just the links, ma'am, just the links

[chimerically]

Why are there so few girl characters in kids' movies? And what's up with "purity balls" and this obsession with "naive abstinence"? (I actually have some ideas about where the whole virginity obsession comes from, but I'll save that for another rant.)



That is all.

Comments

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I hadn't thought about villains! In the classic Disney movies, the villains were often female, but that seems to be a remnant of the tropes of fairy tales (ie, the wicked stepmother). Let's look at the recent ones:

Little Mermaid - girl movie with female villain (Ursula)
Beauty and the Beast - girl movie with male villain (Gaston)
Aladdin - boy movie with male villain (Jafar)
Lion King - boy movie with male villain (Scar)
Pocahontas - girl movie with male villain (Ratcliffe)
Hunchback - I'm arguing that this is a dual movie, because the lead is male but Esmeralda is prominently featured, and the marketing had a lot to do with girls - male villain (Frollo)
Hercules - boy movie with male villain (Hades)
Mulan - girl movie with male villain (Shan-Yu)
Tarzan - boy movie with male villain
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 - the Firebird and Chernovog are the only villains. The Firebird's gender is indeterminate, but Chernovog is male.
Emperor's New Groove - boy movie with female villain (Yzma)
Atlantis - boy movie, male villain
Treasure Planet - boy movie with male villain
Lilo and Stitch - I'd argue this was another dual movie; it seems to be equally popular with boys and girls. Male villain (Stitch's creator)
Brother Bear - boy movie with almost no female characters, except the mother bear who (of course) dies at the beginning. No villain as such.
Home on the Range - female lead, male villain.
Chicken Little - male lead. I haven't seen it so I don't know if there is a villain.

So, yeah. With only two exceptions (Ursula and Yzma), all the villains of the Disney movies from the past two decades have been male. What do you make of that?

Adam and I were just talking about this, and the Muppets came up. They are terrible when it comes to female Muppets! The only ones we could think of were Miss Piggy and Janis; all the rest are male. Apparently Sesame Street has added female characters in recent years, but I'm not up on that.

[stridera.livejournal.com]

First muppet video: One male, two females. Male can't sing... can't even talk. Greatest video ever.

The muppets - Manamana on google video

That song is the official theme song for my shift at work. :)

Great thread btw... very interesting.

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

In the case of Muppets, a factor might well be that the two lead creators and pupeteers (Henson and Oz) were both male, and Muppeteers do their own voices. Miss Piggy is voiced by men.

Of course, this leaves open the question of why Henson didn't hire more female Mupeteers.