Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees

[FPAlpha]

They are in it to tell stories and not make politicial or sociological statements

Narrative stories, especially when told over a course as long as two hours, inevitably constitute political and sociological statements. Some are more subtle than others, of course, but art is a subjective medium - and if you don't think there were socio-political statements made in Wall-E, then you probably slept through the whole thing.

If you're so hell-bent on the supposed virtues of neutral facts, study math.

Well.. it is true that Wall-E had some ecological and social themes but they were not essential to the story (merely the framework). The story was about a waste robot falling in love and having a huge adventure follwing her. It was not about Earth being polluted to the point where it was uninhabitable or that people got fat and lazy because all the technology took away the need to make decisions.

Pixar movies have different messages, much simpler messages and politics/sociology are never the central theme and now we have a group or a person trying to instrumentalize their movies to advance their political and social agenda.

This is what i deeply oppose with entertainment movies.. Pixar makes those and shouldn't bow to the opinion of others. There's tons of movies and shows about politics, sociology and such.. leave Pixar where they are and if they feel they have a good story where a woman/girl is the central character they will do it.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I didn't 'misread' the article; in fact, I didn't need to read much of it at all to get the gist of what the lady said for me to still object to it. The lady is trying to make Pixar her kid's educators, when she should be doing the job of telling her daughter what she needs in order to be the self-sufficient and assertive person she can be. Forcing Pixar to create characters for her to please her daughter doesn't remove the responsibility from the author of raising her daughter. And if her daughter can't find it in Pixar movies, she can read (remember that activity?) about assertive girl heroes in books, of which there are aplenty.

Ironic that you point out the value of reading, since you did misread the article completely as I (and others) pointed out before, and you continue to either misread it or are just being deliberately obtuse.

For instance, perhaps you can point me to the part of the article that says the author is making this request on behalf of her daughter, or that she has a daughter at all? I sure can't seem to find it. You've predicated your entire response on the idea that she's using Pixar films to do her job as a parent based on the assumption that she's a parent at all, when that's not indicated in the article. She is making the request on behalf of young girls in general, not a daughter which she may or may not actually have.

Not to mention that it's a stupid argument anyway. Hoping to see non-princess role models for girls in a Pixar movie in no way means you are abdicating your parental responsibilities to provide positive role models yourself or from other fiction. It just means you would like to see things shown from a young girl's perspective in films you adore and which are extremely popular with young girls (hence her request). Nor is it a sense of entitlement. She is making no demands. She is accusing no one of wrongdoing. She is making a polite request as a fan.

Because that would be stupid and unrealistic.

No, that would be gutsy and determined, traits this lady has yet to prove, much like most of the people who bitch about movies & TV also.

Well, hell, let's just shut this forum down right now then. Dusty has decided that no one can justifiably criticize a movie or TV show unless they've made one themselves. Pack it in, folks.

Don't you start numerous threads "bitching" about movies and TV shows? Please direct me to your IMdB page so I can admire your glorious career, since clearly you must have one seeing as how you have such a strong opinion on this matter.

Instead, being sane, she's providing customer feedback. What a concept.

The 'concept' would be using that talent of hers to write a script, and then getting it noticed and published. Instead, she uses it to bitch about Pixar. What a waste.

I can't take your opinion seriously until you have a column on the NPR website or an equivalent. Please let me know when that happens so I can truly give your opinion the consideration it deserves and then just dismiss it on its (lack of) merits alone.

That's how ridiculous your argument is. But by all means, keep going with your baseless diatribe.

 

[Sci]

What is it with the entitlemnt feelings in TV/movies?

"Oh.. that show doesn't have a black person in it? Why? Put one in!"

"Oh.. that show doesn't have a gay character? Put one in to promote equality for gays!"

It's not a matter of entitlement. It's a matter of rightly noting that the stories we tell in our culture are often only about certain groups, and that as such members of other groups are rendered invisible. If we want our children to understand that people who are different are not other -- are, in fact, a part of the larger community of which we are all a part -- then we have an obligation to tell stories about them, too.

In other words:

Why do most stories have to be about heterosexual white guys?

 

[Gaith]

There's tons of movies and shows about politics, sociology and such..

You still aren't getting it: every narrative movie is a sociopolitical statement. If it strikes the viewer as neutral, that's because the viewer is probably blinded by his/her proximity to the mainstream.

You and I might watch the Toy Story movies, for instance, and find them harmless, "neutral" entertainment that doesn't advance any particular point of view or make any sociopolitical statement. Show them to a starving Third World child, however, and s/he might say that because the movies depict cruelty to toys as the most heinous evil known to civilization, the series' message is that First World children should only care about what happens in their own backyards, and that their impoverished fellow humans can suffer and die for all American society cares. Show that same kid A Bug's Life, though, and s/he could well read it as a democratic empowerment tale of a downtrodden society rebelling against vicious foreign capitalist interests.

The world is constantly in flux, and as Zinn said, one can't be neutral on a moving train. So let's all grow beyond this lazy, luxurious fiction that art which doesn't challenge or shake us is free from the taint of sociopolitics, shall we?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Using a girl as the main character is a sociopolitical statement?

 

[scotpens]

What is it with the entitlemnt feelings in TV/movies?

“Oh.. that show doesn't have a black person in it? Why? Put one in!”

”Oh.. that show doesn't have a gay character? Put one in to promote equality for gays!”

It's not a matter of entitlement. It's a matter of rightly noting that the stories we tell in our culture are often only about certain groups, and that as such members of other groups are rendered invisible. If we want our children to understand that people who are different are not other -- are, in fact, a part of the larger community of which we are all a part -- then we have an obligation to tell stories about them, too.

I grew up watching television shows and movies in which the central characters -- in fact, nearly all the characters -- were mostly white. That didn't make other groups “invisible” to me, nor did it make me suspicious or fearful of “people who are different.” I see people as individuals, not as members of this or that group.

There's tons of movies and shows about politics, sociology and such..

You still aren't getting it: every narrative movie is a sociopolitical statement. If it strikes the viewer as neutral, that's because the viewer is probably blinded by his/her proximity to the mainstream.

Reading sociopolitical meanings into everything is a preoccupation of liberal academic types. A lot of narrative fiction is entertainment, pure and simple.

Sometimes, a talking toy is just a talking toy.

 

[Hermiod]

Why do most stories have to be about heterosexual white guys?

A person between the ages of 15 and 65, living in the United States has an 80% chance of being white, a 96% chance of being heterosexual and a 50% chance of being male.

While women are arguably under-represented, non-white people are at best accurately represented and non-heterosexuals are drastically over-represented.

I am sure, of course, that non-heterosexuals are also drastically over-represented in the entertainment industry as a whole, however.

 

[FPAlpha]

There's tons of movies and shows about politics, sociology and such..

You still aren't getting it: every narrative movie is a sociopolitical statement. If it strikes the viewer as neutral, that's because the viewer is probably blinded by his/her proximity to the mainstream.

This line of reasoning reminds me of a line in a book by Stephen King.. can't remember if it was IT or The Dark Half and too lazy to check.

In it an aspiring writing student is in a lecture class where the students debate a scene in a book to death about its significance and meaning whereas he says "Sometimes a story is just a story"

This struck me as very true and i believe it applies here. Your gross oversimplification and assumption will stand here whereas i claim that sometimes a story is just a story.

The end

 

[Sci]

What is it with the entitlemnt feelings in TV/movies?

“Oh.. that show doesn't have a black person in it? Why? Put one in!”

”Oh.. that show doesn't have a gay character? Put one in to promote equality for gays!”

It's not a matter of entitlement. It's a matter of rightly noting that the stories we tell in our culture are often only about certain groups, and that as such members of other groups are rendered invisible. If we want our children to understand that people who are different are not other -- are, in fact, a part of the larger community of which we are all a part -- then we have an obligation to tell stories about them, too.

I grew up watching television shows and movies in which the central characters -- in fact, nearly all the characters -- were mostly white. That didn't make other groups “invisible” to me, nor did it make me suspicious or fearful of “people who are different.” I see people as individuals, not as members of this or that group.

Good for you. But not all people are like that, and not all messages that people receive are conscious, and not all attitudes that stories can encourage and cultivate are ones that the recipients are consciously aware of.

And you still haven't answered my question:

Why do most stories have to be about heterosexual white guys?

Why do most stories have to be about heterosexual white guys?

A person between the ages of 15 and 65, living in the United States has an 80% chance of being white, a 96% chance of being heterosexual and a 50% chance of being male.

For now.

But that doesn't answer the question of why most stories have to be about them. Just because they happen to be more numerous?

Why does that matter? Why should the demographic percentage of the population determine the demographics of stories' characters?

Unless, of course, you think that a culture's stories should re-enforce the systems of dominance employed by some groups to exercise power over other groups. Or that members of minority groups just aren't as interesting of characters as members of majority groups.

That aside: Why shouldn't filmmakers make an effort to include many different voices, to tell stories about individuals from many different communities? How does that hurt their ability to tell good stories? How could that possibly not help their ability to tell good stories? Why tell stories about the same demographics time and time again?

Why not do something different, in addition to the traditional stories about heterosexual white guys?

ETA:

While women are arguably under-represented, non-white people are at best accurately represented and non-heterosexuals are drastically over-represented.

That depends upon how you measure "representation." Are you just using numbers? Then maybe you're right.

But part of the point of the original article is that representation isn't just about numbers of characters from different communities. It's also about their role in the story.

For instance, yes, it's fair to say that African-Americans are represented in The Incredibles, because of the presence of Frozone. However, Frozone is only a supporting character; his presence is not essential to the story being told, and if he were deleted, the story would remain essentially unchanged. And of the cast, he's only one character -- the rest of the characters, the ones around whom the story revolves, are all white.

Why?

Why did those characters have to be white? Would it have hurt the film, or changed its fundamental content, if they had been given brown skin?

Representation is not just about numbers. It's also about centrality. African-Americans make up around 13% of the population, but that doesn't mean that their lives are only 13% as rich as European-Americans' lives; there is no reason on this Earth for more stories not to be told about African-Americans. Or Latinos. Or LGBT individuals.

Or women who aren't princesses.

And I'd bet you very, very good money that the percentages of stories -- be it film, TV shows, whatever -- told about members of minority groups, stories that give real representation to those communities' members by making them central rather than secondary, is far, far less than the percentages of the population those people actually comprise.

 

[scotpens]

. . . every narrative movie is a sociopolitical statement. If it strikes the viewer as neutral, that's because the viewer is probably blinded by his/her proximity to the mainstream.

This line of reasoning reminds me of a line in a book by Stephen King.. can't remember if it was IT or The Dark Half and too lazy to check.

In it an aspiring writing student is in a lecture class where the students debate a scene in a book to death about its significance and meaning whereas he says "Sometimes a story is just a story"

Reminds me of a line by Woody Allen (I think), about a class in film criticism and analysis that's so popular, you can't even get in the door unless you submit an essay on what the door represents.

 

[Hermiod]

Unless, of course, you think that a culture's stories should re-enforce the systems of dominance employed by some groups to exercise power over other groups.

You see, this is the part where arguments like yours lose me.

Do you really think that somewhere in Pixar's offices somebody is sitting there coldly calculating his company's next move in fostering world domination for white, straight men ?

Really ?

 

[Sci]

Unless, of course, you think that a culture's stories should re-enforce the systems of dominance employed by some groups to exercise power over other groups.

You see, this is the part where arguments like yours lose me.

Do you really think that somewhere in Pixar's offices somebody is sitting there coldly calculating his company's next move in fostering world domination for white, straight men ?

Really ?

Not consciously. But when I see people throwing temper tantrums over the idea of asking filmmakers to include minority community members in their films' protagonists? There's no other reason to react so vehemently against the idea of making it a point to have a diverse set of primary (not supporting -- primary) characters. People might not think that way, but it sure as hell looks like they feel that way.

 

[Hermiod]

^I'm not throwing temper tantrums, I have no objection to people writing stories about anyone or anything as long as the concept is interesting and the characters engaging.

I don't recall ever hearing anyone at Pixar, and that's who this thread is about, angrily denouncing the non-white people's of the world.

If anything, Pixar served a neglected market with Finding Nemo - stories with positive portrayals of fatherhood are in short supply.

 

[Sci]

^I'm not throwing temper tantrums, I have no objection to people writing stories about anyone or anything as long as the concept is interesting and the characters engaging.

I don't recall ever hearing anyone at Pixar, and that's who this thread is about, angrily denouncing the non-white people's of the world.

If anything, Pixar served a neglected market with Finding Nemo - stories with positive portrayals of fatherhood are in short supply.

Which is why, you'll notice, I didn't aim my criticism at Pixar.

ETA: And while you didn't object to the idea of Pixar writing stories about members of minority groups, you did essentially argue that the fact that those groups are in the minority somehow makes the fact that most stories in our culture are about heterosexual white guys okay. I think you need to pause and ask yourself why that would be the case.

 

[Hermiod]

Which is why, you'll notice, I didn't aim my criticism at Pixar.

ETA: And while you didn't object to the idea of Pixar writing stories about members of minority groups, you did essentially argue that the fact that those groups are in the minority somehow makes the fact that most stories in our culture are about heterosexual white guys okay. I think you need to pause and ask yourself why that would be the case.

All I was saying was that if you set a story in the United States in 2010 with a cast of American characters then you should reflect the reality of that and not make your show look like Captain Planet. Once you do that, you just make your audience think that they're watching a silly, forced television show and any message you were trying to send won't be taken seriously.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Why should Pixar movies reflect the reality of anything when they are animated fantasies? Since heterosexual white males are already well represented in the media, why not include a wider variety of character types? And since being represented means more to people who are under-represented, these approaches are not equivalent.

Reading sociopolitical meanings into everything is a preoccupation of liberal academic types.

Curse dose intelligent, intellectual types. Why can't dey keeps things simple?

 

[Hermiod]

Why should Pixar movies reflect the reality of anything when they are animated fantasies? Since heterosexual white males are already well represented in the media, why not include a wider variety of character types? And since being represented means more to people who are under-represented, these approaches are not equivalent.

They can represent whoever they like and I'm sure they'd do a good job. They have the right, however, simply as a matter of freedom of speech before anything else to pick and choose who they do.

I hate to use the nuclear option here but if people do not like Pixar's characters then go watch somebody else's movies.

I don't like the way men - forget about colour, age or sexual orientation - are presented in the media, I think that's well established by now, so I stop watching shows where all the men are weak willed incompetents or evil black hat villains.

All the stories might be about white straight men, but when they're about white straight men who either have no mind of their own or are violent abusers and murderers then that's hardly what I would call a benefit.

 

[Sci]

Which is why, you'll notice, I didn't aim my criticism at Pixar.

ETA: And while you didn't object to the idea of Pixar writing stories about members of minority groups, you did essentially argue that the fact that those groups are in the minority somehow makes the fact that most stories in our culture are about heterosexual white guys okay. I think you need to pause and ask yourself why that would be the case.

All I was saying was that if you set a story in the United States in 2010 with a cast of American characters then you should reflect the reality of that and not make your show look like Captain Planet.

No one's saying you should do tokenism, but why does the fact that white people make up a majority of the population mean that stories should be mostly about white people? Again, the only reason the demographic makeup of the U.S. should inform whether or not most of your stories are about white heterosexual men is if you actively want to re-enforce the idea of white normativity.

Why should Pixar movies reflect the reality of anything when they are animated fantasies? Since heterosexual white males are already well represented in the media, why not include a wider variety of character types? And since being represented means more to people who are under-represented, these approaches are not equivalent.

They can represent whoever they like and I'm sure they'd do a good job. They have the right, however, simply as a matter of freedom of speech before anything else to pick and choose who they do.

Of course they do. And we have the right, simply as a matter of freedom of speech before anything else, to criticize or to praise those choices and to advocate that they do something different.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Why should Pixar movies reflect the reality of anything when they are animated fantasies? Since heterosexual white males are already well represented in the media, why not include a wider variety of character types? And since being represented means more to people who are under-represented, these approaches are not equivalent.

They can represent whoever they like and I'm sure they'd do a good job. They have the right, however, simply as a matter of freedom of speech before anything else to pick and choose who they do.

I hate to use the nuclear option here but if people do not like Pixar's characters then go watch somebody else's movies.

Yes, they can. Or they can provide customer feedback to companies they like. That's how companies improve their products. They like to hear from their customers. Ever hear the phrase "By Popular Demand?"

I don't like the way men - forget about colour, age or sexual orientation - are presented in the media, I think that's well established by now, so I stop watching shows where all the men are weak willed incompetents or evil black hat villains.

All the stories might be about white straight men, but when they're about white straight men who either have no mind of their own or are violent abusers and murderers then that's hardly what I would call a benefit.

Then why not say something? You say something here. Why not send a letter or an email or-- like the woman who promted this discussion-- Post in your Blog? Add your voice to changing the world for the better.

 

[Hermiod]

Then why not say something? You say something here. Why not send a letter or an email or-- like the woman who promted this discussion-- Post in your Blog? Add your voice to changing the world for the better.

Already tried that. It doesn't work. All I can do is cut shows off - I'm looking at you CSI.