Gender In Pixar Movies: Article Analysis

For today’s response paper, I would like to dive into my initial thoughts on the Ebrahim’s article on gender in Pixar movies. In this article, her main argument was to show how Pixar movies often portray female human girls in a demon-child role. More specifically, characters such as Molly from the original Toys Story and Darla from Finding Nemo are narratively and cinematically portrayed as forces of nature that can harm the non-human characters in an ironic twist.
It becomes quite apparent from the article that Ebrahim comes from a film theory background in her critique of the movies produced by Pixar. In fact, she discloses in her conclusion that the article was not design to argue any type of media effects that may be invoked from the

pattern she outlines. However, for me, not looking into the effects of the social construction of these types of characters hinders our ability to know the social and psychological impacts on our culture. I understand that this is not the goals for film research, however; it is hard for me not to build upon her arguments through the lens of communication scholarship because she has laid content groundwork in her argument that just tickle my curiosity.
The only critique on her argument, at least from my paradigm of thought, is that specific gender and narrative roles in these movies should not be limited to human characters. While it does show usage of the demon-child role, it hinders our ability to evaluate general gender roles in all characters and there potential effects. Other female roles such as Dot from A Bug’s Life and Pearl from Finding Nemo who are non-human little girls who do not fit the pattern are left out, and they should not be because they can create just as much narrative impact on the film and cultural effects as the human characters.
For the general pattern laid out despite my one critique, I would say that the child-demon role as portrayed by little human girls can serve a means of cultivation. This means that the public may over a long-period of time with multiple viewings of the same character role may start to assume that the general natures of little girls are unintendedly dangerous towards their possessions or surrounding. However there are two issues with the statement that I just made. The first is that cultivation takes numerous viewings of different content in order for an opinion to develop, and there are not enough examples (at least in Pixar films) to create solid cultivation. The second issue is the manner that these characters are framed in a cinematic sense. Characters like Molly and Darla are frame in a comical nature that tells the audience of fantastical nature of the joke. This lessons the cultivation effect because it is harder for an audience to apply it to real life.
From all of this, I am not saying that there is not a social or psychology effect from the content framework that Ebrahim examine. However, from all the media content that society consumes with different portrayals of little girls, I wonder how much variance is there really in this particular pattern.