Pixar: Grow Some Gals

John August pointed out this thoughtful response to Pixar's "Brave" trailer by blogger Theresa Couchman:

"It would’ve been nice if a studio that’s known for creative and original storytelling had decided to do something more interesting with their first female protagonist (in SIXTEEN YEARS) than make her…a princess. Who’s cool because she’s good at “boy” stuff...


Sadly, “girl struggles against restrictive society” is still a very relevant theme, but it would be awfully nice to see a story about a regular person who has adventures and, oh yeah, also happens to be female. And who maybe likes to read or do needlepoint instead of or in addition to kicking ass, because there is nothing wrong with those kinds of things."

I don't usually criticize Pixar (this is the lady who wrote her entire thesis on "WALL-E" and did VERY well, thank you very much!), but they (like all major media companies) do have a woman problem. Even though some of their female characters have been well-developed (Jessie in Toy Story 2, Eve in WALL-E for example), they have never featured a female protagonist, and some of their stories are so blatantly boy-centric it's just gross (Cars - WHY??).

John points out that, "Studios grumble that boys won’t go to see movies featuring female protagonists, and I think this is why: the trailer shows a frustrated daughter rather than an adventurer." 


I agree with Theresa and John. It really is past time that our female protagonists be protagonists that happen to be female, that go on adventures and journeys that use their feminine as well as masculine traits without belittling either.