Emerging Women

Over at one of the NPR blogs today, Linda Holmes had a great post titled “Dear Pixar, From all the girls with Band-aids on their knees.” In it she comments that although she loves their movies and the messages they portray, she would like it if for once a major cartoon was made about girls who weren’t princesses. She writes -

Well, the whole big world has a lot of little girls in it, too. And not all of them are princesses — and the ones who are princesses have plenty of movies to watch.

And even many of them who do aspire to be princesses are mixing their princess tendencies with all manner of other delicious things. Their tiaras fall off when they skin their knees running at top speed; they get fingerpaint on their pink dresses; they chip their front teeth chasing each other in plastic high-heeled shoes.

There’s nothing wrong with the movies you’re making; I’m sure your princess movie will be my favorite one ever. I’m just saying, keep them in mind, those girls in Band-Aids, because they want to see themselves on screen doing death-defying stunts, too. You’re making some of my favorite movies in the whole world right now.

Please, please make one about a girl who isn’t a princess.

This question of role models for young girls is huge. One might say that little girls simply like princesses and faeries so there is no need to market anything else to them. But do they like those things because that is what they have been told to like by the marketing people? I know making movies is generally about making money, but if there are messages to be told it wouldn’t be so hard to tell the story of a normal girl doing extraordinary things. That’s what most movies are like, except they are about boys. Why do the producers feel like movies about girls don’t need to be made?

It reminds me on an interview I read with J.K. Rowling years ago. She said her name on the Harry Potter books was chosen to be J.K. Rowling by the publisher because they thought that boys wouldn’t read a book written by a girl. So her name was changed from Joanne to J.K. to not “scare away” potential male readers. But honestly, would the most popular children’s series ever have failed if early readers were too sexist to pick up the books? Sometimes what the marketing people think our kids want versus what they really like doesn’t quite match up.

My daughter loves princesses and TinkerBelle, but she also likes bugs and getting dirty. The other day she told me all about an exciting game of Star Wars My Little Pony she played on the playground (yes, I’m still confused – what, do they have rainbow lightsabers?). I want her to see girls in the movies she sees doing all sorts of interesting things – not just looking pretty as princesses. Boys shouldn’t be the only ones who get to dream of doing great things. So I appreciated this open letter for raising the question – and wonder when we will actually see movies just about girls being girls.

Tags: Pixar, princesses