Damn straight.

[apocalypsos]

A really good article about that open letter to Pixar about writing a movie about a girl who's not a princess, and the response on one animation forum.

My favorite line in the whole damn thing: Why is it that when women -- who make up over half of the species, by the way -- respectfully point out that they're underrepresented in movies, it's seen as some sort of angry feminist screed?

I hate that fucking reaction. No, we don't want everybody at Pixar to, as it's put in the article, "fire all the male animators and hire angry lesbians in big, stompy boots to wipe boys off the Pixar landscape by brute force." We don't want Tinkerbell Princess bullshit. That's the point.

It's like Up. I love that movie SO MUCH. And I know people have problems with Russell not being a girl or Carl not being a girl or Ellie dying of old age, but I think it's perfectly fine the way it is. But now I want an Ellie movie. That's the kind of girl *I* was as a kid -- climbing trees, running around the woods getting dirty, exploring places I probably shouldn't -- and I know a hell of a lot of other women who were the same way as kids.

Look, there is a large percentage of us who would gleefully never see a sparkly princess romance again. And it's characters like Ellie Fredericksen and Jessie and Violet Parr that show that Pixar knows how to write girls that refuse to sport a pretty dress and a tiara because it'll get in the way of trying to catch baby catfish in the pond or playing basketball in the park. *shifty eyes*

I really wish their first female lead in The Bear And The Bow weren't a damn princess, because other than that she sounds like a real kickass character. Having said that, I'm crossing my fingers, because if anybody can make me like a princess character for a change, it's Pixar. (Actually, I have this mental image of her chucking her tiara in the end and becoming a great archer, which would be more than a little awesome.)

In related news, the agent-shaped person and I got into a discussion last night about those urban fantasy book covers with the women with naked backs on them, and I joked that I should just write a book with an elderly overweight lead just because of that, and now I'm seriously considering how to pull that off. Yeah, naked-back THIS, fuckers.

Comments

[hamadryad.livejournal.com]

I got irritated as fuck at "Mulan" because it's this great movie about a girl who does all this bad-ass shit ... and then at the end they tack on a boyfriend, because hey, who gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about saving China if you don't GET A MAN?

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

If they can make black characters white on the cover, they can surely make your elderly, overweight character into a 20-year-old model!

And yeah, 51% of the population and we're all whiners? I think I can see who the whiners are - the ones who won't bother to see a movie unless someone who looks just like them is front-and-centre.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

And quite a few of us in the other 49% want to see better representation of the 51%, too. That even got brought up in my dream last night, so it's really on my mind.

Show more people! More, and more interesting, people!

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Your dream sounds better than my dream about the economics of making bread after a wheat blight!

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Your dream sounds better than my dream last night about dropping my laptop in a bathtub.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

My dreams are freakin' EPIC. Cool dreaming is among my skills. I even write about them. One of my favorite dream references lately: "So the fact that a foot-long fish was floating in the air in a dream I had isn't what I found most striking about that fish. It's that that fish was remarkably dog-like the way it behaved. Just airborne. I wanted to pet it. A little harder to do when something's airborne. (You ever tried petting a flying bird? Of course, most birds are smaller than this fish...)"
/shameless self-pimping

But bread-making: that's important, too. And at some level it's important to you.

Anyway.

Wider variety of interesting people in movies and other entertainment: Good. (Reminding myself why we started talking in the first place.)

Peace! Except in entertainment, 'cause chaos can be entertaining.

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you here. I think the lesson at the end of Mulan isn't so much, "Look, she got a man! Now she succeeded!" as "Look! Instead of confirming to traditional girliness, she was strong and tough and true to herself, and the hottest, most capable guy said, 'Wow, I find that really attractive.'."

As lessons to absorb go, I don't feel that one is so bad. :)

[telaryn.livejournal.com]

This was my favorite (from the comments):

Just because white male heterosexuals cry politically correct bullshit doesn't make it any less justified. I cannot imagine Pixar is being offensive to women by giving them secondary roles to female characters seeing as how they're just as strong and developed as the supposed male leads.

I try to form coherent responses, and the words just fail me.

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

You know I love your rants (and usually agree :) ), but since I haven't seen Up (tomorrow!) and didn't even know there is a character named Ellie or that she dies of old age -- spoiler?

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, don't you know that human dignity is like pie? And that if women have any pie at all--even a tiny sliver--that means there is NO PIE FOR TEH MENS OMG?! And that therefore, any women who want pie are castrating bitches, and also, all feminists hate men?

Because it's all about the men. *furious eyerolling* Personally, I can't be bothered with hating men when I have a whole system to be bloody furious about, but that's just me and every other goddamn feminist out there.

Shit, now I want pie. Angry pie.

[damnedfallacy.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'd love an Ellie and Carl movie. A smart, capable woman, and a man who finds brains and a sense of adventure irresistable and would follow her anywhere? Want. So. Much.

If you want some hope about the future of humanity, my oldest son just declared that Kari from Mythbusters is his perfect woman because she's smart and likes to build things and blow them up.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

"Angry pie" needs to be an album title.

Kind of like how I once heard it pointed out that there's an intersection in Portland, OR of the streets Haight and Failing. "'At the Corner of Haight and Failing' should be a punk band's album!"

Always good to remind people that dignity AIN'T A ZERO-SUM GAME. The pie can grow! (..."the pie can grow" sounds like it can mean something...different.)

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

YES. Dignity ain't a zero-sum game! You win an interwebs. :-D

Also, I still want pie.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, it's not really much of one unless you have absolutely no clue what the plot is, at all, even a little bit, but ... lj-cut. ;)

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

I have none! I've seen the trailers and that's it. :)

I figured it probably wasn't much of a spoiler, because I know you, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention it.

[doqz.livejournal.com]

You'd have to cast the entire book at retirement age, probably. The standard dodge in those situations is to skip the lead and picture a more photogenic character (especially villains) on the cover.

The Ladies #1 Detective Agency?

[honeybones.livejournal.com]

Strong, Black, Capable, Heavy, never seen on the cover. Still a wonderfully popular series.

[ljs-lj.livejournal.com]

*lives near Portland* Personally I'm fond of "Failing Pedestrian Bridge" but that's just me. Or anything involving "Couch Street" being pronounced properly :) "Couch in the Pearl" is both a legitimate description of location and a dirty-sounding potential punk band name or album title.

[lovetheboys.livejournal.com]

So, isn't this the part in the debate where we get to tell them they're overreacting and are getting hysterical over one little article on the internet? 'Cause I've kinda always wanted to do that...

What's with the sweeping generalizations, anyway? Because someone said, "Maybe it would be nice if occasionally A happens instead of B" people interpret, "IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE A AND YOU ARE HORRIBLE ASSHOLES FOR ALWAYS MAKING IT B!"

For fuck's sake people, the article stated that she liked the movies Pixar has made so far, and she's not denying that it's a winning formula. But since the other formula has barely been tried, there's no way to tell that it's NOT a winning formula, and maybe it could be given a try? What the hell is with people saying A and people hearing AJHGUWHFL?

[lovetheboys.livejournal.com]

Just my two cents, but speaking as someone who was just above the target age (14-ish when Mulan came out) for the movie, I have to agree with [Bad username or site: neonhummingbird. @ livejournal.com] I was a little disappointed that they had to add in romance at all, but the way they did it was pretty damn awesome.

And honestly? I was more disappointed that she didn't take the council position than I was that she and Shang had a moment at the end. There was so much potential there...

[mercurydraconix.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to hope that Pixar's first princess falls into the Cimorene mould. Because the fact that she was a princess didn't mean that she wasn't my favorite person ever.