I’ve blogged twice about the sexist preview for “Planes,” and after seeing the movie today, I’m afraid I’ve got to blog about this awful scene once more. The sexist scene actually opens the movie. It sets the tone for the whole film, which is the opposite of what I thought the scene was going to do. When I saw the preview, I thought the plane who mocks the slow flyers by calling them “ladies,” was having a moment of arrogance. The movie would redeem him when he went through his transition. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The sexist joke is his fantasy, the fantasy of a humble crop duster with a fear of heights who wishes he were a racer. The scene is sexism in fantasy world in sexism in fantasy world. Isn’t that meta? It’s the dream sequence of a “likeable” character. Can you imagine a hero making a racist joke and being likeable? In a movie for little kids? Yet, that’s how much sexism we have to wade through before females are allowed to win a race in animation.
Here’s the text; all voices are male:Plane One: What’s taking this guy so long? Is he really as good as he says he is?
Plane Two: No, better.
Plane One: Whoa! Who was that?
Plane Three: (Descending fast on top of the other two) Well, hello ladies! Ready to lose?
Plane Three goes on to leave the “ladies” in the dust.
Recently, in the New York Times, Frank Bruni wrote about his discussion with Chris Kilmartin, author of The Masculine Self.
“We start boys off at a very early age,” Kilmartin told me during a recent phone conversation. “When the worst thing we say to a boy in sports is that he throws ‘like a girl,’ we teach boys to disrespect the feminine and disrespect women. That’s the cultural undercurrent of rape.”
Planes teaches kids just that, and that’s only the beginning of the movie.
Following the sexist fantasy in Planes, the narrative progresses exactly as Turbo does, the movie for kids that came out just a few weeks ago. Dusty, the male protagonist of Planes, is told by his friend he’ll never be a racer: “That’s not what you’re built for.” This is the same conversation Turbo has with his brother who tells him that because he’s a snail, he can’t race. But guess who proves the naysayers wrong, that the hero can do anything, soar to the highest heights, be brave, courageous, and make his dreams come true? Unless, of course, he happens to be a “lady.”
Today, if you see a movie for children, it will most often have a male protagonist, while females, who are, in fact, half of the kid population, are presented as if they were a minority. Within that minority, there will be a strong female or two who reviewers will invariably call “feisty.” I call these characters the “Minority Feisty.” The trope has evolved from the Smurfette principle in that there is often more than one, and she is presented as strong. But rarely is she the protagonist. Her power, lines, and screen time are carefully and consistently circumscribed to show that she is not as important as the male star. Still, the Minority Feisty is supposed to pacify parents, making them feel that, unlike those sexist films of yesteryear, thismovie is contemporary and feminist.
There are strikingly similar Minority Feisty in Planes and Turbo: Dottie and Paz are both mechanics and both shown in blue. Isn’t that progressive? At first, I thought these mechanics were a coincidence. Then I realized that “female mechanic” is classic Minority Feisty. All the parents watching can think: look a female mechanic! Isn’t that wonderful? And then overlook that Dottie and Paz exist only to help the male hero accomplish his quest in movies that marginalize and demean females.
The actual race in Planes is totally dominated by male competitors. There are just two female racers: Ishani and Rochelle. Turbo has only one, and I missed her name. Both female racers in Planes are objects of lust for the males who have bigger parts. One scene is an extensive serenade/ mariachi sequence that sends Rochelle, the pink girl plane, into fits of desire. I thought I was going to throw up. Everyone else in the theater was laughing.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
