Letters to the Editor
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Big Money Means No Risks
Well, there has been some progress with Pixar. The first bunch of movies were a veritable sausage fest. Even the iconic flexy lamps in their first or second short were desribed as a father and son. They moved into strange Female territory with some later movies. In "Finding Nemo", the sidekick is played by Ellen Degeneres. In "Monsters, Inc." the main human character is a feisty little girl named "Boo". In "Toy Story 2", Joan Cusak plays a spunky cowgirl. Of all of the movies, "The Incredibles" is the most balanced, with the stretchy wife ,the emo daughter, and the peculiar costume designer almost balancing out the brick shithouse dad, the speedy kid, "Frozone", and the petulant villain. (However, the peculiar costume designer, Edna Mode, is still voiced by Brad Bird. Sigh. Why not Kathleen Turner?) Nut then, they've stepped backwards into the land of the Little Boys again.
The underlying problem is this: The men still have the money. The men still write the scripts. There is so much money at stake, that they are afreid to take chances and try something new. They firmly believe that it is the males who make the decisions about who goes to the movies. "Asses in seats" is the term I have heard.
I wish that not only Pixar, but all movie makers would grow up and take a page from the books of the independent filmmakers and come up with interesting female characters. But with 100 million dollars at stake, they're too chicken to try it.