Be Brave, be bold…but don’t be ignorant…especially when the whole world can see you

There’s a reason I don’t like reading comments on public forum pages like Facebook and You Tube.  Just because you have the right to speak doesn’t mean you should.  I believe in a free exchange of ideas, but I want there to be an intelligent debate with arguments that can be backed up by facts and not just opinion.  Very rarely do I find thoughtful and intelligent comments on these pages (although there were a few comments pointing out the ignorance that riddled this particular You Tube page).  Every once in awhile, though, I find I can’t help myself.  I begin to read comments on these public forums…like I did this afternoon regarding the new trailer for Pixar’s Brave.  I was going to post something in response directly on You Tube, but they limit my speech and I had much more to respond to than the limited space I am given.  So, here are my responses to some of what I read…

(1) Some comments mentioned the bad accents…comparing it to Shrek and How To Train Your Dragon as well as other films.  Shrek was set in a fantasy fairytale location, and Mike Myers chose to use his over-the-top imitation of a Scottish accent.  How to Train Your Dragons was about Vikings and not set in Scotland, so don’t show how untrained your ears are to the differences in cultural speech.  Please do your homework, people.  Five of the main characters in this film were voiced by Scottish actors – Kelly Macdonald, Kevin McKidd, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson and Robbie Coltrane.  I’m not sure how much more authentic of a Scottish accent you can get.  Two of the other main characters were voiced by British actors – Emma Thompson and Julie Walters.  Well, perhaps their accents aren’t quite as authentic…

(2) Some of the comments stated that this looked more like a Dreamworks' film, implying a lesser quality, than a Pixar film.  Aesthetically speaking, based on the short time frame of the trailer, I don’t know how you can make a judgment like that.  From what I saw, the design style of the setting and the characters features as well as the overall feel looks much more like Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up then it does of any of the DreamWorks animated films.  A final analysis of the animation style will have to be reserved for the final product upon its release.

(3) And this final rebuttal is probably the most important.  There were a number of comments on the film’s plotline…which at the moment is still relatively unknown.  There were multiple worries that it would be just like Mulan. There was even a comment that stated ‘the whole "princess overcoming gender stereotypes" story is done a lot’ (posted by VeryWittyName).  The fact that there is one other animated film with a female protagonist that people are worried about it being too much like is almost laughable. What a tragedy if we have another film here in the year 2011 – making it 2 in the last 13 years – that shows a strong female warrior!  And I challenge VeryWittyName to list more than 10 films with the ‘princess overcoming gender stereotype’ plotlines.  The fact that we can refer to something as an ‘overcoming gender stereotype’ plotline just emphasizes the fact that we still have gender stereotypes that need to be overcome.

This film was written by two women – Brenda Chapman and Irene Mecchi – and co-directed by Chapman and Mark Andrews.  Just so you have statistics about gender in the film industry: in 2010 women screenwriters made up 10% of the writers on the top 250 grossing films in the country and women directors made up 7% of the directors on those same films.*  We need more films showing female characters, and minority ethnic characters for that matter, overcoming gender (and/or racial) stereotypes.  We need more overcoming of gender and racial stereotypes in practice in the physical world as well.  I sympathize with those of you who feel tortured at having to watch yet another film about a female overcoming gender stereotypes.  I only ask that in return you sympathize with me when I have to watch the 100s of other films made on a yearly basis, which perpetuate those stereotypes…

Until I return…

*These statistics can be found in the annual Celluloid Ceiling report put out by Dr. Martha Lauzen and the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University (http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research.html).