Male as the assumed default.

krudler

krudler wrote: »

Heres a question, they're remaking/doing a prequel to The Thing, John Carpenters 80's horror masterpiece, the original had no female characters at all, the new one has a lead character who is female but it seems like they just lobbed her in there for the sake of it, good thing or bad thing?

Original BSG had no female leads either, so it could turn out well

krudler

bluewolf wrote: »

Original BSG had no female leads either, so it could turn out well

Horror movies in general either seem to have women who are the big titted scream queen variety of chainsaw/razor glove/machete/knife fodder, there are a lot of lead female characters in slash movies though, Sidney in Scream, Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, Heather Lagenkamp in A Nightmare On Elm St to name but a few.
I guess its easier to show a female lead in peril than a guy, although usually the guy who attempts to take on the villain gets maimed, killed, dragged into a bed and exploded in a shower of blood, chainsawed in the face etc. Would audiences care less about a male character being chased in a slasher movie?

LeeHoffmann

Would audiences care less about a male character being chased in a slasher movie?

Judging only by my reaction to reading this:

maimed, killed, dragged into a bed and exploded in a shower of blood, chainsawed in the face

no I think horror is horror. (My face twisted into ugly expressions of disgust and dismay while reading the above). I don't think I'd be any less horrified at watching a man be 'chainsawed in the face' :eek::( than I would be at it happening to a woman

PS - not a horror-fan

Logical Fallacy

ztoical wrote: »

I wouldn't call her full of crap....while there is plenty of room for discussion as to her views saying it's all crap just isn't true - there are plenty of other comic book people who have echoed and added to her views such as Lea Hernandez and her fantastic hurt comics rants regarding the issue #13 Heroes for Hire comic and the fantastic Mary Jane doing the washing statue - which along with the Spiderman needs a divorce comments truely showed Joe Q's view on both female characters and female readers. In recent years we've very very slowly started to see a turn in the direct market comics scene but it's down mainly to falling sales, poor management after the 90's crash and shrinking markets but in general the direct market is piss poor for the way it treats female characters. French comics have a much better track record for creating good solid female characters both in main and secondary roles while I'm sorry to say I've a very poor view of the treatment of women in Japanese comics and animation given the piss poor view of women in Japan in general. They are way down in 100 and something odd place on the world gender equility scale and praising a handful of characters out of a simply massive industry doesn't cut it in my book and even those characters I wouldn't call very strong as they are mainly the same as the male characters just with added tits. A country that produces such a high amount of rape comics and tentical porn that is not just print and sold but printed and sold in open view in corner shops at kid eye level shouldn't be held up as an example of anything positive for women.

Seriously, check out any of the examples given. I was reply to broad sweeping statement that was made about anime, by given more than enough examples to refute it.

It's hard to take your argument seriously i have to say...it's kind of like saying we should ignore Ann Rand because of Danielle Steele and we should ignore all positive female characters in movies because of porn.

People are offering plenty of reason as to why assorted entertainment media are showing well developed, well written female characters and why all the assumptions about the male characters being strong and the female characters being weak are not 100% accurate.

The dismissals seem to be "yeah well, there is not enough of them, and the ones you have shown us don't count".

With regards to characters being "the same as male characters just with added tits"...pick any of the films i have listed above and see if that opinion remains intact by the end of the movie.

iguana

bluewolf wrote: »

Original BSG had no female leads either, so it could turn out well

There were 3 female leads in the original series, or really 1 plus 2 halves. Maren Jensen as Athena and Laurette Sprang as Cassiopeia were lead characters and are seen in the opening credits. Athena's role in the original series was meant to be much bigger, she was introduced and a bridge officer with a history as a fighter pilot. But Jensen was not a good enough actor to carry the role that was intended for her and her part was written smaller and smaller, with Jensen leaving the show before the end. Halfway through the series they brought in Anne Lockhart as fighter pilot Lt Sheba Cain to take over the role intended for Athena and she remained an important character up until the end.

ztoical wrote:

wouldn't call her full of crap....while there is plenty of room for discussion as to her views saying it's all crap just isn't true - there are plenty of other comic book people who have echoed and added to her views such as Lea Hernandez and her fantastic hurt comics rants regarding the issue #13 Heroes for Hire comic and the fantastic Mary Jane doing the washing statue - which along with the Spiderman needs a divorce comments truely showed Joe Q's view on both female characters and female readers.

But much of what she says is crap, it's either wilfully misinformed or out and out lies. She chooses isolated events in order to present an agenda and when it's pointed out to her that she is picking and choosing, ignoring the multitude of story lines which show the falsehood of her point she dismisses it without looking at it properly. I don't know about all sub genres of comics, but I know that in any book I read all of the characters are deeply flawed and go through hell on a regular basis and none of them recover instantly, instead experiencing repercussions for decades, not just the women. I'm not a child, I have no interest in reading about super-superheroes who have great powers that come without great personal consequence.

Simone even lists Sue Storm miscarrying her second pregnancy as part of her proof about mistreated female characters fgs. A woman having a miscarriage! Miscarriages are so common a minimum of one third of all women in the real world have at least one. Miscarriages in active duty combat soldiers would be through the roof if armies deployed pregnant soldiers. Her point is actually backwards. Almost all superheroes who continue in regular battle while pregnant should miscarry. The fact that so many of them have gone on to have healthy newborns is giving them a leeway that real life women who work desk jobs don't get.

I find Simone's stance on this issue as one that's insulting to both men and women. There are so many great points to make about the bad deal female characters get in all genres of fiction. And some of what she says may be valid in certain books and sub genres, but she goes out of her way to look for "mistreatment" of female characters and completely ignores the fact that many of the men go through it too.

krudler

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

People are offering plenty of reason as to why assorted entertainment media are showing well developed, well written female characters and why all the assumptions about the male characters being strong and the female characters being weak are not 100% accurate.

The dismissals seem to be "yeah well, there is not enough of them, and the ones you have shown us don't count".
.

Ha thats exactly it.

"there arent enough women in this genre of book/movie!"
"heres several well known examples"
"....err, aside from them!"

ztoical

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Seriously, check out any of the examples given. I was reply to broad sweeping statement that was made about anime, by given more than enough examples to refute it.

It's hard to take your argument seriously i have to say...it's kind of like saying we should ignore Ann Rand because of Danielle Steele and we should ignore all positive female characters in movies because of porn.

People are offering plenty of reason as to why assorted entertainment media are showing well developed, well written female characters and why all the assumptions about the male characters being strong and the female characters being weak are not 100% accurate.

The dismissals seem to be "yeah well, there is not enough of them, and the ones you have shown us don't count".

With regards to characters being "the same as male characters just with added tits"...pick any of the films i have listed above and see if that opinion remains intact by the end of the movie.

A handful of films that have made a small dent in western cinema then go and look at the sheer volume of work produced in Japan and see how female characters are treated. The Major from the Ghost in the Shell is a strong female character? How extactly? What does she do that makes her both strong and female other then beating people up and having tits...that for me is not a strong female character. There is nothing in her actions that make her gender a major factor in her over all character development. She kicks ass? Big whoop, most of the characters in the film and the follow up films and series kick ass...o but she kicks ass the best, great show me how her being female makes any bit of difference with that other then making her a good pin up. To contrast with an actual strong female character take Ripley in Aliens...a strong female character that kicks ass but in this case her being female plays a direct role in her character being strong. She fights at first just to live but as her relationship with newt develops and she uses her to replace the daughter she has lost she fights from a maternal instinct to protect her young. To me that is a character that wouldn't work if it was male while in the majority of examples given of strong female characters the motivation for this strenght of character isn't something directly related to gender and they could easliy be replaced with a male character.

iguana

iguana wrote: »

There were 3 female leads in the original series, or really 1 plus 2 halves. Maren Jensen as Athena and Laurette Sprang as Cassiopeia were lead characters and are seen in the opening credits. Athena's role in the original series was meant to be much bigger, she was introduced and a bridge officer with a history as a fighter pilot. But Jensen was not a good enough actor to carry the role that was intended for her and her part was written smaller and smaller, with Jensen leaving the show before the end. Halfway through the series they brought in Anne Lockhart as fighter pilot Lt Sheba Cain to take over the role intended for Athena and she remained an important character up until the end.

You are a walking encyclopedia
I didn't know that about those ones - I had looked up starbuck and boomer etc and found out they were all male!

Logical Fallacy

ztoical wrote: »

A handful of films that have made a small dent in western cinema then go and look at the sheer volume of work produced in Japan and see how female characters are treated. The Major from the Ghost in the Shell is a strong female character? How extactly? What does she do that makes her both strong and female other then beating people up and having tits...that for me is not a strong female character. There is nothing in her actions that make her gender a major factor in her over all character development. She kicks ass? Big whoop, most of the characters in the film and the follow up films and series kick ass...o but she kicks ass the best, great show me how her being female makes any bit of difference with that other then making her a good pin up. To contrast with an actual strong female character take Ripley in Aliens...a strong female character that kicks ass but in this case her being female plays a direct role in her character being strong. She fights at first just to live but as her relationship with newt develops and she uses her to replace the daughter she has lost she fights from a maternal instinct to protect her young. To me that is a character that wouldn't work if it was male while in the majority of examples given of strong female characters the motivation for this strenght of character isn't something directly related to gender and they could easliy be replaced with a male character.

You are kind of missing the point of Ghost in the Shell, throughout the film, and the Manga, the Major makes important references to the fact that she no longer feels human due to her cybernetic nature...she finds it almost impossible to connect anymore on a human level, let alone find a firm grasp on her concept of her own femininity.

In the end, she finds her connection to femininity by both, effectively, adopting the Puppet Master as her child (a new formed mind with a newly adopted physical being - sounds kind of like a baby to me) and even manages to effectively rebirth herself in the body of a child, given her another shot at being perceived as a young girl and maybe once again getting in touch with what she had lost...and both actions taken at great risk to her perceived sense of self and her life.

If anything, i'll take the slightly cryptic and tougher to read struggle that the Major had with her own femininity that the obvious and tailor made solution that Ripley found.

The Major never would have worked as a male character, the entire subtext of the piece would need to be rethought, as it's the subtleties that her femininity is explored.

Your issue now seems to be that the decent female characters out there are not female enough...and you are right...as most of the time the writers were so stupid that they treated the characters as human, instead of distinctly female and sought to explore universal themes instead of pigeon holing the story into silly genres like "action", "romace" or "noir".

Shame on them.:D

There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.

krudler

ztoical wrote: »

A handful of films that have made a small dent in western cinema then go and look at the sheer volume of work produced in Japan and see how female characters are treated. The Major from the Ghost in the Shell is a strong female character? How extactly? What does she do that makes her both strong and female other then beating people up and having tits...that for me is not a strong female character. There is nothing in her actions that make her gender a major factor in her over all character development. She kicks ass? Big whoop, most of the characters in the film and the follow up films and series kick ass...o but she kicks ass the best, great show me how her being female makes any bit of difference with that other then making her a good pin up. To contrast with an actual strong female character take Ripley in Aliens...a strong female character that kicks ass but in this case her being female plays a direct role in her character being strong. She fights at first just to live but as her relationship with newt develops and she uses her to replace the daughter she has lost she fights from a maternal instinct to protect her young. To me that is a character that wouldn't work if it was male while in the majority of examples given of strong female characters the motivation for this strenght of character isn't something directly related to gender and they could easliy be replaced with a male character.

Ripley wasnt originally written as a female character in the original Alien interestingly enough, its only in Aliens that she doesnt fall into the "male character with tits" you've mentioned.

Logical Fallacy

krudler wrote: »

Ripley wasnt originally written as a female character in the original Alien interestingly enough, its only in Aliens that she doesnt fall into the "male character with tits" you've mentioned.

Also, how would there have been any difference in the acceptability of the character if he had been a bloke who lost a son, and rescured a boy?

Paternal instinct is just as strong a literary device as maternal. If anything, have Ripley delve into her maternal instinct was doing nothing more than characterising her as someone who would have died is she didn't have a child to live for.

krudler

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Also, how would there have been any difference in the acceptability of the character if he had been a bloke who lost a son, and rescured a boy?

Paternal instinct is just as strong a literary device as maternal. If anything, have Ripley delve into her maternal instinct was doing nothing more than characterising her as someone who would have died is she didn't have a child to live for.

True, there are plenty of movies where a guy is out to rescue his son or daughter, Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds, Liam Neeson in Taken, hell even Arnie in Commando as a ludcrious example.

Ripley having nothing left to live for is brought to a head in Alien 3, where she does want to die, and does (I'm not spoilering that :pac: ) as with Newt gone from the opening of the movie she does feel she has nothing left.

take another strong female character, Clarice from Silence Of The Lambs, there's no real reason that she has to be a she aside from Hannibal being infatuated with her, which is delved into more in Hannibal than it is in SOTL,although you could argue she empathises more with the murder victims as they're all female. Hell the villains main purpose is to change his gender through a grisly method so the whole concept of gender is flipped around throughout that movie. In the first book Red Dragon (filmed as Manhunter, then Red Dragon again in the Edward Norton version) its a male protagonist Hannibal aids not female and its just as good a thriller though not as revered.

iguana

krudler wrote: »

In the first book Red Dragon (filmed as Manhunter, then Red Dragon again in the Edward Norton version) its a male protagonist Hannibal aids not female and its just as good a thriller though not as revered.

OT but, Red Dragon is not a great movie, Manhunter is absolutely fantastic once you get past the very dated 80s feel. Peterson is a better Will and Cox is a far superior Hannibal, much more subtle.

pickarooney

ztoical wrote: »

in the majority of examples given of strong female characters the motivation for this strenght of character isn't something directly related to gender and they could easliy be replaced with a male character.

Could you not just as easily say then that any film with a male protagonist is just a 'woman without tits'?

Jack B. Badd

ztoical wrote: »

There is nothing in her actions that make her gender a major factor in her over all character development.

In all fairness, how many people in real life have gender as a major factor in their character? Most people (imo) are people first and representatives of their gender second. You cite maternal instinct as an indication of Ripley's status as a female character. Are we expected to limit female characters to those who express or are affected by female-only topics - motherhood, miscarriage, menstruation, menopause, etc? Christ, that's a lot of "M"s

I'm pretty sure that the majority of women rail against being viewed as the sum of their reproductive organs in the real world so I don't see why this criteria should be applied to determine how "female" a character is in media or entertainment. This does kind of return to the "male as default" theme - characters (regardless of their actual gender) viewed as male until they go above and beyond to prove that they are in fact female and only then can be accepted on their own merit as strong (or otherwise) female characters.

Catari Jaguar

Any Hayao Miyazaki fans out there? His protagonists are female by and large with a whole range of traits such as strength, compassion, bravery, loyalty, love, friendship, immaturity, playfulness, innocence, hard work, selfishness, sacrificing, kindness, wisdom, pig headedness, heroism, victimisation, love for art/ music/ nature. Pretty gender neutral, more to do with who you... are.

I would recommend them to everyone, and especially to anyone with a daughter that has only had experience with the Disney Princesses. Just to balance it out.

Princess Mononoke

Ponyo

Spirited Away

Laputa

Howl's Moving Castle

Kiki's Delivery Service

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

My Neighbour Totoro

Logical Fallacy

cherub rock wrote: »

Any Hayao Miyazaki fans out there?

He has a new one coming out later this year along the lines of The Borrowers apparently.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

He has a new one coming out later this year along the lines of The Borrowers apparently.

it was out last year...

Logical Fallacy

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

it was out last year...

No way? Christ i am out of touch.

Catari Jaguar

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

it was out last year...

Well it's European/ US? release is coming up.

However, ultra new film From Up On Poppy Hill was released in Japan on July 16th

Logical Fallacy

Nicely timed piece from the Comment section of the Guardian on Studio Ghibli films. He kind of misses the point on adult characters within the films but other than that it's nicely written.

Think of the last Hollywood family animation you saw that had a female character in the lead role. Now try to think of one that wasn't about a Disney princess. See the problem? We're supposed to have just lived through a new golden age of animation, but clearly it has been one where boys are better than girls. You can't chuck a pair of 3D glasses across a multiplex without hitting a male hero: Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Rango, Ice Age, Despicable Me, the list goes on. Even with Pixar, the undisputed kings of computer animation, it's pretty much a guy's world: Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Up, Ratatouille, Wall-E – if anything, Pixar's product is even more male-dominated than its competitors. At best, Pixar's females are second billing (Finding Nemo's Dory, Mrs Incredible, Toy Story's Jessie); at worst they're token love-interests, stay-at-home mums and other stereotypes bent on spoiling the boys' party. Which brings us to Cars 2, its latest release and most brazenly boytastic movie. This merchandise-shifting adventure will also go down as the worst-received movie Pixar has ever made, and there's barely a female speaking part in it.

Arrietty
Production year: 2010
Country: Rest of the world
Runtime: 94 mins
Directors: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
More on this film
Since the very first feature animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney has somehow cornered the girls' market virtually unchallenged, but – with few exceptions – its heroines have fitted the corporate mould like a dainty foot in a glass slipper. This year's Tangled brought in "Disney Princess" No 10, Rapunzel, but despite a bit of pop-culture attitude, her ultimate fate is to be ladylike, marry a prince and live happily ever after in her newfound patriarchal milieu, just like her predecessors. Girls with aspirations beyond being the next Kate Middleton or the next Jordan (whose daughter's name is Princess, by the way), will have to look far beyond the pink palace of Disney to find a decent role-model. In fact, they'll have to look all the way to Japan.

As well as Cars 2, July 29 also sees the release of Arrietty, the latest product of Studio Ghibli, Japan's leading animation studio. Best known for 2001's Oscar-winning Spirited Away, Ghibli is often lazily dubbed Japan's answer to Disney, but the comparison only holds true in terms of box-office sales (Spirited Away is still Japan's all-time top-grossing film – three other Ghibli films are in the top 10) and sales of cuddly toys. In terms of content, Studio Ghibli is a world apart. Since 1984, under the auspices of its founder and chief auteur, Hayao Miyazaki, the studio has rolled out a succession of dense, ambitious fantasy adventures, almost all of them led by strong, intelligent, independent-minded girls. Miyazaki's movies are exciting and fantastical, often involving flying machines, ecological disasters, clashing civilisations and precarious spiritual values – all rendered in clean, colourful, hand-drawn animation. His heroines also tend towards a certain type. They are adventurous and active, but also compassionate, communicative, pacifist and virtuous. Their "female" qualities and childish innocence are often what resolve the crisis at hand and bridge conflicting worlds. Miyazaki does princesses, too, but the first time we see his eponymous Princess Mononoke, she's sucking the gunshot wound of a giant wolf and spitting blood into a river.

As Miyazaki once explained: "If it's a story like, 'Everything will be fine once we defeat him,' it's better to have a male as a lead. But, if we try to make an adventure story with a male lead, we have no choice other than doing Indiana Jones. With a Nazi, or someone else who is a villain in anyone's eyes."

"He thought heroism was much more complicated than that black hat/white hat stuff," explains Helen McCarthy, a British author who has written extensively on Miyazaki and Japanese animation. "By making the hero a girl, he took all that macho stuff out of the equation and that gave him the freedom to examine heroism. His career has been a very beautiful building of an idea that the feminine doesn't preclude the heroic."

Arrietty fits right into this mould. It was adapted by Miyazaki from Mary Norton's Borrowers stories and directed by his protege, Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Arrietty herself is a miniature 14-year‑old girl, who lives with her parents in secrecy under the floorboards of a rural Japanese home, "borrowing" their possessions – a pin becomes her sword, for example. Like any little girl growing up, she's independent-minded and eager to explore the outside world. Just as Spirited Away's heroine bridged the world between the spirits and the living, so Arrietty bridges that between her little people and the full-sized humans, but she is also driven by her curiosity about boys.

Against a vibrant springtime backdrop and hints about "the nesting season", Arrietty's relationship with a sickly human boy unfolds like a courtship. In one particularly charged scene, when she finally allows the boy to see her for the first time, Arrietty's tiny figure is framed against feverishly blooming giant poppies in the garden. There are similarly subtle erotic and sexual subtexts throughout Ghibli's films. Kiki's Delivery Service, for example, centres on a 13-year-old witch who, like Arrietty, is just approaching adolescence. In her travels, Kiki encounters all ages of womanhood, each of whose sexualities is hinted at through metaphors involving fire and flames.

Children and sexuality are well off‑limits in western culture as a whole, but in these films, it's a fact of life, with no associated perversity. "It is really difficult for any of us in a western tradition to acknowledge how powerful the sexual feelings of children are," McCarthy says. "One of the wonderful things Studio Ghibli do is they recognise and accept that children are adults in miniature. That children have all these feelings encapsulated in themselves; it's just a case of them learning to organise and articulate them."

Death and violence, too, are never far away in Miyazaki's films. Even in his most innocent work, My Neighbour Totoro, a film in which there are no evil characters and no apparent conflict, the threat of a sick mother's death hangs over the bucolic idyll of its two young sisters. In Ghibli films, limbs get hacked off, mortal peril is never far away. It makes Bambi's mother dying look like a walk in the park.

With its open acknowledgment of sex and violence, you could say Studio Ghibli's work is closer to the fairy tales of European literature, which can be seen as similarly coded children's primers for the adult world that awaits them. Victorian society defanged fairy tales, then Disney finished the job, but in their original versions, they're full of horror. In early versions of Snow White, for example, the queen eats what she presumes to be her stepdaughter's heart, lungs and liver, tries to asphyxiate Snow White with corset laces, and is punished by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes. In Disney's hands, it became a story about a nice girl who likes singing and housework.

None of this is to say that Studio Ghibli's films are entirely exemplary. Even Arrietty, despite her courage and self- determination, ends up with a partner much more appropriate to her standing – literally and metaphorically – than a boy 100 times her size. Beyond their "perfect" heroines, Ghibli's work has recurring female archetypes, possibly stereotypes: the wise old grandmother, the idealised home-making mother in her apron. "I do think there are some very strong reactionary elements to Miyazaki's work," McCarthy says. "Not anti-feminist but not in line with feminist thinking. In a lot of his work, he's saying that men and women have established functions in the social order. While you're a child, anything is possible but when grown-up women step outside their roles, they tend to have a tough time in his movies."

Nevertheless, it all makes Cars 2 look like very primitive fare. Hollywood has rarely matched Studio Ghibli's output in storytelling sophistication, but it is making progress on gender issues, at least. Last year's How to Train Your Dragon, for example, bravely centred on a wimpy geek – a feminised hero who relied on brain rather than brawn, thus winning the affections of a physically superior female. And for all its flaws, Rio centred on a neurotic male parrot who couldn't fly, shackled to a more competent female. Even Pixar is finally seeing the light. The studio's next big animation project, Brave, due for release in a year's time, has a mythological Scottish highland setting and the company's first female lead character, voiced by Kelly Macdonald. The bad news is, she's a princess.

metrovelvet

I appreciate that article.

Im completely unfamiliar with thoe Japanese movies. Would like to check them out.

However, based on reading the above, it would appear that the japanese genre, is still falling into the gender divide, male = brawn, female =brains.

This part makes me think that:

"As Miyazaki once explained: "If it's a story like, 'Everything will be fine once we defeat him,' it's better to have a male as a lead. But, if we try to make an adventure story with a male lead, we have no choice other than doing Indiana Jones. With a Nazi, or someone else who is a villain in anyone's eyes."

"He thought heroism was much more complicated than that black hat/white hat stuff," explains Helen McCarthy, a British author who has written extensively on Miyazaki and Japanese animation. "By making the hero a girl, he took all that macho stuff out of the equation and that gave him the freedom to examine heroism. His career has been a very beautiful building of an idea that the feminine doesn't preclude the heroic."

What age bracket are they for?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

all ages, animation isn't neccesarily for children in japan like it is in the west. A lot of their animated stuff is too dark/complicated for children but studio ghibli tends to go for an all encompassing approach.

check out spirited away and princess mononoke, but especially spirited away. amazing movie.

--edit

also, subtitled.. not dubbed

metrovelvet

What I mean is a three year old can watch Pixar, what is te age minimum for these films?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it kinda depends on the film. mononoke if i remember properly is kinda violent. Spirited away isn't violent at all, but.. it might be kinda scary for a three year old. There's a lot of... weirdness. I guess it depends on the three year old.

Logical Fallacy

metrovelvet wrote: »

I appreciate that article.

Im completely unfamiliar with thoe Japanese movies. Would like to check them out.

However, based on reading the above, it would appear that the japanese genre, is still falling into the gender divide, male = brawn, female =brains.

Well, in a lot of the situations within the different films there will be circumstances where the female characters will need both. It's not really an exclusive divide, and where it is it's purely to drive the character. A character that might be a bit meek and such won't suddenly find herself flourishing in combat, but she may find herself overcoming her fears etc.

Age wise, it all depends on the film and on the child. A lot of the Ghibli stuff will deal with death in places...but Pixar have started doing that recently as well.

Something like My Neighbour Totoro would be very suitable for kids, there is a film called "Panda Go Panda" that would be tailor made for younger audiences...and the more recent Ponyo is definitely child friendly.

Mononoke can be a bit violent in places but is one of the better examples of Ghibli breaking the men = brawn, women = brains mold.

I'm not the best person to talk about what age people should see these types of movies at though, the first anime i ever saw was Windaria when i was 9 years old and it dealt with war, greed, contained a murder suicide, lots of heart break and an ending so crushingly depressing it actually shocked my mates a little when i showed it to them.

Personally i thought it was great at the time.

metrovelvet

What Im saying is it looks like they are making films that break the heroic model of pure brawn, alla Indiana Jones by using girls. But I guess my question is, is if there is room to do that for boys too?

Logical Fallacy

metrovelvet wrote: »

What Im saying is it looks like they are making films that break the heroic model of pure brawn, alla Indiana Jones by using girls. But I guess my question is, is if there is room to do that for boys too?

Oh yeah, definitely. To be honest, a lot of the Ghibli stuff has female leads, but there are many supporting male characters that will show quite a bit of empathy and emotion...and they can start out that way...not the old presto chango "i got to know the female lead and it changed me for the better" style of thing.

I also like the movies because they tend to focus more on developing a workable friendship between male and female characters than the idea of a relationship. Hints might be there, that at some point in the future when the characters are of a certain age it might happen...but it's a lot more honest in how they portray characters simply getting to know and like each other...without the awkward "must have chemistry" angle that will get shoe horned into a live action film.

jill_valentine

Interesting discussion.

Let us not neglect to note however, the great strides made in this regard in modern times with emergence of the phrase "That's what she said."

metrovelvet

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Oh yeah, definitely. To be honest, a lot of the Ghibli stuff has female leads, but there are many supporting male characters that will show quite a bit of empathy and emotion...and they can start out that way...not the old presto chango "i got to know the female lead and it changed me for the better" style of thing.

I also like the movies because they tend to focus more on developing a workable friendship between male and female characters than the idea of a relationship. Hints might be there, that at some point in the future when the characters are of a certain age it might happen...but it's a lot more honest in how they portray characters simply getting to know and like each other...without the awkward "must have chemistry" angle that will get shoe horned into a live action film.

I forgot about that last point. A lot of the Disney [not pixar] stuff the opposite gender relationships are romantic and adult.

Do you think there is room in the anglo saxon market, primarily driven by Disney/Pixar, that might shift the heroic model, from brawn,extroversion, LOUD [those Pixar movies are so brash - and I forgot I did see a few of those], aggressive, to something more complex and interesting for boys?

Logical Fallacy

metrovelvet wrote: »

I forgot about that last point. A lot of the Disney [not pixar] stuff the opposite gender relationships are romantic and adult.

Do you think there is room in the anglo saxon market, primarily driven by Disney/Pixar, that might shift the heroic model, from brawn,extroversion, LOUD [those Pixar movies are so brash - and I forgot I did see a few of those], aggressive, to something more complex and interesting for boys?

If i am honest, i certainly hope so. Male leads are normally all the same, regardless of age. They'll fall into a very small number of different types, but even within those types will be common threads and themes. They will normally either be seeking new glory, or seeking to return to it. They'll get through whatever is ahead of them based on luck and a complex support group containing people who will normally be better suited to the task. They'll normally be an outsider, plucked from obscurity by fate to acheive by dumb luck what others can't. They'll be out to impress females, either romantically in a partner or prospective partner or be seeking the approval of family...often both.

The simple truth about most male leads is they are kind of dopey, prone to luck, have mostly crap social skills and are emotionally stilted.

It will be slower to change that the traditional female roles simply because it's assumed that male leads are good role models...when they are not, they are normally really bad ones. They are nearly always oddly bitter and nearly always require a scapegoat for their own inability to do what they want to do...hence the prevalence of a "bully" type character in a lot of the male driven stories. It's normally used to get the viewer on the side of the main character, because it's universal stuff...without it we'd focus too much on the shortcomings of the characters themselves and realise they are kind of crap.

I would honestly struggle to think of many male characters from any media that are good role models...there is normally just an assumption that they are because they get stuff done.

pickarooney

How to Train Your Dragon, as mentioned above, features a physically weak male hero. It's a fantastic film; one of the few I can watch with my kids and all of us enjoy it equally.

The hero of Up is in his 80s. I really didn't like the film but fair play for focusing on someone grumpy and enfeebled for once.

There was a mention of A Bug's Life in that article. It's ages since I saw it and the only thing I remember about it was the character of a male ladybird that everyone assumed was female.