Last week I was in Target buying socks and undies when a woman and her son (about 12) walked past. At least one of them had terrible body odour, but that’s by the by. The more interesting thing is their shared theatrical response to finding a Frozen t-shirt in the boys’ section. The boys’ section, of all places! “That’s ridiculous!” they exclaimed to an audience of me, as if I might join in and tut-tut the shop assistants who obviously messed up when hanging the garments.
If you read my blog you’ll know my position on this.
The world is full of parents who promulgate the idea that stuff with girls in it isn’t for boys. Nothing new there.
What I find more interesting is my daughter’s new lunch bag from Aldi: A choice between Frozen and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (She chose Frozen.) Here’s a picture of the lunch bag:
Don’t know about you, but the ensemble of Olaf between the two female leads reminds me a lot of images we see all the time, like when racing car drivers accept a trophy flanked by two women in bikinis, or B-grade actors when they prepare to get shot by the paparazzi.
Surely, the most sexist, conservative consumer of Frozen merch could be persuaded that the movie is not just for girls. Not only does this lucky man have a blonde on his arm, but the Betty/Veronica duo, from which he can choose.
Yes, I know, I’m imprinting my adult observations of porn culture on top of this children’s film. So I’ll look at it from a child’s perspective. From the most naive position I can imagine, I come to the following conclusion:
In a film about two sisters, a male character must still take centre stage. The male character is the most important, not only in boys’ movies but in girls’ movies, too.
Breaking down with numbers:
- In a film with an ensemble cast of 13 first billed characters (not including the duplicate voices of childhood Anna and Elsa), 4 of those are females. This means 9 out of 13 are male. Yet this is a film ‘for girls’.
- In a film ‘for boys’ (let’s take last year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for comparison, since that was my daughter’s alternative choice for the insulated lunch bag), we have exactly the same gender ratio. Of the 13 first-billed characters 4 are female, 9 are male. Yet this is a film ‘for boys’.
Someone elsewhere may have done a breakdown of actual lines of dialogue according to gender, but looking at the raw numbers, this is a common ratio. Whether a box office film is ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’, or more rarely, ‘for both’ there are generally more male characters than female. And yes, I’m including the snowman, and the turtles too, because when animals speak and wear clothes, or are personified and generate audience empathy, they are for all intents and purposes, human.
I doubt the sheer number of male characters in Frozen would convince sexist/conservative anyones that boys may happily wear a Frozen t-shirt without harassment, even if it features just Olaf’s goofy grin, but I’m glad that this time our local Target ran out of room in the ‘girls’ aisle’ and had to spill over into the ‘boys’. I hope that will happen more often.
