I am temporarily back from the dead. I am in bed (alone, sniff sniff) after twisting my ankle and not even America's Next Top Model is on.
So I thought I'd share with you some thoughts about the movie "Horton Hears a Who"...and link to one of the best commentaries on feminism I have ever heard.
I took my kids to "Horton" one fine day. My kids are a boy (9) and a girl (5).
The movie has quite a few embellishments on the book. The worst of which is that the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters that each get two timed minutes of his attention at mealtime. Mr. Mayor also has one surly son...who is to be his heir to the mayor-ship.
Why the son has to be the heir when he clearly does not want to be is never explained, since there is one female mayor in the ancestral line.
Anyhow...guess who gets all of daddy's attention? Guess who saves the day while 96 sisters cheer on?
Guess who left the movie theatre upset and ill? What was the message to my kids?
Several days later my wonderful husband comes home and brings up Peter Segal's NPR commentary on the computer.
"You Must Listen to This!!!" He said.
Here are some exerpts:
What's so irritating about this casual slap at daughters is the sense that the makers of the film didn't really mean it. They seemed mostly interested in riffs on pop culture and jokes about violating bodily integrity. But what writers are told, you see, in Hollywood notes meetings, is that every character has to make a journey, towards something he needs and ultimately gets, and what they decided the Mayor of Whoville needs was a better relationship with his son. Here is a father with 96 daughters — 96 amazing, beautiful, unpredictable, mysterious, distinct, glorious human beings — but gosh, what in the world is he going to care about? I know, let's give him a moody silent uninteresting offspring, but this one's got a Y chromosome... that'll be boffo box office!
snip
Have the clowns who made this movie ever met a daughter? Have they dated one? If they did, did they meet the daughter's father? Did they then ask that daughter's father if there was anything more dramatic, interesting, arresting, and moving to him than his relationship with his daughter?
snip
I still wanted to grab that fictional, silly mayor of Whoville by his weirdly ruffled neck, and say, you see those 96 people over there? Those girls, those women, those daughters? You know what they're saying to you, every minute of every day that you waste thinking about anything else?
They are shouting at you. They are shouting:
"We are here! We are here! We are here!"
This commentary is fantastic, and had me mentally ticking off in my head kids' films and what gender is the protagonist.
Each kids' film has a female character....but we are 50% of the planet...shouldn't we be 50% of the protagonsits-on film and in real life?
Parents.....for fantastic films with female characters try studio Ghibli (Kiki's delivery Service, Tortoro, Spirited Away). I am going to try, from now on, to be more careful about what movies I allow my impressionable kids to go to.