Tangled, and Frozen outway the problem of a totally male supporting cast, nor the fact that is true of all fiction mean that it isn’t worth critiquing these three movies.
A lot of commenters are saying that the reason that there are so few female characters in the supporting cast is that the movies are about what it means to be female and to me I would assume that a movie about what it means to be female would have a predominately female cast.
I’m also not really buying the argument that they can’t have more female characters in the supporting caste because no matter how the female characters act they are always going to be problematic, becuase problematic depictions of women are problematic because they are either depicted in ways that men are almost never depicted or depicted in ways that woman are almost always depicted (and usually both things are happening). So like other people are saying if you have multiple female characters depicted in multiple different ways and some in ways that males are I highly doubt that people would be up in arms about it. I feel like the people making those arguments aren’t listening.
You’re absolutely right. There are no other female characters in BRAVE…except for the entire wait staff in the castle including the woman who ran from the three cubs to try and hold onto the key. And there were no supporting female characters in FROZEN except for most of the castle staff and the countless number of women shown in the crowds of guests (not to mention the cameo of Rapunzel.) And there were no females in TANGLED except for the tons of townspeople including the girls who helped Rapunzel braid her hair.
I suggest instead you do an article about how females in Disney films are either princesses or servants or townspeople. Or perhaps you can admit that considering the films you’re complaining about feature strong females that largely solve their own problems, what you are really doing is just looking for something else to complain about.
PAD
I’ve never cared for Brave. Merida always struck me as a spoiled brat who poisoned her own mother when she didn’t get her way. My husband shared this view as well, but we’ve never talked to anybody else who shared this view, so what are we missing? I did like Merida’s horse, though.
@peter David – You’re absolutely right… and none of those women speak or have any influence on the plot whatsoever. There is a huge difference between being a periphery character and being “character drapery.”
@imbubbasmom – I think it’s a matter of perspective where Brave is concerned; Merida’s mother doesn’t come off well either when you look the other way. It’s fine for a parent to want their child to be responsible and begin growing up, but Queen Elinor wants that while completely disrespecting all of Merida’s personal interests. And she forces a very specific brand of femininity on her daughter (the constricting clothes, the ladylike manners, the mild and inactive hobbies) which is not true to Merida’s person. None of that is good parenting. So while Merida is a brat about certain things, the queen is refusing to let her daughter be a individual. The point is that they are both wrong, and both come to realize that and compromise.
@64, Yeah it’s not just that “Merida didn’t get her way”
It’s that she was summarily informed her hand in marriage was to be given away without her consent.
Her mother destroyed one of her beloved possessions.
That far exceeds “Merida is having a snit” that is “Merida is seeing her very identity under attack”
@46: I can’t help you there (Some of the Narnia ones might qualify, I guess), but I hope that if Marvel ever gets off it’s butt and does a Runaways movie (and leaves it faithful to the comic), that’ll qualify: The series starts with 6 human(looking) characters, 4 of whom are girls (as is the dinosaur sidekick). It’s not a girl’s comic. It’s just a very good one.
@48: Yeah, the respective Avatar series was remarkably good for that. As loathe as I am to endorse the tumblr (it’s not the people, it’s the awful, awful site design!), I saw a post there recently that summed it up perfectly, a series of pictures highlighting a character who fits one of the following categories:
Badass Tomboys
Badass Girly-Girls
Badass Single Women
Badass Married Women
Badass Good Women
Badass Evil Women
Badass Female Military Leaders
Badass Revolutionary Women
Badass Women with Disabilities
and so on… there are lead characters, supporting characters, (and now even non-heterosexual ones) who are female and it feels like it’s done effortlessly, you almost don’t notice it except when you realize that there aren’t many shows you can say that about (though in fairness, it’s TWO shows).
Things are getting better. And those movies were awesome. Why are you nitpicking?
Actually, that was my first thought when I saw this article title. But then I read it, and thought about it.
If we, as an audience, “tell” the studios that this is Good Enough, they will be more than happy to stop trying to do hard things. It is only by pushing that progress continues to be made.
Articles like this point out a symptom. It’s not that these movie makers did anything unusually wrong. They got a lot right. But our societal expectations for narrative are still set to a default in which women are the exception, not the rule. Not half the population. No, showing them as half the population would be weird. It would be hard.
It’s not nitpicking to stare that in the face: it’s still hard and unusual to tell a story where half the characters are female.
The author has missed examples of female supporting characters in older Disney films or other examples.
Yes, she has. That’s why sweeping statements are dangerous.
However, between the posts in this vien and the original topic of the article, I would make the observation that, in general terms, it seems that by elevating a second female character to the position of Main Character, in order to explore that relationship more, we have dropped females from most of the supporting slots they used to hold. It’s almost as if having two female main characters and some female supporting characters would overballance the female:male ratio. Except…it wouldn’t.
I’m quite sure there are exceptions to that trend. I just posit it as a possible trend to look at.
Men’s flaws are their own; women’s flaws are a statement about women generally. Therefore, you can’t make comedic characters female without even worse backlash.
That attitude, by reviewers and others, is often rather true…because there are so few women shown, so they are more likely to be taken as representative. The more women you have in the cast, the easier it is to have some women with character flaws without it feeling like it reflects on all women.
If half the characters in the cast—half the main characters, half the supporting, half the wordless extras in the background—were actually women, then if one of those female speaking parts is deeply flawed and rather quirky, she doesn’t appear to speak to the writer’s/director’s view of All Womankind. Suddenly, she’s just another character.
“These movies all have historical timeframes to consider, and rough-and-tumble women in bars and female soldiers is just not historically accurate.”
As others have pointed out, these aren’t historical films. They are fantasy, with witches and transformations and trolls. Why are those easier to suspend disbelief for than female soldiers?
Secondly, while they certainly wouldn’t have made up half the demographic, women in bars and female soldiers are, in fact, historically accurate.
For fighters I’ll refer you over to the many examples listed and linked to in “PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical” by Foz Meadows and “‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” by Kameron Hurley as a couple of jumping off points.
For rough-and-tumble women in bars, the first that springs to mind is Mary Frith, in the early 17th century, subject of the contemporary play The Roaring Girl among other mentions, though I don’t think she was the only roaring girl of the era by any means (brawling, dueling, carousing, etc.).
History is stranger than you were told in school.
#62, thank you for reading and commenting on my remarks – however, I never said (much less thought) that Brave or Tangled had much in the way of postive parts.
My point about the fact that a largely supporting male cast (let’s look at the Studio Ghilbi films here, for example, some good female leads, good characterizations as far as strength, personal character, etc. – and yet, the support is largely male) exist throughout popular culture (e.g. films/TV) and art was not, and did not make the statement: don’t critique. If I was making anywhere near that point, it would have been, why single out these three films when this happens EVERYWHERE. The critique really should be why does this happen (and everywhere, not just three Disney films, as in this essay here): one of the biggest selling genre series was written by a woman and it’s a pretty white, male, heterosexual magical and muggle world that she’s depicted.
Hello.
Long time lurker, first time commenter, so I’m trusting that you’ll all play gently with me…
Having read the article and scanned through the comments it seems to me that the author and most subsequent commenters are making an assumption that having a cast comprising of the same/similar numbers of men and women is the best or only way to demonstrate gender equality (or rather that if you don’t have a cast comprising of the same/similar numbers of men and women you can’t have a film demonstrating gender equality).
If so, I’d like to know why you think this is the case. The balance of the cast may be, in some cases, an indicator of gender equality (or inequality) but it is certainly not the only indicator. Moreover, it does not strike me as being particularly important.
Surely what matters more is how female (and male) characters are portrayed in film (whether the female is more than just a damsal in distress, for example), which is a different issue entirely to the topic of this article.
@70: We tend to be a pretty nice lot. :)
You’re quite right that it’s not solely about numbers. I think in the case of Disney, they already do an excellent job putting women in powerful positions. Merida, Mulan, and Elsa are great examples; I’d be pleased if my hypothetical child wanted to emulate them.
But it is about numbers somewhat, because that’s representative of society. What we have now, a few women in powerful positions, is a bit like the executive boardroom. Maybe there’s a woman at the big table, but she’s probably the only one. There need to be powerful women, yes, but there also need to be more women at that table. It’s both, not just one or the other.
Disney’s got the power down pretty well, now they could stand to boost the numbers. That’s how I take the article and discussion.
Anthropomorphized horses, lizards, snowmen, reindeer and rock trolls; magic turning people into ice statues and bears; weather-control: all dandy. Women? Goodness, no! Too unrealistic and totally unnecessary, etc., unless you do the necessary work to justify their presence. But, all-Scottish voice actors! They have actresses in Scotland, too. But, historical accuracy! Women, rather than being a recent invention, have been present and active throughout human history. But, the animators included some non-speaking women in crowd scenes! That’s just pathetic. Like arguing if an animated space raccoon “truly counts” as male to justify there not being a single space pirate, prison guard or corpsman — women didn’t even get to be window dressing in space.
The larger question should not be a case of having to justify the presence of each and every female character. The question should be where’s the justification for not including females in these imaginary worlds?
@69
Yes, this does happen everywhere. But an examination of the relegation of women to nameless windowdressing in all Disney films would be a dissertation, not a blog post. Part of good blogging is to express your opinion in a concise way– lists help that, and it makes sense to start the conversation about Disney by talking about what it’s been doing with itself most recently.
Also, vis a vis your last statement that the critique should be of kids’ movies as a whole, I’d argue that EAP’s critique shouldn’t be different than what she has written, but should stand alongside other critiques. Your critique of Ghibli is interesting (though I don’t necessarily agree WRT support roles in Ghibli films being mostly male– Spirited Away and Totorro both have mostly female supporting casts, as do many of the others) and should definitely be explored– but that doesn’t make EAP’s critique of Disney short-sighted. This post is a gateway to a larger consideration of the kinds of movies and media we offer our kids.
And I think, re: your point about Harry Potter, that part of what EAP is saying is that if a juggernaut like Disney, who rakes in money even on its weakest offerings, were to start the ball rolling on equal representation, it might give other authors and filmmakers the courage to follow suit.
@70 Studies have shown that when women are actually represented in background scenes equal to men, or are given dialog equal to men, people feel women are overrepresented.
This is a problem in perception that is fueled by the fact that women are underrepresented.
So yes the importance of the portrayal is vital but so are the numbers.
More re: #69…
Apparently I had a lot more to say about this topic– further thoughts over at my blog if anyone’s interested. :)
@76 Comment unpublished, as the language and tone is not in line with our moderation policy. Thank you.
I can recommend the Swedish trilogy “The Circle” by Sara Bergmark-Elfgren and Mats Strandberg, which is now being turned into a film (financed by ABBA member Benny Andersson). Six female main characters, and loads of other female characters. From 12 years and up.
Inspired by Buffy the Vampire slayer by the way.
It seems more likely to me that too many strong female characters would take away from the targeted audience’s (young girls) ability to strongly relate to the protagonist. The princess film genre relies on a strong emotional connection to the female lead. Too many females would take away from that connection.
It’s more a matter of storytelling logistics than thinly veiled male-privelage.
Perhaps, while we’re on the issue, we could discuss how all of those male characters are either fools or brutes. Is that how females generally view males? Are we teaching young girls to see males that way? Or is it perhaps another example of storytelling logistics and trying not to make a character with enough depth to steal the limelight from the main protagonist? I think the latter.
Why on earth would a girl NOT be able to relate to a strong female character?
But girls can’t identify with strength, duh!
All we know how to be is pretty!
And emotional!
@81:
The New statesman did a piece on this: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters
The TL:DR version is that the word ‘strong’ is doing double (triple, quadruple…) duty in that description, for words like “boring, simple, shallow…).
@general discussion.
There is a large crowd which watches movies/reads books and generally wants A: More ladies in them and B: Those women who are in them to be depicted in a more favorable light. This is an important set, and angering them leads to a Sorkin situation, where anything you produce has only 1/2 reviews about the material in question, the other half is pointing out how the reviewer isn’t a mysoginist, or in league with them, or anything.
There is another crowd, much smaller and more sinister, which wants the opposite. Less women and shoehorn them into so-called traditional roles. Angering them is much safer, no one cares what their sites say.
Importantly, neither set has any real opinions about dude characters. They aren’t the football in this fight.
The dearth of female side characters comes from the fact that side characters usually have flaws which are not resolved or confronted over the course of the story.
So if you did as EAP bids, and made the tavern scene in Tangled all ladies, you run a risk, a small one granted, or angering the first set of folks. After all, you are depicting these women as brutes and thugs, who only abandon their scummy ways after a lecture from the princess. You also annoy the second crew, who just see you adding more women to a tavern scene, which they expect to be filled with dudebros.
By contrast, making the taverners dudes doesn’t anger the first set, (though this editorial is a counter-example). The important characters are making them happy (princesses who kick trash, Cool Girls who juggle work and relationships, and who don’t need a man to complete them). The second set aren’t unhappy either. Making any character who is unfavorable a dude is ‘safe’.
The shadow of Homer Simpson/Al Bundy/Peter Griffon looms large over fiction. If you write a character that the audience laughs AT, rather than with (And you’ll want to do this quite often. Characters need chumps to show that they are cool), you either make that character male or you court the wrath of the first set of folks, and why take that chance?
81 and 82, I assume you’re addressing my post. If not, sorry. But…
I see no reason why a girl couldn’t relate to a strong female character. Neither did I suggest they couldn’t. Quite the opposite, I said that too many strong female characters would take away from the main protagonist whom the target audience is supposed to primarily relate with. The problem would be too much relation with characters other than the strong female lead, not the other way around.
Take, for example, a serial show called The L Word. There are oodles of strong female leads – but that can happen in a serial. There is enough story economy to devote that kind of development. In a simple two-hour story, though, you can only afford to have so many strong characters of any genre. If your target audience is of a specific gender, than you don’t want to cloud the issue with too many represented of that gender.
James Bond, for example, has very few intriguing male characters outside of the protagonist and antagonists. And, much like males in Brave are all fools and brutes, the females in James Bond are mostly of one type or another.
But hey, I could be wrong.
I haven’t seen the works discussed, but as per combinations of girl/boy characters, Zylpha Keatly Snyder’s The Egypt Game is a good example of active girl characters whose interests drive the plot and who both lead and collaborate with boys. This book works as a proactive girls piece and also a good example of an ensemble piece, seems to me.
I still read a lot of YA and I can’t think of any girl characters who are thoroughly passive, reactive . . . bored, occasionally, perhaps, but always acting as well as reacting . . . Snyder’s other works, as well as those by Wilder, Lovelace, Taylor, Carlson, Lenski, Lowry, Estes, Montgomery, Cleary, Greene, Stoltz, Sachs, and Enright, and Vera and Bill Cleaver are very good.
When I saw the title, I immediately thought “…There were men in it”.
After reading the article, I wasn’t disappointed.
@84: yes, I think you are wrong when you say “too many strong female characters would take away from the main protagonist whom the target audience is supposed to primarily relate with.”
As a counter-example, I offer the YA novels of Tamora Pierce. These all feature girls and young women as protagonists, and they’re wildly popular with their target audience. For that matter, with many grown women as well.
And one of the main things the fans like about them is the equal representation of women, without ignoring or belittling men. The protagonists have male and female friends, male and female mentors, male and female adversaries, male and female random side characters, with a variety of personalities, occupations, and appearance. Just like the “real” world.
Nor does any of this come across as forced or checking off some kind of quota. The world has male and female people in it, and Pierce’s books reflect that simple fact simply and naturally. And her readers notice and appreciate it.
@72 I think it’s a little unfair to group magic (and talking snowmen etc.) with the empowerment of women when talking about fantasy world building.
The existence of magic in a fantasy world is taken for granted (it is the very essence of fantasy fiction). It does not need to be explained, although the author may choose to so if they wish.
Having a society that is medieval in all but name, but where women are empowered in the same way as men, however, is something that needs to be explained.
Just because it’s fantasy doesn’t mean anything goes. Quite the opposite, in fact.
All fantasies are necessarily based on societies that are recognisably historical (especially if they are going for a quick sell, like Pixar), and a large part of recorded human history has involved men trampling on women. Nobody is saying that women are a recent invention. However, the idea that they deserve the same rights and status as men is very recent indeed (sadly, it must be said).
Ideas – like female equality – do not spring about in isolation. To write a medieval based fantasy where women enjoy the same rights as men and not to explain it in any way would be like slipping in the invention of the printing press to a Bronze Age based society and giving no thought whatsoever to the consequences, e.g. proliferation of literacy and knowledge etc.
@71 Thank you! It’s so refreshing to find a blog where one can have a lively but respectful debate.
You raise an interesting point when you say that we need more powerful women around the big table. I think that we really need is the best people around the big table, regardless of whether they are male or female.
In terms of the Pixar debate, we’re not really talking about the big table, are we? The two princesses in Frozen, for example, have the big table more or less to themselves. We’re talking about needing more female dustbin cleaners.
I think it’s a mistake to argue on the one hand that these films are fantasies and on the other hand that they also represent modern society (I know you didn’t do this 71 but it’s a running theme). Brave, to take one example, may well be representative of Scottish medieval society, but it is not (and can’t be) representative of Western society today.
@74 Can you link me to the studies, because I would be interested to read them. I’m not denying they exist, I’m just surprised! I guess I can’t speak for everyone when I say that the gender of the goons guarding the door makes no difference to me.
@88 I will post what I can find later. I’m on my phone at the moment.
In regards to your statement that fantasy worlds have to explain why women are viewed as equal IMO demonstrates your problem in understanding this issue.
From your viewpoint you view the world of oppression women face, as “natural”(this doesn’t indicate that you agree with it, just that you see it as the way the world is). This is where you are mistaken.
The system of inequality is what is artificial. A system has to be constructed to perpetuate inequality. The foundation that system is built upon, are the the things Emily is discussing in this article, the subtle and not so subtle exclusion and erasure of women and their full particpation in the world.
You also make the point that we should bring the best people to the table. But this stament elides the reality that the people who are repsonsible for bringing the best people to the table have their own biases that prevents them from recognising women(or people of color, or openly gay people) as capable of being the best. A good show exploring this right now is Marvel’s Agent Carter about a woman who demonstrated competency and skill during WWII but has been sidelined by men returning fron the war.
If you want more thorough examinations I’d recommend a geek feminsit website called The Mary Sue. Also definitely check out the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media. The have several studies on how women are underrepresented in front of and behind the camera.
Late to the party, with not much to say but THIS!
So the female rock troll is not feminine enough looking to count as a woman? Their is a lot of dismissal of women in this article for not being the right type of women. I don’t see how this helps.
Shaping up to be a fascinating and remarkably civil debate! One thing I’m not seeing in the thread (apologies if I missed it–busy week, can only skim so fast) are the specific challenges relating to worldbuilding in film, as opposed to fiction (especially long-form). IMHO, the cleanest way to deal with the issue of “but it’s fantasy/but it’s medieval” dichotomy is this: if you are writing a novel, you have the freedom to make changes to gender role expectations just like you have the freedom to make changes to any other sociological or indeed ontological element. . .but you have to explain how society came to be that way. Without a clearly articulated alternate-universe story about why your story upends readers’ gender norms, then the females in nontraditional roles can just feel like tokenism. (For example, see my contrarian opinion elsewhere on Ancillary Justice and gender–I admit that I haven’t yet read Ancillary Sword so this could have been addressed by now, but I had a problem with AJ because I didn’t feel it gave a convincing sociological/historical grounding to a society with secondary sex characteristics but no concept of gender.)
But that’s in long-form fiction. (The same concept could work in very long-form drama, so the cinematic Marvelverse really isn’t exempt at this point.) Trying to do worldbuilding in a feature film, especially one that is bound by convention to an abnormally short running time of less than two hours, is incredibly difficult. No one wants some character to spend screen time playing Captain Infodump. With extremely limited resources to do original worldbuilding, it may just not be possible to make a medieval-ish animated film without running into any or all of the above-mentioned forms of Being Offensive To Someone or Weird Tokenism That The Audience Doesn’t Accept and Which Doesn’t Lead To Worthwhile Discussion As a Result.
E.g.: There are about a zillion female political leaders in The Wheel of Time, and readers eventually don’t ask questions like “Why does Lady So-and-So have so much power relative to her husband?” because there is a massive pile of worldbuilding concerning gender so that the reader is de-conditioned from assuming Renaissance norms. In contrast, there is no way that, within the running time of Frozen, you could throw in, say, the Duchess of Weselton without audiences just getting disoriented, and not in a particularly thought-provoking way.
@91 also has a good point about the female troll. And I can’t help but think that, while a female comedian could just as well have played Olaf with a name change, isn’t it perhaps more interesting in terms of gender and self-identity that a character created out of Elsa’s subconscious to express her lost childhood with her sister is male rather than female? A female version of Olaf might have been a lot more gender-essentialist, if you think about it.
@92 I say in a comment above that I do t agree that worldbuilding is necessry to explain a more balanced world in regards to gender.
You CAN if you want. GRRM and Jacqueline Carey both do god jobs in exploring the systems that create the balance(or imbalance) of gender in their world’s but you don’t have to do that to tell a god story.
The gender balance of the world we live in is the one that must be explained. It’s the artificial one sustained by centuries of social conditioning. If you create a fantasy world where the gender balance doesn’t reflect ours, well that’s why, no further information needed.
@93, I absolutely agree that real-world gender relations need to be explained, but that’s not really a job for fantasists. That’s for historians, sociologists, etc.
Where fantasy can shed light on this issue is with the construction of alternative realities. However (and this may be a matter of opinion, or possibly research into adult education theory concerning productive v. unproductive disorienting experiences might be helpful in taking this beyond opinion into scholarship), anecdotally, I haven’t found that inexplicable deviations from gender norms tend to start interesting discussions or cause readers to re-examine the real world, any more than, say, having magic in an ultra-derivative pulp paperback tends to cause people to speculate about ontological assumptions. So I suppose that is to say: I’m not offended if a writer doesn’t explain gender in his/her work, but if they don’t, I’m not sure they succeed in contributing to intellectual consideration of gender. Left-leaning readers are likely to put the female characters in a “gender-blind casting” bucket and not think about it, right-leaning readers are likely to put them in a “feminist tokenism” bucket and not think about it, and none of the reflection on our own artificial conditioning that you so rightly recommend is likely to happen.
I’m thinking perhaps this discussion is heading out of “fun on the Internet” territory and into “is someone on this board looking for a dissertation topic?” territory. A quasi-experimental study of readers, worldbuilding and gender would be an amazing paper.
I think some people are overestimating the historical accuracy required by audiences of animated films. I mean, you routinely have movies like Shrek which make modern pop culture jokes and throw them in there like the characters would get the reference. Nobody cares. And I don’t think many people would care for this, either… except sticklers for historical accuracy and those who have some kind of stake in NOT making these kinds of changes, or those already too indoctrinated by the latter group.
And it’s not actual medieval history, it’s medieval-ISH fantasy. Sure, women having equal power and opportunities to men would, realistically, change a lot of things such that society wouldn’t even remotely resemble the tropes we associate with medieval imagery. SO WOULD MAGIC SPELLS. Or, you could play a little loose with reality and leave everything else more or less the same.
So no. You don’t really need to go to great lengths to explain why there are women in positions of power in a fantasy movie. You can just have them there. (Avatar and Korra have done this without drawing a lot of attention to it, Azula in the first series, and in Korra the major antagonist of the final season was a female military leader and Lin Bei Fong is chief of police.)
You don’t even have to go whole-hog 100% equality if you think that dynamic is important to your story or believability, just have it be a world where, yeah, women face significant obstacles, but they can rise and be respected in a field traditionally dominated by men.
Or have them play major roles in the STORY without them being major roles in SOCIETY. Have peasant girl who helps the main character escape the usurper who stole her throne or whatever (or, here’s a twist, focus a story not so much on royals at all) and gets in trouble for it and has to go on the run herself.
And a lot of what we associate with medieval times is… kind of already historically inaccurate. You routinely see things in kid’s movies where intelligent characters think the world is flat (most scholars knew it wasn’t and most people who lived by the shore could see that the last thing they saw of a ship was it’s mast), or people only take a bath once a year (people did try to keep clean), or knights are shining paragons of virtue (largely they were bullies to anybody not a noble), or, for that matter, that women largely had no power or rights or opportunities (things certainly weren’t great, but women could own property and run businesses… women ran Englands entire beer industry… things actually got significantly worse for women’s rights AFTER medieval times). I’m not sure a lot of people here are defending history like they think they are… they’re defending the specific type of lies you already grew up with.
@95 Peter D–“(things weren’t great, but women could own property and run businesses…women ran England’s entire beer industry…things actually got significantly worse for women’s right’s AFTER medieval times).”
Cf. the Industrial Revolution when a lot of work left the home where women were available to work as partners in their husbands’ business/farm etc. and created the separate spheres . . . at least for the middle class . . . cf. Richard D. Altick’s … ok … panicking … can’t find my copy of my diss to check!!! … anyway Altick discusses that topic … things changed for working-class women inso far as many of them went to work in factories … and women’s intellect came to be seen as only applicable to the domestic sphere (diss written on women and intellect in C. Bronte’s novels… no keys w/ which to create umlat on this keyboard–I know how to spell Bronte lol :)).
@87
Thank you for the example. I will remember that next time I’m at the library, and I will skim over that book. I might even check it out.
I will note, though, that there is adifference between a novel and film. Two hours is not enough time to justify building strong relationships with multiple characters. If there were sequels, than that effectively doubles the time and makes it effective. Even in gender specific group movies like Stand By Me, or American Pie, or Clueless, or The Craft, there is one character who stands out more than the rest. But those plots were dependednt upon gender issues.
Any way, I’m calling it quits here. Thank you again for your novel suggestion.
@89 I certainly don’t see female repression as natural. However that is undeniably how it was in medieval societies and fantasy worlds that look like medieval societies may have to do some explaining if they want to have female emissaries etc. let’s not forget that the character conflict driving the plot of Brave assumes a medieval conception of female rights – men inherit, women get married off. So if you want to change that to make it reflective of the times, where, in the Western world, women do enjoy the same rights as men, then you’ve lost the story right off the bat.
@98 You are still missing the point. Whether female oppression existed in medieval times is irrelevant to a FANTASY world, regardless if the fantasy world looks medieval or not. It’s right there in the name, FANTASY. Our medieval world didn’t have elves either, yet no one ever demands that authors “explain” that.
And I don’t get the point you are making about Brave. That was a fantasy movie that didn’t create a gender equal world. And that’s okay. You don’t have to. Hell I enjoy stories based in unequal worlds that tell the stories of how women address it.
My argument is that you don’t have to justify why it’s not an unequal world. If this fantasy world that looks medieval had NONE of the factors that drive the gender imbalance in our world there would be no reason for it to have that. You are demanding that authors justify something to you that doesn’t need to be justified.
I clicked on this article prepared to argue with it until my dying breath… and then found myself agreeing with every part of it.
I think it’s pretty hard to argue with the fact that women generally make up 50% (or more) of the population, but it’s so hard to see that reflected in our stories. And that matters, a lot.
@46 — This is a TV movie, not a feature film, but “Lemonade Mouth” impressed me by having a band with three girls and two boys (and doesn’t at any point even reference it.)
As far as Brave, my biggest problem with the movie was that Merida, faced with her parents decision not just to marry her off against her will, but to have her marry the winner of a contest, makes the very reasonable decision to take her fate into her own hands and find a solution — and gets seriously slapped down as a result.
It’s not the decision to take her life in her own hands it’s the path it takes by deciding to drug her mother. I think when she decides to enter the contest the narrative is completely on her side and when her mother overreacted and destroys her bow.
Totally get your point, and I’m not one to applaud Disney for pretty much any of its narrative choices or politics, but you could make an argument that part of the appeal of the heroines in these films is that they *are* alone–that their very gender and the role they are supposed to play casts them as outsiders from the person they aspire to be, so why not have that reflected in the actual make-up of the characters in the film? In other words, in Edward Scissorhands, we didn’t have a cast populated by fifteen other Edward Scissorhands, right?
I understand the imbalance you note–and believe it probably is a sort of blanket, unintended sexism inherent in the storytelling-but sometimes that stuff reflects the way people actually feel, which is why they connect to it in the first place.
There’s a scene I’ve always wanted to see in a fantasy or sci-fantasy film: Protagonist has been told that This Person is the best fighter in the business and can be found at such-and-such a table at the Local Pub this time of day. Protagonist goes to the pub and finds a table full of rough-and-tumble types. The one who looks like the best fighter in the business has a good-looking gal on his lap. Protagonist asks, “Which one of you is This Person?” The others scatter. The gal stands up, hands on hips: “I’m This Person. What’s the plan?” (I actually know a few gals who could play that part, too! Totally female, but assume that that means ‘soft, weak, and helpless’ and you’ll be sorry… One of them was a Marine sergeant and later a probation officer, and in the latter job her clients were scared to get on her bad side!)
@103:
“in Edward Scissorhands, we didn’t have a cast populated by fifteen other Edward Scissorhands, right?”
Which is to say that one woman is just like another woman?
Even if your story is explicity about a woman trying to succeed in a previously all-male field– which, in fact, describes several of those Tamora Pierce novels I mentioned earlier– a story which doesn’t acknowledge that there are women in the world is unrealistic.
I’m late to the party and just read through 106 posts. There isn’t a whole lot to be said that hasn’t been said, except to remind everyone that it isn’t (nor should it be) the priority of most fantasy/children’s filmmakers to do anything other than create a good story. You cast your story in such a way as to make your story as powerful and entertaining as possible, and hope it resonates with viewers. 103jaytS’s point about the strength of the three main female characters in these movies being enhanced by the fact they are alone or different than other females from their society being depicted is 100% true, especially in Brave. Does anyone really want to argue that the female background characters (who others have argued are being portrayed in a very “weak” way) are being presented as the feminine ideal in any of these movies?
It’s simply impossible to create stories that satisfy everyone’s agenda…whether it be equal representation of gender, race, lifestyle choices, height, weight, disability, socio-economic background, educational background, religion, etc (long list very deliberate to make my point!). Any movie studio that makes crossing these items off their checklist their priority, even if it is over a series of movies rather than just one, is not going to be a commercial success. In each of these three movies Disney has taken the time to create and feature strong female characters, and it’s kind of depressing to see that they are STILL being criticized for not doing more.
@88 “I think that we really need is the best people around the big table, regardless of whether they are male or female.”
I guess it’s not that there needs to be an exact 50% / 50% distribution in gender (1) around the Big Table but rather than many people (authors, filmmakers, producers, etc) think that only Men have the right preparation, or the right skillset, or the right backstory, or just plainly the Right to be at that table, when female characters could also be put there without too much of a problem.
(1) If we stick to the predominant binary genders for the sake of this specific argument.
@88 First, my comment was not calling for the empowerment of women; I was asking for the inclusion of any women — as you may have noticed this article is about the dearth of female characters — or a decent justification to explain the lack.
Second, are you putting forth the notion that magical elements need not be explained, despite disrupting the sacredness of semi-medieval history you perceive in your cartoon, but women would utterly ruin things if not properly explained and then given leave to exist by…by YOU or the duly designated representative of ManLand? So, you signed off on Rapunzel, Mother Gothel, Merida, Elinor, Elsa, and Anna, right? You weren’t too upset that they had speaking roles, were you? It didn’t ruin the illusion of razor-sharp historical accuracy for ya?
*pssst* Women were around in history, ruining all your fun, then, too. Here, someone more eloquent than myself already explained it:
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/
To address the repeated assertion that if a woman character is given prominence but has flaws, those of us who complain about the dearth of representation for women will also complain, I present to you, Marvel’s Agent Carter on ABC.
Incredibly well written and developed character. Who just last night made the wrong call and got a coworker killed. She fucked up. Yet go to any feminist site covering the show, like The Mary Sue, and see the reaction.
@EngTeacher, we all understand any movie, TV show, or book can be an ensemble with a large cast, and still have a protagonist. But as I mentioned way back at #46, plenty of ensemble pieces exist that have a protagonist, but a wonderful supporting cast. (My first example was Goonies. Mikey is the lead, but he has a gang of kids.)
And I’ve yet to see one adventure/fantasy movie that featured an ensemble with more girls than boys. Some have one or two girls and many boys. Some have no girls at all. Labyrinth, which I love, has one girl surrounded by undeniably make characters.
That seems ridiculous to me, as growing up, we had the exact opposite dynamic. And as many folks have pointed out, in a fantasy world, the rules are yours. Want a woman pilot who’s referred to as sir? Give her a cigar and call her Starbuck and she will amaze you.
Why does that matter? Because I am a woman, and I have two daughters, and I want to them to see girls doing exciting, adventurous things, and being surrounded by supportive, adventurous women. Having women as proactive protagonists is a start, but I’d like to see a few more female friends helping her on her adventure. That’s not political correctness so much as representing 50% of the entire world.
Any good movie can have an incredible, well-developed supporting cast who are far more than wallpaper, as Emily rightly asserts. Good writing is not constrained by the number of characters, only by the writers’ imagination.
@110:
The assertion isn’t that folks will complain if female characters have flaws, its that folks will complain if female side characters have flaws. The difference being that protags/antags have arcs, side characters don’t change.
The example in question is perfect. Agent Carter tries her best, Agent Krzeminski dies. Carter blames herself, but that’s only because she’s heroic. Its the assassin’s fault that Krzeminski dies. (Amusingly, I wouldn’t be stunned if the assassin is a woman, no fire is drawn by depictions of gals as explicitly evil, they just can’t be inept).
Basically this article can be summed up as “why isn’t Krzeminski, Thompson or Sousa a lady?” and the answer is obvious. They are uncomplicated heels, a brute, torturer and white knight respectively. If any one of them were a minority or a women the show would be called out for mysoginy/racism.
@113, And her friend Angie is a woman hating slut shamer, yet we love her too. Women side characters get to have flaws, because TA DA, women are people, and people have flaws.
It’s not the people asking for better representation of women who put on women on pedastals and expect perfection.
Wow. I couldn’t find this article (got lost on the feeds) and I come back and we’re up to over 100 comments. Really neat.
Probably summarizing what has already been said, but here goes…
I don’t think it is a deliberate cuttin gout of women in secondary roles, but partly a laziness, sort of a “we went to all the effort of having a strong, well defined, excellent role model (OK, well, that;s debatable, but still, for the sake of argument) female protatgonist, let’s take it a little easier and fill out the canvas with stock characters, the default being male”
Yes, it can be done. Yes, it makes the movie all the better when it is done. Is it the end of the world? No. Just somewhere they could definately improve.
But it does bring up a point, and I had to think about it for a while, but you take a movie like The Hunger Games, and you do have a more balanced cast, I mean, the catalyst for the whole story is a girl, Prim, and the books and then movies do show women as well as men in all sorts of roles. And not a princess in sight.
I liked Tangled. I liked Frozen (although I consider it a straight up musical, there is next-to-no-plot, and what there is is full of holes. Seriously, they couldn;t have made ANY effort to deal with Elsa other than slap gloves on her?) Brave stunk, but that is my opinion. They are not the greatest movies, but they are enjoyable and decent, which is more than I can say for much “entertainment”. So yes, I would continue to show at least the first two to children. But they’re not the end. You take them, and go from there.
Oh, and I just thought of something, related to the part about no female animal sidekicks. What about Cinderella? I think the mice are fairly well mixed. And short as it is, the one line where the girl mouse kicks Jacque out of the sewing room because SHE wants to make the dress is my favorite mouse line.
Also, The Aristocats. Technically, the animals are the protagonists and the humans are the secondary characters. Also well mixed. Frou-frou (the horse) is female, as well as the lady who owns the cats. Duchess (the mother cat) holds her own, and of the three kittens there are two males and one female, who, again, holds her own against her brothers, frequently stealing the stage.
Same thing in Oliver and Co. The human girl (forgot the name) is the side kick to much of the story. Girl. Not boy.
So, there are female animal sidekicks, and female secondary human characters in animal movies
@116 – I love Cinderella, but that particular line actually makes me cringe, lol. I always kind of loved that Jaques was willing to help with the sewing.
@117, Lisamarie, no, I thought it was neat that Jacques wanted to get in on it, but having a bossy male cousin who is slightly older than me and ALWAYS seemed the be first at things at the time when I first watched the movie meant there was some, “You tell him!” attitude for me when I saw it. ;)