Posted on 10/01/2010 8:49:58 AM PDT by rhema
Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why Family Films Are So Sexist."
Baird's denunciation of Hollywood's fraction of decent entertainment began: "They have all been smash hits: 'Finding Nemo,' 'Madagascar,' 'Ice Age,' 'Toy Story.' Fish, penguins, rats, stuffed animals, talking toys. All good innocent family fun, right? Sure, except there are few female characters in those films. There are certainly few doing anything meaningful or heroic -- and no, Bo Peep doesn't count."
So what does feminist bean-counting have to do with whether a movie is "good innocent family fun"? Did any young girl come away from "Finding Nemo" feeling like the memory-challenged Ellen DeGeneres fish character didn't represent female empowerment effectively? Were they offended by the oppressively archaic stereotype of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl during "Toy Story 2"? Families can't enjoy these films without expecting them to pass some politically correct quota exam?
The Newsweek columnist was promoting a new study from Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti of the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. They reportedly analyzed 122 family films (rated G, PG and PG-13), including 50 top-grossing ones, between 2006 and 2009. She found it "startling" that there is "only one female character to every three male characters in family movies." (Well, not exactly -- they claim 29.2 percent of characters were female.)
Worse than that, Baird the Angry Feminist protested, "The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful." Well, that's scandalously unfair! (Don't think Baird wouldn't also protest if a certain number of women were ugly beyond repair.)
There's more. One in five female characters were "portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions." If a conservative tried to suggest "The Little Mermaid" should put on a shirt, tell me Newsweek wouldn't point fingers and laugh. But that's what Newsweek's Angry Feminist is suggesting.
Baird was especially upset that cartoons might exaggerate the female physique: "One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left 'little room for a womb or any other internal organs.' Maybe we could carry them in our purses?" Baird even claimed "another study" found "women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films."
That just sounds ludicrous. Anyone wanting to check on Baird's academic assertions would have trouble, since these two studies she's referring to cannot be found on the Annenberg School website or anywhere else online. The Annenberg study was commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which has been compiling data on women in film. Davis, the actress who most recently played the president on ABC, told Newsweek that 17 percent of animators are female, and women form 17 percent of crowd scenes in family films. Only 17 percent of narrators are female.
Ridiculous -- and funny, too. How nit-pickingly intricate are these studies to count genders in "crowd scenes"? WHO CARES? As for only 17 percent of females being narrators, does Davis find it distasteful if her husband reads a bedtime story?
But Davis isn't done with her feminist footnotes. She also claims research shows that the more TV a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life, and the more a boy watches, the more his views become sexist. A look at the Geena Davis Institute website shows that her group is marshaling feminist research attacking on all of these fronts -- the dearth of female characters, animators, directors and so on -- with the entire panoply of TV and movies, not just the family films.
There's nothing wrong with seeking more female directors, producers or major characters in Hollywood -- they're supposed to be feminist enough to have already imposed "affirmative action." But for Newsweek to single out family films as somehow shameful is beyond unfair -- especially since none of them are truly singled out. Tell us how "Finding Nemo" or "Toy Story" are the work of sexist pigs.
Baird isn't just an Angry Feminist; she's a hypocrite, too. Last year, her own magazine tried to embarrass Sarah Palin by putting an old photo of her on the cover in running shorts, suggesting this Caribou Barbie wasn't ready for prime time. Did Baird protest? No, she defended the cover since Palin "has been photographed and filmed more than once in aerobic gear."
Newsweek, heal thyself.
Reminds me of the article about ten years ago when some woman complained about Disney characters’ cup sizes.
I want Betty Boop back before the censors took her Boop-boop-be-doop away!
Seriously?
I wonder if she has discovered the Ru-Paul Drag U program.
She should stay home and watch that rather than go out an make a public nuisance of herself.
Jessica should never be faulted for her appearance. She was drawn that way.
“Sure, except there are few female characters in those films. There are certainly few doing anything meaningful or heroic — and no, Bo... “
She obviously didn’t see “Finding Nemo”, nor did she acknowledge that the “female” supporting character in that movie “stole the show” a number of times during the script, and portrayed a certain “heroic” sense to the character in spite of not being the “lead” character (Nemo).
The owner of Newsweek is Jane Harmon’s husband.
He bought it for $1 about 2 months ago.
Exactly right. My girls could consistently beat me at the rather bloody video game Doom. I'm sure libtards would be appalled by all that violence, but the girls saw it as a video game challenge, nothing more.
All three grew up to be fine young ladies and not one of them grew up to be a bed wetting liberal.
Television and most every other entertainment and news source is largely an abomination regarding standards and morality. We have become inured to it and certainly the youth accept it almost completely.
Well, by all means, let’s make these family movies more like TV where the men are stupid and the women are the ones runnin’ the families.
Or make them like ABC “Family” programming. You know ... good “family” shows like Friday Night Lights or Secret Life of the American Teenager. Yeah ... good family shows right there, eh?
PG-13 family films? Some maybe can be like Indiana Jones, but Bevis and Butthead Do America was also PG-13 and certainly not a family film. James Bond movies are PG or PG-13 but I wouldn't let small kids watch that until they are older.
After laughing, I wonder how long until a picture of Putin bringing down a tiger bare-handed is posted. And I start counting...
It's crazy - AND it's not entertaining for straight men and women... (then again maybe film makers are only interested in the 4% of movie goers who are gay...)
"You want? I put in call for you request. Da!"
The fact we have to point out to others when we see this, at least people we know and love and trust, is that portraying men this way - particularly white men - as fat, lazy, stupid, women and blacks and every other minority kicking their asses - is that this is deliberate portrayal by hollyweird and the media companies. This is the message that is being broadcast that kids and others are receiving and it’s reinforced as white guys are the only ‘minority’ group (we aren’t 50% or more of the population) that is legal and acceptable to portray this way.
There aren't enough haters of men - white men in particular - to support movies. The same is true of the MSM, print press, and assorted liberal 'art' groups. The hatred of all things traditional gets old quickly.
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