Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Don't kill the ogre!

Despite all the negatives about women in media, we do have one ray of hope. Mike Meyers has starred in many great movies, but the most touching one as yet, is his story of Shrek. Although Shrek himself is not a female character, at least his love interest is, and a beautiful one at that. With all the typical trappings of Disney, Meyers plunged forth into the realm of "happily ever after" and ended up with a blockbuster. With lovable crude humor for the men, there's reality for the women. We, like Princess Fiona, hide behind our beauty because we think that's all anyone wants to see. In the end - if you haven't seen it stop reading - Fiona chooses to live her "dark" secret; she chooses happiness in the end - she chooses to live as an ogre.
We may finally have something to look forward to. We'll have to see how Meyers plays out the gender roles and parental responsibilities in the 3rd movie. I hope he stays on the right track.








Princess Fiona as Ogre. 8 May 2007 <http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/d/db/Princess_Fiona.jpg>.

Princess Fiona as Human. 8 May 2007 <http://f.screensavers.com/migration/wp/shrek04_215.gif>.

Always the Minority


The Smurfs. 8 May 2007 <http://scnc.sps.k12.mi.us/~murphym/the%20smurfs.jpg>.

Why is it that women are always seen in the minority in shows. Even in popular shows like the Smurfs, there was only one lone female. Think about it: April in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Piggy in Muppet Babies; Kanga in Winnie the Pooh. These examples, as stated by Katha Pollitt, illustrates what she terms the "Smurfette Principle." This only helps to reinforce the already dominate sense that males are the norm, females are the deviant.
Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, and they pick up on these hints. Young girls realize there's no one like themselves to idolize, look up to, want to be like. And why would they? Any representation of their sex that they see are weak women who rely on men, or are women who aren't there at all!
When will media get the big picture and include us?

Pollitt, Katha. "The Smurfette Principle." Reading Women's Lives. Comp. Molly Kerby. Boston: Pearson Custom, 2005. 49-53.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Be Our Guest

Put our service to the test, madam. We are here to serve you, since you obviously can't do anything on your own except look good.
Without Beauty, there'd be no movie. Who cares about the Beast really (but even he turns beautiful in the end)? If the roles were reversed and he were teh Beauty and she an ugly hag, well, it's hard to imagine that simply because women are not meant to be ugly, it's not acceptable and they can never be loved as such. Men on the other hand, well, they are perfect any way they come, right ladies?
Disney is fixated on this principal that "heroines" - those girls who just get rescued by a prince - must be beautiful, no matter what status of life they live or what they do on an average basis. They never outcome poverty, find the cure for AIDS, or even punch the evil witch; they all just run away, hands in the air, and hope that their Prince will save them.
Belle was a little different, just because she seemed to have some sense of a brain, but overall, she fit the model just fine.
As soon as a good movie - and by good, I mean a man waiting and wishing for his princess charming to come along and save him from his evil step-father/witch/blah blah blah - comes out, give me a call.

Vamanos!

Ahh, Dora the Explorer, what an adorable rough and tumble, ready to go girl looking for adventure! Too bad her show didn't really take off until her cousin Diego showed up. Why is that? Why do we as a society feel the need to fixate on male characters and make them the focus of everything. Women hardly ever play a main character in a children's show. Maybe this is just because of our indoctrinated sense of male = good, female = bad. So, we try to instill this in children as soon as possible. Girl characters = weak, male characters = strong. As parents, we may buy more male character toys for boys, female character toys for girls, but we still encourage all kids to watch male centered shows, and we rarely show interest ourselves for shows with strong female characters. Perhaps we can work on this, or at least try to encourage kids toward more gender equal tv viewing.

Missed a Spot...

Hey there, Cinderella, you missed a spot. Yeah, right there. It's just where my heart fell on the floor - no big deal.
So, the typical Disney story, right? A woman, in one of the most dire situations, is finally rescued from her woe by a fairy godmother who bestows upon her beautiful clothes, a carriage, and attendents. This is the only way that she mets Prince Charming, who eventually rescues her again with a magical slipper that will only fit Cinderella's foot. Perhaps it's not what Cinderella does that crawls under my skin, but what she doesn't do.
Take this story for example:

At the grocery store one day, my daughter noticed a little girl sporting a Cinderella backpack. “There’s that princess you don’t like, Mama!” she shouted.
“Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to meet the other mother’s hostile gaze.
“Don’t you like her blue dress, Mama?”
I had to admit, I did.
She thought about this. “Then don’t you like her face?”
“Her face is all right,” I said, noncommittally, though I’m not thrilled to have my Japanese-Jewish child in thrall to those Aryan features. (And what the heck are those blue things covering her ears?) “It’s just, honey, Cinderella doesn’t really do anything.”

She just doesn't really do anything. She's not teaching us to be strong women by rebelling against unjust people, she just allows us to go on believing that if we're "good" girls, do what we're told, and just wait, a fairy godmother will drop out of the sky and a wonderful prince will just whisk us away from all that causes us tears.
Why couldn't the movie focus on the only strong woman in that movie - the "evil" step-mother. Yes, I said it. The antagonist is really the protagonist for us women. Think about it - she lives by herself, is ultimately responsible for herself, her two daughters, Cinderella, the house, and who knows what else? She's independent and that's what's really scary.

Orenstein, Peggy. "What's Wrong with Cinderella?" The New York Times 24 Dec. 2006. 8 May 2007 <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.html?ei=5088&en=8e5a1ac1332a802c&ex=1324616400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all>.

The Jetsons. 7 May 2007 < http://www.uncleodiescollectibles.com/img_lib/Jetsons%20Collectibles%20104%207-12-5.jpg >.

Ahhh, the Jetsons. So full of new and innovative technology. And yet, I always feel uncomfortable with the character of Rosie. You know, the robot. Yeah. I know you remember her. Well, I'm sure you also remember that she's a maid. As a child, I never comtemplated this role designation, but now it seems like these cartoonist were just adding insult to injury. This seems to send the message that no matter how advanced our society becomes, "women" will still have the typical roles of maids to cook, clean, and be at a family's beck and call.
I really don't think I expect too much. You would think that if the Jetsons had all those cool gadjets and such, they would have no need for robots. And even if they needed robots, why would they assign them a gender? In this underhanded way, society is still saying, "try all you want, but women - whether human or robot or whatever - will still be the ones responsible for the housekeeping." So much for a bright future.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

We just figured out...

Well, I thought I had figured out Blue's Clues. Up until last Wednesday, I thought Blue was a boy puppy. Apparently, I've been wrong ever since the show was created - Blue is really a girl puppy.* Now, I'm not stupid, and seeing how dogs don't really talk - even though salt and pepper shakers do - I'm hard pressed to find any clues indicating the Blue is anything other than a boy dog. I mean, she's blue, the stereotypical color for boys. Other than that, I supposed she's pretty androgynous, so her sex isn't really an important factor in the show.
Although I applaud the color switch so that she's not pink, I really don't think that little girls or boys get the switch. If she was pink, could she really be smart enough to help Steve solve those wicked puzzles with just three measly clues? I think Nick Jr. took a helpful hint from Velma and didn't make the girl so nerdy, they just made her look like a boy.

"Blue Clue's History." CharacterProducts.Com. 5 May 2007 <http://www.characterproducts.com/info/character_histories/blue_doorway.htm>.