Well...sort of. If you look through Pixar's history (http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/history/1984.html), Lasseter was a Disney animator who joined the Lucasfilm computer effects group, which was spun off, bought by Steve Jobs, and became Pixar. So many of the Pixar team, especially founding members, come from a hardcore computer geek background, many of the scripts and concepts are created by these computer geeks (they don't have screenwriters, per se, the way a traditional Hollywood movie does), the company is based in Silicon Valley instead of Hollywood as most other animation companies are; that's why I think they share a number of similarities with gaming production houses.
Does that make it OK, and mean I'm perfectly fine with it? No, but I am familiar with how clueless that type of guy, and that type of culture can be, and it's more of a "grit your teeth and whack them upside the head with the Clue!Frying Pan again" situation. Because it takes a few thwacks before it sinks in. If you consider that their first feature film, Toy Story, is, in animation terms, relatively recent--1995--they do have a lot of growing up to do, and hopefully they can do it quickly. Disney has also had the advantage of cribbing their stories from fairy tales, which do tend to focus a lot on females/princesses. Other animation studios (because I'm not sure which children's film companies you mean, so I'll stick with animation as I'm more familiar with that)--Dreamworks is probably the next most significant since Bluth went under--of an age comparable to Pixar, they don't have a whole lot of female-centric stories, either. So I guess I'm a little perplexed why Pixar is getting singled out in the media as if they were the only ones with this problem (although I'm beginning to think it's part a backlash phenomena starting to hit Pixar since they haven't had a flop yet, and that tends to make media writers cranky).
As for The Bear and The Bow,/i>, to be honest, I don't mind she's a princess. I'm not ready to assume that princess = automatic suck, as there have been good animated films with princesses in them.
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Does that make it OK, and mean I'm perfectly fine with it? No, but I am familiar with how clueless that type of guy, and that type of culture can be, and it's more of a "grit your teeth and whack them upside the head with the Clue!Frying Pan again" situation. Because it takes a few thwacks before it sinks in. If you consider that their first feature film, Toy Story, is, in animation terms, relatively recent--1995--they do have a lot of growing up to do, and hopefully they can do it quickly. Disney has also had the advantage of cribbing their stories from fairy tales, which do tend to focus a lot on females/princesses. Other animation studios (because I'm not sure which children's film companies you mean, so I'll stick with animation as I'm more familiar with that)--Dreamworks is probably the next most significant since Bluth went under--of an age comparable to Pixar, they don't have a whole lot of female-centric stories, either. So I guess I'm a little perplexed why Pixar is getting singled out in the media as if they were the only ones with this problem (although I'm beginning to think it's part a backlash phenomena starting to hit Pixar since they haven't had a flop yet, and that tends to make media writers cranky).
As for The Bear and The Bow,/i>, to be honest, I don't mind she's a princess. I'm not ready to assume that princess = automatic suck, as there have been good animated films with princesses in them.