Inspired by another classmate's post who analyzed female characters in John Hughes movies, I decided to analyze female characters in Pixar movies. The majority of Pixar movies have male leads who go on life changing journeys and adventures. Buzz and Woody go on adventure to get back to their owner Andy and eventually become friends; Flik, an outcast ant, volunteers to find warrior bugs to defend the ants from grasshoppers but ends up finding circus bugs and has to fix his screw up before anyone finds out; Mike and Sully try to get Boo back home; Marlin is trying to find his son; etc. Even The Incredibles, which has two main female characters (four including Mirage and Edna) is still about Bob Parr's boredom with civilian life and his desire to be a superhero again, as well as Sydrome's hatred toward Mr.Incredible. Pixar movies are very male-centered. Until Brave, that is. In Brave, Merida goes on a life changing adventure, just like all the make Pixar leads. Merida doesn't want to get married but her mother. Queen Elinor, wants her to, so she goes to a witch asking to change her mom, and she becomes a bear. Merida desperately tries to change her mom back, and Merida learns how much she and her mom do love each other despite their not seeing eye to eye, and Elinor learns to respect Merida's decision. Brave did well with ratings, and seems to have inspired Pixar to create films and tell stories with more female leads, like their upcoming film Inside Out. Unfortunately, from what I've seen in the trailer, it seems the film could be sexist? The mother's main emotion is (sterotypically) sadness and the father's main emotion is (stereotypically) anger, it is also shown he doesn't understand his wife or daughter. But it's not out yet, so we'll see.
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Movie
|
Female
Character(s)
|
Role
in Film
|
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Toy Story
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Bo Peep
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Woody’s love interest
|
|
Bug’s Life
|
Atta, Dot, Queen, Rosie, Gypsy
|
Stressed out princess, only ant that likes Flik, Queen of the Ants, circus
performers
|
|
Toy Story 2
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Jessie, Mrs.Potatohead, Bo Peep, Tour Guide Barbie
|
Hero/toy who doesn’t want to go back in a box, Mr.Potatohead’s
wife, Woody’s Love Interest, helps the heroes
|
|
Monster’s Inc.
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Boo, Celia, Roz
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Babbling child who accidently goes to the monster world, Mike’s girlfriend,
angry secretary
|
|
Finding Nemo
|
Dory
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Fish with short term memory loss who accompanies
Marlin in finding Nemo
|
|
The Incredibles
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Helen Parr, Violet Parr, Mirage, Edna Mode, Frozone’s Wife (not seen)
|
Superhero mom (stretching), superhero daughter (invisibility and
force fields), Syndrome’s assistant but ends up being on the good side, designer for the supers, part of the most iconic conversation of the movie and is never seen
|
|
Cars
|
Sally, Flo
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Lawyer and Lightening McQueen’s love interest, owns
the gas station and is Ramone’s wife
|
|
Ratatouille
|
Collette
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Only woman in the kitchen at Gusto’s restaurant
|
|
WALL-E
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Eve, Mary
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Protagonist robot, woman on the ship who helps the
robots
|
|
Up
|
Ellie
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Grows up and dies within the first 15 minutes of the movie and the story
is driven by her/her death
|
|
Toy Story 3
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Jessie, Mrs.Potatohead, Barbie, Bonnie
|
Toys in a hellish daycare trying to survive, (Bonnie)
imaginative child who gets Andy’s toys
|
|
Cars 2
|
Holley Shiftwell, Carla Veloso
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Rookie spy, race
|
|
Brave
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Merida, Queen Elinor, the witch
|
Princess who doesn’t want to marry and gets her
mother into a bear, very proper queen who believes Merida should be a proper
princess, Merida comes to her to change her mom
|
|
Monster University
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Professor Hardscrabble, Squishy’s Mom, Claire
|
Legendary scarer and Dean of Monsters University, Squishy’s mom who
lets Oozma Kappa live at her house, uninterested announcer for the games
|
|
Inside Out (not yet released)
|
Joy, Disgust, Sadness, Riley, Riley’s Mom
|
Riley’s emotions, (Riley) young girl struggling with
her emotions, her mom
|
Thank you for mentioning my post in your blog. I’ve always found Pixar movies to be strictly male centered, and no one really bats an eye because the movies are so high quality and original, unlike other non-Pixar Disney movies that are rigid in gender stereotypes. The female Pixar characters that really stand out to me are Dory (Finding Nemo) Edna (The Incredibles) Barbie (Toy Story 3) and Professor Hardscrabble (Monsters University.) Dory is probably one of the most liked Pixar characters; this role so easily could have been written as male, but it wasn’t. Dory’s gender doesn’t matter. Edna and Professor Hardscrabble are both very intense female characters and successful, but I could see how their characters could be problematic because many female characters that are portrayed in successful and leadership are portrayed as mean, and snobbish. Barbie was a surprise, because when the film first starts out, you think “oh, this is a Barbie doll, she’s probably going to be stereotypically feminine and weak,” but by the end of the film she shows she can hold her own.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a very good point about Pixar movies.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at your chart, Professor Hardscrabble really stood out to me. Her role in the movie is very stereotypical of a female leader. She is seen as scary and bitchy, and the other characters are scared of her- reinforcing the stereotype that female leaders are not well liked. It is slightly understandable why she is represented this way since she is a “scarer,” but it still is a representation of that stereotype.
Dory is also an interesting character. I feel that she is there for just a comic relief, even though she is such an important character. Since she is not one of the “beautiful” fish, and she has a disability, a large part of her role is to be funny. Her role reminds me of many of the roles Melissa McCarthy plays, since she is not “beautiful” (by Hollywood standards) they use her to make everyone laugh.