Yeah, they're cute and beautiful, but....

[timepiececlock]

Has there ever been a Pixar film with a female protagonist?



Edit 1: This article breaks down the film list and cites one of my problems with WALL-E, which aside from the WTF gender bullshit was an entertaining and sweet film:

"Hey, guys, we have this robot with no inherent gender identity. We want to give it an arbitrary gender. Maybe we could make it female. Yeah, no, that would just just be ridiculous."


Daughter of Edit: This Peter Segal article about Horton Hears A Who is also good reading. (not Pixar, but still.)

We got into the car outside the cineplex and I was quite in lather, let me tell you. "How come one of the GIRLs didn't get to save Whoville?" I cried.
"Yeah!" said my daughters.
"And while we're at it, how come a girl doesn't get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!"
"That's rotten!" cried my daughters.
"How come Trinity can't be the One who defeats the Matrix!" I yelled.
"What are you talking about?" they said.
"You'll find out later," I said.

Comments

[mekosuchinae.livejournal.com]

No, but there will be soon! The Bear and the Bow is scheduled for release in 2011. Better late than never, I suppose!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Fifteen years too late. I feel like the cast of How I Met Your Mother in the spoiler episode where everyone's blindness happy goggles are ripped away and something intensely annoying, but previously unnoticed, is rudely brought to their attention.

That sucks about 20% of my happiness of All Things Pixar away from me. I feel surprisingly bitter about the loss of said happy blindness. I mean... it occurred to me while I was watching the new TV spot promo for Up, which has an old man and a little boy on an adventure.

[quaggy]

Not unless you count the Incredibles, which you can make decent case for, but I guess that's still an ensemble at best.

It's a lot like the Muppets, actually. Everything that Jim Henson did was so creative and amazing, it's not immediately apparent that the only main female character is Miss Piggy. *sigh* At least he was more aware when he created the Fraggles.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

The Incredibles definitely does not count. The protagonist is the Dad, and the next biggest character is the villain.

You're right about the muppets. I guess my main experience growing up with Jim Henson was with Fraggle Rock, which had 2 female and 3 male characters in the main cast, I think the most popular character was Red Fraggle, female.

[thelymachy.livejournal.com]

Its a kid thing - I did a thing on it for a psychology essay. Girls can adapt and identify with a male protagonist, but boys rarely accept a female protagonist as the "hero" if given another option. Likely because its more readily accepted for a girl to have some masculine traits than a boy to have feminine ones (double standard, ahoy!). So, if they have the choice of those two, most children related media will have a boy protagonist with a girl secondary since it will attract the largest range of kids.

>.>

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

No? But even though WALL-E is the protagonist of his movie, EVE kicks so much butt. So I was content with that one.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I was happy with WALL-E right up until EVE got kidnapped. I mean, seriously, the girl robot gets kidnapped? REALLY, GUYS? But aside from that, and aside from the ridiculousness of having gendered robots at all, I thought EVE did kick-ass. I was amused that she would go all Killer!Zap!Robot! and in comparison WALL-E was almost a pacifist. And there was a lot of balance in how many times they rescued/repaired each other.


But damn, I am still irked overall by this, now that I realize it. I can't believe it took me 15 years since Toy Story to even notice the pattern.

[gojira007.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd qualify EVE being taken back to the Axiom as being kidnapped, even if WALL-E might. It's her mission, and quite important to the survival of humanity.

I also think EVE is, in her way, a better character than WALL-E; I love them both more or less equally, but while WALL-E remains more or less unchanged from start to finish, EVE has this great big character that has a development arc and all sorts of nuance and subtlety that just makes me love her to itty bitty pieces. She certainly qualifies as a main character, even if her name's not in the title, IMO.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Sadly for Pixar and the rest of us, "a" main character is not the same as "the" main character.

[gojira007.livejournal.com]

True, true.

I apologize, by the way, if I came off as overly defensive; I have a deep, deeeeeeeep-seated love for this movie, making it hard for me to accept that criticism of it is possible, even when it's pretty valid all things considered.