An axiom: Finding Nemo is a visually decadent masterpiece. Though we may indulge in the cheap and strangely commonplace pleasures of cultural fatalism ([fill-in-the-blank] today just isn’t what it used to be!), I seriously dare you to shrug your shoulders at the imaginative and technical opulence of Pixar. It would evidence dishonesty or insanity to take me up on it.
Producing no less impressive a catalog than Toy Story, Toy Story 2 (superior), Wall-E, Ratatoullie, The Incredibles, Cars (okay: meh), A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo and Monster’s Inc, Pixar has had a remarkable run since it made its revolutionary debut just over 10 years ago.
But there’s one thing in particular I’ve noticed about all of the above films and that is the conspicuous absence of represented humans.
Well, to be fair, not entirely: Toy Story featured some humanoid characters, The Incredibles were all humans, and the others feature people here and there, but the precedence of the human-based children’s story has been totally undermined in Pixar’s reign, whose anti-human bias has extended to other CGI productions not affiliated with Pixar.
This can be explained by Masahiro Mori‘s theory of the “Uncanny Valley”. Wikipedia explains:
Mori’s hypothesis states that as a robot is made more human like in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a “barely-human” and “fully human” entity is called the uncanny valley.
I consider the absence of porn video-games on the market to be irrefutable proof of the “Uncanny Valley” theory. If someone could’ve made it work, it would be the most popular product of all time. Leagues of XY chromosome-bearers would never see the sunlight again. Thankfully, it’s not possible (30 Rock’s Gorgasim: The Legend of Dong Slayer notwithstanding).
Obviously this holds with CGI animation as well. The humans we do see represented have to be made cartoonish and bizarre in order to not give us Freudian nightmares.
Everyone over 15 reading this blog grew up with a canon of children’s animated films, which, barring the possibility that your parents hated you, were Disney productions. Most of the “big ones” were built on a Princess-model. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast etc. were all more or less hetero-normative romances about which gender theorists have been triumphantly making statements of the obvious since what feels like maybe forever. Okay! Yes– Disney reinforces traditional/repressive whatevers which has effected the minds of little boys and girls in a maddening infinity of ways we can’t even begin to fathom– the horror. One day it’s watching your Pocahontas VHS for the six thousandth time, the next, you’re vomiting up lunch in the girls’ locker room, addicted to meth or becoming some demented MySpace pedophile in the suburbs of Baltimore or any other equally plausible nightmare scenario we can (and do!) trace back to the magical world of Disney.
Now I wonder, what might it mean for the construction of gender identity to have the monster children’s media fundamentally preclude the once near ubiquitous romantic drama (and the gendered implications therein) in lieu of the endless parade of CGI’s scrappy and hilarious ambassadors from the animal kingdom at BEST engaging in a romantic-comedy sub-plot? Assuming children today don’t obsess over the Disney Classics as we did, we’ll have a whole generation of men and women and anyone in-between as test-subjects for what the world might look like without evil Disney mind-control. For the record, I don’t feel Disney tinkered with us as insidiously as most feminists seem to (same goes for Barbie), but I’ll still be interested to see how a medium poised at the edge of the Uncanny Valley will change the way children are socialized, or what conclusions we might draw should it fail to.
7 comments
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January 6, 2009 at 12:47 am
Amelia
This is a great post.
I just tried to write out a comment about it several times and wasn’t able to figure out exactly what to say. A lot to think about.
Well-written.
January 6, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Zenobia
Good post.
I’ve always felt that the main feminist issue with Disney was more with the way he treated his female employees, but you never see this mentioned by feminists. On the other hand, I guess there’s a lot of attention to be had from stating the obvious about gender roles.
Personally, I find stuff like that interesting, but I’m not going to wield a big pointy stick against it or start screaming that it is “not okay”. Not when I’m watching huge numbers of Max Fleischer cartoons and loving every minute.
In fact, that’s why I like this blog, curiosity over pointy sticks every time. Even when I don’t agree, you don’t raise my blood pressure. I don’t feel like I’m engaging with a weird subculture.
January 6, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Nancy
And you didn’t even mention the endless parade of dead mothers so the little boy animals and little daddy animals can do their father/son bonding thing…
That’s what always gets me. Not just with Pixar, but with children’s movies in general. Moms? Just impediments to good storytelling.
January 6, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Pop Feminist
Thanks for your comments– and Zen? I’m devastated you deleted your blog! I was all geared up to read it last week and it wasn’t there!
January 7, 2009 at 9:48 am
Zenobia
Yeah, I’m starting the new year blogosphere-free, this is one of the few places I’ll still be reading. I’m still writing though, just not on the internet.
January 8, 2009 at 5:52 am
Rosemarie
Having not seen Wall-e or Toy Story 2, my knowledge of the Disney/Pixar films is somewhat limited. However, perhaps the problem with Pixar is not only the lack of represented humans, but the extreme lack of female protagonists. Toy Story, Ratatoullie, Cars, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, etc all focus on quirky, male protagonists who might have a female sidekick at best. Essentially, in all their brilliance, and all their creativity, they are still aimed at boys. (Not to mention the problematic portrayals of a male insect in A Bug’s Life… and the non-Disney Bee Movie is far worse in its distortion of the gendering of insects). Frankly, I feel that the non-human worlds of Pixar allow them to create dominantly male worlds. In avoiding the romances of previously films, have they removed the female figure? Perhaps ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Pocahontas’, ‘Mulan’, with all its hetero-normative romantic problems, at least provide girls with some examples of female strength. (I do have a soft spot for ‘Beauty and the Beast’ mainly because, growing up on that movie, it gave me an example of male chauvinism in the villain ‘Gaston’)
I’ve heard good things about Wall-e, so perhaps I should defer this comment until I’ve had a chance to see it… but I still feel somewhat let down by Pixar, even as I am compelled to acknowledge the superb quality of their films. Why did Cars, Ratatouille, A Bug’s Life, and Finding Nemo all have to be andro-centric? Why are girl character constantly relegated to side-kicks?
January 8, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Maggie
That’s a good point, Rosemarie. And you raise questions about Pixar’s goals as a company. They’re clearly consciously attempting to break with the “classic Disney” Princess Parade but is it to avert feminist rage and create a “gender neutral” product (every modern girl’s pipe dream), or to simply expand their audience? Because we all know little boys can’t enjoy something starring a princess.