"Up" and down.
May. 31st, 2009 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holliSo I saw "Up," Pixar's latest, with babysitting charges last night. And I liked it a lot. It's gorgeous visually, the story's fun (if a little odd), the 3-D was well done and gave the already-great animation more depth. But it's the tenth straight Pixar movie without a female lead. And while that's always bugged me, well... now it REALLY bugs me. And the fact that "Up" is so good actually makes it worse, somehow.
So, "Up" is the story of Carl Fredricksen, a cranky old man who, facing the loss of his beloved home, decided to use thousands of helium balloons to carry said home to South America. He accidentally brings along a small boy named Russell, a Wilderness Explorer who'd been trying get his Helping the Elderly badge. Upon arrival in South America, Carl and Russell meet a giant bird, a pack of talking dogs, and the aged 1930s airship adventurer who's been trying to use said dogs to capture said bird. As plot elements go, these are all kind of weird-- the talking dogs in particular are kind of a "bzuh?" choice-- but it actually holds together really well as a story.
Here's the thing, though: flying the house to South America is a dream Carl inherited from his late wife, Ellie. The first few minutes of the movie introduce Carl and Ellie as kids, and oh, man, you guys, Ellie is *delightful*. Even as children, she overwhelms Carl with sheer force of personality-- you pretty much see him fall in love with her instantly. The next ten minutes of movie follow their lives together, wordlessly, as they grow older, and then old, ending with Ellie's death. Her whole life, she never loses her dream of going to South America and seeing Paradise Falls, and when Carl goes, it's to fulfill *her* dream, not his. Without Ellie, Carl doesn't really have any dreams.
Now, the movie shows us that the way Carl's shut down since Ellie's death is a problem, and over the course of the story he learns to stop clinging to the past so tightly, to go on without her and live his life again. This is contrasted with the airship adventurer, another bitter old man-- only in his case, he's spent every moment since the 30's obsessing over his quest to catch the giant bird, slowly going mad in the process. Which is why he lives on an airship full of talking dogs who do all his chores, and (the movie implies) kills anyone who comes to Paradise Falls so they can't steal his bird.
The depth of Carl's love and devotion to Ellie are really touching, and the movie's very good about showing us the difference between the healthy parts of that love, and the parts that are growing twisted from Carl's loneliness. The thing is-- well, after the Ellie sequence at the beginning, I went, "Man, Ellie's awesome. I kind of wish the movie were about her." And then, at the end of the movie, I went "Hey, wait a minute. Why *wasn't* the movie about Ellie?"
Because the thing is, there is not one single plot element in this entire movie that requires the leads be male. You could just have easily have had Carla fulfilling Eddie's dream of going to South America, accompanied by Girl Scout Rosa. Even the airship adventurer could have been a woman-- they pretty clearly drew inspiration from Charles Lindbergh for him, so why not Amelia Earhart instead? Hell, even all the talking dogs are male, which makes NO SENSE, because unless at least SOME of them were girl dogs there would in short order have been NO MORE TALKING DOGS.
But Pixar defaults to male, in movie after movie, so "Up" gives us this great story, with such great characters, that I can't quite fully commit to loving. Even though it's delightful. Because when you make ten straight movies without a female lead, something has gone very wrong with the way you tell stories.
So, "Up" is the story of Carl Fredricksen, a cranky old man who, facing the loss of his beloved home, decided to use thousands of helium balloons to carry said home to South America. He accidentally brings along a small boy named Russell, a Wilderness Explorer who'd been trying get his Helping the Elderly badge. Upon arrival in South America, Carl and Russell meet a giant bird, a pack of talking dogs, and the aged 1930s airship adventurer who's been trying to use said dogs to capture said bird. As plot elements go, these are all kind of weird-- the talking dogs in particular are kind of a "bzuh?" choice-- but it actually holds together really well as a story.
Here's the thing, though: flying the house to South America is a dream Carl inherited from his late wife, Ellie. The first few minutes of the movie introduce Carl and Ellie as kids, and oh, man, you guys, Ellie is *delightful*. Even as children, she overwhelms Carl with sheer force of personality-- you pretty much see him fall in love with her instantly. The next ten minutes of movie follow their lives together, wordlessly, as they grow older, and then old, ending with Ellie's death. Her whole life, she never loses her dream of going to South America and seeing Paradise Falls, and when Carl goes, it's to fulfill *her* dream, not his. Without Ellie, Carl doesn't really have any dreams.
Now, the movie shows us that the way Carl's shut down since Ellie's death is a problem, and over the course of the story he learns to stop clinging to the past so tightly, to go on without her and live his life again. This is contrasted with the airship adventurer, another bitter old man-- only in his case, he's spent every moment since the 30's obsessing over his quest to catch the giant bird, slowly going mad in the process. Which is why he lives on an airship full of talking dogs who do all his chores, and (the movie implies) kills anyone who comes to Paradise Falls so they can't steal his bird.
The depth of Carl's love and devotion to Ellie are really touching, and the movie's very good about showing us the difference between the healthy parts of that love, and the parts that are growing twisted from Carl's loneliness. The thing is-- well, after the Ellie sequence at the beginning, I went, "Man, Ellie's awesome. I kind of wish the movie were about her." And then, at the end of the movie, I went "Hey, wait a minute. Why *wasn't* the movie about Ellie?"
Because the thing is, there is not one single plot element in this entire movie that requires the leads be male. You could just have easily have had Carla fulfilling Eddie's dream of going to South America, accompanied by Girl Scout Rosa. Even the airship adventurer could have been a woman-- they pretty clearly drew inspiration from Charles Lindbergh for him, so why not Amelia Earhart instead? Hell, even all the talking dogs are male, which makes NO SENSE, because unless at least SOME of them were girl dogs there would in short order have been NO MORE TALKING DOGS.
But Pixar defaults to male, in movie after movie, so "Up" gives us this great story, with such great characters, that I can't quite fully commit to loving. Even though it's delightful. Because when you make ten straight movies without a female lead, something has gone very wrong with the way you tell stories.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 04:43 pm (UTC)So, yeah. Movies for kids will do crazy shit to avoid putting girls on the screen.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 04:56 pm (UTC)Anyway, Pixar doesn't seem to be doing this because they think female leads won't sell. They talk an awful lot about how they're an artist-driven company, how telling the best story is the most important thing, and I basically believe they're sincere in this. It's just-- they have this huge blind spot, where "the best story" somehow always turns out to be a story about a dude. Or a dude ant, a dude fish, some dude monsters, a dude *robot*-- even when the story would be served just as well by a female character.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:11 pm (UTC)