Are the “Boys” at Pixar Afraid of Little Girls? haseenah ebrahim “Pixar has a girl problem. —Joel Stein, Time magazine (38) Until I visited Pixar’s offices, I did not know that 12-year-old boys were allowed to run major corporations. —Joel Stein, Time magazine (37) christian metz’s observation that “a pleasure as it is to examine what elicits our film is difficult to explain because it is easy disapproval” (xvi). I also make no apology for to understand” (69) appears particularly evi- sharing those pleasures, however mitigated dent when one is teaching an undergraduate those may be by my own position as a film course on the animated feature films of Disney scholar (and as a parent). and Pixar. In a recent class taught in Chicago,1 Having taught a course on children’s and many students were taken aback when they family films since 2005 in South Africa, I found learned that the course involved historical, the aforementioned sentiment more pervasive sociological, and theoretical framing and among students in the US institution than analysis. The students, it turned out, expected among those in my home institution in Johan- little more than discussions of the animated nesburg, South Africa. The notion that this films’ plot events, some character and stylistic category of media texts is somehow excluded analysis, and the role of hand-drawn versus from ideological concerns—that the films are computer-generated (CG) animation in a film’s “ideologically empty,” so to speak—reflects popular appeal. In addition, a refrain began a widespread perception within both broader to emerge—namely, “I love Disney films, but I cultures that children’s films are just innocent, never thought of them as being ideological.” escapist fun. Walt Disney himself was known In some instances, I sensed a hint of disap- to perpetuate this perception by, somewhat proval that the course would subject Disney disingenuously, remarking, “We just make the and Pixar to the kind of analysis that might re- pictures, and let the professors tell us what quire students to reevaluate much-loved films they mean” (qtd. in Bell, Haas, and Sells 1). associated with cherished memories of child- In both contexts, one finds that many hood. I reiterated the argument I make every students—especially, but definitely not only, time I teach the course, best encapsulated by males—are openly enamored of the films of Giroux and Pollock, that the pleasures of sco- Pixar Animation Studios. This is not surprising. pophilia notwithstanding, “it is as important In addition to the drama of the well-publicized to comprehend and mitigate what gives us agreements and conflicts between Disney and Pixar from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s (before Pixar was purchased by Disney), and in dr. haseenah ebrahim teaches in the Wits particular the tensions between their then two School of Arts at the University of the Witwa- larger-than-life CEOs, Michael Eisner and Steve tersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. She has pub- Jobs, Pixar’s films have made motion picture lished several journal articles on Caribbean cinema and on Bollywood in South Africa and is and animation history, with film after film currently editing a collection of essays on cinema achieving considerable box office success and and film culture in post-1994 South Africa. critical acclaim. journal of film and video 66.3 / fall 2014 43 ©2014 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois JFV 66_3 text.indd 43 6/30/14 10:51 AM Departing from what is frequently seen production company in Hollywood and painting as the Disney formula—even if that notion is its animators as mavericks and eccentrics—and something of a simplification—of princesses most of all, as boys in men’s clothing (whether and fairy-tale fantasies, Pixar’s stories are per- these are the Hawaiian shirts worn by John ceived as fresh and innovative, combining a Lasseter or the Scottish kilts preferred by Mark motley assortment of characters, both human Andrews). Pixar director Lee Unkrich’s remark and nonhuman, with technologically sophis- to Time magazine’s Richard Corliss that “Pixar ticated and artistically acclaimed animation. is filled with people who don’t get rid of their Pixar’s tales of friendship, or other types of toys” (Corliss 37) reiterates a brand image of platonic bonds between male characters, have Pixar as a company run by “boys.” captivated animation fans, male and female. It had also become quite obvious after In the months preceding Pixar’s June 2012 twelve noteworthy animated features that Pixar release of Brave, its first film with a female had avoided making a female a protagonist in protagonist, Internet bloggers, animation and any of its films. It was to be expected, there- film Web sites, feminists, Pixar fans, newspa- fore, that there were some qualms as fans and pers, magazine columnists, and entertainment critics wondered whether thirteen might turn TV channels were all abuzz with speculation out to be Pixar’s unlucky number. about what this departure from the animation A key component of the previously men- studio’s well-established record of highly suc- tioned college courses is the analysis of repre- cessful male-centric fare would mean. The an- sentations of gender. As such, Disney’s female ticipation, and in some instances trepidation, “princess” protagonists are quickly raised was almost palpable—would Pixar be able to for discussion by students, all usually quite give us girl stories comparable to its narratives familiar with Snow White, Aurora, Belle, Ariel, of male homosocial bonding? Male bonding, in Pocahontas, Jasmine, and more recently, Tiana several variations, is a conspicuous theme in a and Rapunzel. Finding scholarly discussions of number of Pixar films: a pair’s shift from rivals Disney’s princesses is not difficult, but when to friends in the Toy Story films; father-son compiling assigned reading material on various bonds in Finding Nemo; interspecies symbiosis aspects of gender, it soon becomes apparent forged by challenging the “elitism and preten- that little attention is paid to female charac- tiousness of . French haute cuisine” (Booker ters who are not the protagonists or the main 101) in Ratatouille; the lifelong friendship and love interest of the protagonist, even though professional partnership of Mike and Sully in the Disney animation universe is populated Monsters, Inc.; or the bonds of affection that with a considerable number of human female develop between two “boys,” separated in characters. Of those not featured as heroines, age by seven decades, adventuring together in it is the villains who are most memorable. Little Up. A question hovered uneasily in the ink and scholarship exists on these, although Elizabeth ether of the pop culture landscape: what if this Bell’s discussion of Disney’s animated female move into Disney’s well-established “princess” characters provides interesting insights into terrain blemished the company’s stellar record Disney’s somatic time line, arguing that its con- of Oscar wins and box office mega-hits?2 struction of female villains, such as Snow White Why the concern? The answer may well lie in and the Seven Dwarfs’ Wicked Queen, Sleeping the words of Time magazine’s Joel Stein, who, Beauty’s Maleficent, Cinderella’s Lady Tre- a few weeks prior to Brave’s release, declared maine, 101 Dalmatians’ Cruella de Vil, and The what every Pixar fan already knew: “Pixar has Little Mermaid’s Ursula “inscribe middle age as a girl problem” (38). It is worth noting that the a time of treachery, consumption and anger in media—both news and trade—and Pixar itself the feminine life cycle” (116).3 One could add have expended considerable resources paint- to this list the characters of Mother Gothel in ing a brand image of the company as an upstart Tangled and Madame Medusa in The Rescuers. 44 journal of film and video 66.3 / fall 2014 ©2014 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois JFV 66_3 text.indd 44 6/30/14 10:51 AM LiVollmer and LaPointe investigate gender transformed into a boyish young woman who in transgression in animated films and its asso- many ways—although not entirely—embodies ciation with villainy, notable in the “queering” what Lissa Paul labels “hero[es] in drag”—that of characters such as Scar (The Lion King), Jafar is, “female characters who take on traditionally (Aladdin), and Hades (Hercules). However, it is male characteristics in an attempt to subvert the Disney princesses who continue to garner the kinds of traditional female roles the first the most attention, both scholarly and popular, and second wave Disney princesses have taken and who constitute a disproportionately high on” (qtd. in Whelan 28). number of proposed essay topics by under- In an ethnographic study of same-sex graduate students, especially (white) female friendships among preadolescent boys, Red- students. Scholarly analyses of the Disney prin- man et al. note that young boys’ friendships cesses/heroines include those by Stone, Bell, utilize strategies of “borderwork” that serve to Do Rozario, Hurley, Davis, Zarranz, Lester, and “other” their schoolmates on the basis of race Whelan, among others. and ethnicity, gender, and/or class. Among Pixar’s thirteenth film, Brave, is the first to these strategies, a key aspect of the boys’ showcase a female protagonist, the Scottish heterosexual same-sex friendship is expressed Merida, a spunky princess in the mold of “Dis- in the form of insulting remarks about their ney Renaissance” meets The Hunger Games’ female classmates and general expressions archery-loving Katniss. A film characterized by of contempt for, and distancing of themselves Gilbey as “not so much good . as significant” from, the feminine.