Isis Madrid writes: Remember when the lead animator of Frozen complained about how difficult it is to animate female characters? “They have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty,” he said. “So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they’re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna being angry.” Yet, all of the male characters have unique and equally emotive faces…what a load of garbage, right?
It turns out that Disney’s bizarre tendency to animate female characters with minor variations of the same doe-eyed, button nosed template extends far beyond Frozen. This week, a Tumblr user took to the site to air her grievances about a troubling new discovery. After seeing a few stills from the upcoming film Inside Out, she was disturbed to see an image in which women were the same and men different.
The results confirmed her suspicions that for some reason Disney/Pixar refuses to animate women in any way that is realistic, unique, interesting, or *gasp* unpretty:
“Apparently every Disney woman is a clone/direct descendant of some primordial creature with huge round cheeks and a disturbingly small nose, because there is no other explanation (yes there is(it’s lazy sexism)) for the incredible lack of diversity among these female faces.
DISNEY.
WHY DOES EVERY WOMAN THAT YOU HAVE CREATED IN THE LAST DECADE HAVE THE EXACT SAME FACE SHAPE? AND DON’T TELL ME IT’S BECAUSE WOMEN ARE HARDER TO ANIMATE. STOP ASSUMING EVERY WOMAN HAS A ROUND BABY FACE AND A SHORT CUTE BABY NOSE. YOU CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
TL;DR: Boys in animated movies have faces that are square, round, skinny, fat, alien-looking, handsome, and ugly. The only face that girls get to have is some round snub-nosed baby face. That’s not right.”
The questions now is: why? Why does Disney insist on lagging so far behind in its physical portrayal of women? If they’re going to attempt to push the boundaries of complex female characters and steer away from its stymied past (and sometimes present), why not make sure that the women they are portraying are as physically individual, flawed, and special as their evolving story lines?
Editors note: Disney’s most recent film, a Cinderalla who is an live actor playing with other live actors does something different. It is directed and produced to teeter on a fine line between the real and unreal, and keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering as Noel Coward would ask: Was it in a real world or was it in a dream. Feelings abound.