Today, I took my nine year-old brother to the movies. There’s a local theater that has a summer movie program—they show movies that are a few months to a year past their theater releases, and you can buy discount tickets. It’s a very popular thing among families with young children in the area. Despite the fact that the movie choices aren’t always from my top ten, I think it’s great. I have a sizeable passion for film, and I can’t always afford to go—plus it gives me time to spend with my youngest sibling, whom I’m quite close to and miss greatly when I’m away at school.
Now, my brother is a smart kid. He’s observant, capable of noticing details and making connections. A lot of times we underestimate or take for granted the intelligence and capabilities of children. I try very hard not to. After spending a lot of time with him (and many other children—I’ve been a caretaker many times throughout my life), I’ve realized that they take in information quite well. Apparently, the media has figured this out, too.
[Now before you jump down my throat and call me paranoid, think about the last time you, your kid, or a kid you know was watching TV. Have you ever paid attention to what they’re seeing? Commercials are the worst. Advertisers have gender stereotypes down to a science. Look at a commercial for a “boy’s toy,” like Nerf guns, video games, cars, or plastic tool kits. Almost all the time you only have male children in the commercial, blue and red colors, fast-paced rock music and a booming male voice telling you just how awesome you could be if you had this thing. Now they switch to a “girls toy” commercial (Barbies, baby dolls, kitchens, arts & crafts): all girls, pink and purple and sparkles, corny pop music, and some sweet voice talking about being pretty and popular. Don’t believe me? Go turn on Disney or Nickelodeon. Try to last half an hour.]
Now, back to the movies. So today, I’m sitting there with my brother watching “Alvin & the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked,” when all of the sudden I realize the audience is being bombarded with some of the most blatant and insulting gender stereotypes I’ve encountered lately. Never mind how annoying that franchise is as a whole, I was utterly dumbfounded by the messages it promoted. Here’s a basic rundown: Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are the male chipmunks. Jeanette, Brittany, and Eleanor are the “Chipettes,” basically a female version of the male trio. The chipmunks along with their human companion, Dave, and their sleazy manager, are on a cruise ship to Europe for some kind of music awards ceremony (why they didn’t just take a plane, I’m not sure). On the way, the chipmunks end up stranded on an island somewhere and their human friends have to come find them. And the Oscar goes to…
Sorry. Back on track. I understand that animated talking chipmunks are not going to have a lot of character depth. But I honestly felt as though the writers made every possible effort to be as sexist as humanly (or chipmunkly?) possible with them. The male trio are in their traditional roles (the cool one, the geeky one, the fat one…I’ll get to the guys a bit later). But the females have some obvious distinctions as well. Brittany and Eleanor are fragile, dainty, “girly girls” who would rather die than mess up their hair. They are ditzy and unapologetically unintelligent. The other female, Jeanette, is “the smart one.” She is not as physically attractive as the other two, and she doesn’t have near as many lines in the script. She is made to look obviously geeky as if to signal to the audience that yes, she is the smart one, because she’s not pretty. This is one of the oldest stereotypes in the book. Not only are there visual cues, which are bad enough, but the characters make a point to talk about it several times. The worst offense was this line by Brittany: “She’s the smart one. I’m the pretty one. You don’t see me walking around trying to be all smart.”
I kid you not, that is exactly what was said.
It was at this point that I was tempted to leave, but decided that I should watch the rest and catch any other blatant sexism so I could pass it along to the general public. They never state it explicitly, but the overall message to girls was this: “It is pretty much impossible to be both attractive and smart. You have to choose between the two.” Later on, because of plot developments that aren’t worth mentioning, Alvin and Brittany end up having to take on the roles of being the “responsible ones”. They decide that they should build shelter. Alvin, of course, assumes that he should do it because he’s the male. He turns around from building his own structure to see that Brittany has, in fact, built her own. Now, if they had left it at that, I might have thought they’d redeemed themselves a little. But no. Brittany’s structure is a Disney-esque cottage covered in pink flowers. She makes some high-pitched statement about how they should have a good-looking place to be. Because, obviously, all women care about is flowers and being attractive. To top it all off, Alvin turns to her and says “so I guess you can be smart!”
He made it an announcement as if it’s some rare, unseen, notable thing for an attractive young woman to be intelligent and self-sufficient. I just about lost it at that point.
They go on to show that Jeanette, the “smart one”, starts to develop a relationship with Simon, the geeky male. At one point, under the apparent influence of cabin fever, he turns into Simone, a French Casanova version of himself. He tells Jeanette how pretty she is and gives her jewelry, and she finally seems to have found happiness. New message: “girls, even if you manage to be smart on your own, you’re gonna need a man to protect you and give you shiny things to find true happiness.”
And it’s not just damaging to the girls. Boys absorb these messages, too. But they’re also told through the transformation of Simon to Simone that the only way to “get the girl” (a sexist idea in and of itself, as if a woman is an object to be attained) is to be a danger-loving, non-geek, materialistic and macho kind of man. Intelligence doesn’t matter. Being shy is bad. If you want to be noticed, be something that you’re not.
Once I had officially processed all of this, I knew I had to write about it. I had to point it out. If you’re thinking “it’s only a kids’ movie, what’s the big deal?”, think again. When we are children, our minds are made to learn and absorb more than at any other point in our lives. Children are impressionable. They will take what they see and copy it. Sexism in children’s movies is nothing new (go to you tube and check out some of the videos that have been made on gender roles and classic Disney films).
What are we showing our kids? What are they learning? How will it affect how they act as adults?
Gender stereotypes are alive and well because of influences like these. People keep them alive by perpetuating them in daily life. This cycle will not end until we decide to do something about it. Like I said before, I love movies. I love watching movies with my little brother and sharing that time with him. I still love watching the classic Disney movies even though I can see the flaws in them now. But I am not about to sit back and allow him to see these things without taking the time to remind him what’s wrong about them.
Today, I took my brother to the movies.
I also had to explain to him that girls can be smart regardless of what they look like.
I am perfectly willing to be the one to remind people of that. But I am also sickened by the fact that I still have to.
