Why Are All The Cartoon Mother's Dead Analysis

In an article published to The Atlantic “Why Are All the Cartoon Mother’s dead?” by Sarah Boxer declares her point of why in a variety of kid’s movies the mother is deceased or missing and the father is present meanwhile in reality the stats are the opposite. She is coming off as a feminist questioning why mothers are not in a majority of Disney Movies and kid movies in general. In a matter of fact she addresses feminism in this article because she keeps throwing jabs about why fathers are the child’s only parent in the children’s movies. Such as, “Is the unconscious goal of these motherless movies to paper over reality? To hint that the world be better without mothers?”(Boxer). This explains my last thought of how she is addressing feminism

through writing about how Children movies have no mother and usually have an amazing father figure. She is asking rhetorical question to draw a dramatic effect shining on her underlying topic of feminism. She is also repetitive to try to get her forceful meaning across to her audience. Boxer’s essay serves to enlighten her audience through the use of rhetorical questions, statistics, along with the repetition of “it looks like fun” to address the issue of children films to push her point across which is addressing feminism through children films that include fathers as the only parent.
Furthermore, Boxer starts off the essay labeling some of the movies where the mothers are nowhere to be found. Naming the movies and bringing in statistics is to provide information to her readers which is going to influence her idea of feminism upon them. The Father figure as the only parent in these children movies are to show fathers can be parents too and to show a bond that can be strong between parents and family in brief. It doesn’t necessarily mean feminism right off the bat which is where boxer is taking it. As shown in the text “The mothers in the movie were either gone or useless. And the father figures? To die for!”(Boxer). This shows how in these movies there is no mother but there is a father who plays the only parent in majority of the movies. This is looking like the current theme of all these Disney movies. There is a selected amount of movies that have just a mother or both parents. These movies are for young children who are growing up. I watched all of these movies starting from when I was 5 till now and I have never once thought of reality being altered from these single parent views. I just loved these movies. As stated in the previous paragraph Boxer is just trying to push her idea of feminism and what is a better way to do it than targeting movies without women even better without mothers. The statistics in this essay read off “Did you know 60 percent of U.S households with kids are headed by married couples, 25 percent by single mothers, and only 8 percent by single fathers.”(Boxer). This statistic can add upon the feministic idea of why mothers are excluded from children film meanwhile they are more likely than man to be single parents. This can come into play of why Children movie directors put single fathers in majority of the movies, they want to show the world that fathers can raise kids too.
In addition, Boxer lists Finding Nemo as one of the motherless movies which is true but Dory is a female fish who befriends the father Marlin.

In a way she becomes a mother figure to Nemo. So if you think about, it isn’t really a motherless movie after all! In another movie Brother Bear there are no parents at all, a male bear meets a baby cub who guides the cub through the woods in search for his mother, and through this adventure becomes a brother figure to the baby cub. “The dead mother plot is a fixture of fiction, so deeply woven into our story telling fabric that it seems to unravel or explain.”(Boxer). It is possible to explain but you can’t get the real answer until you ask the director. But the reason why she stated this is to further her idea of feminism which she is trying to address throughout this whole article using the theme of motherless children movies. Another rhetorical question that Boxer included in this article is “Is it to encourage more men to be maternal? To suggest that fathers would be better than mothers if only they had the chance?”(Boxer). These questions add on to how she is addressing her feminist ideas through this article to make her point of feminism appeal stronger to her audience. In the entirety of the article Boxer uses the phrase “it looks like fun! Mothers are killed so fathers can take over. And when plucky kids and plucky dads join forces, it looks like fun!”(Boxer). She uses the phrase of “it looks like fun!” to portray the “fact” that when the mother is absent, the bond the father figure and the child share is “picture perfect”. She uses that phrase to show light on how when the mom isn’t there the father and child have fun and they live a perfect life which is why she says it looks like

fun.
Critics may believe that she is not being a feminist and how she’s not addressing feminism through the use of this article. Also how she didn’t use effective ways to address her point. Boxer uses rhetorical questions to address her idea of feminism but it wasn’t effective to the point that people labeled it as a feminist article. However, her addition of statistics helped with her idea of addressing her feministic ideas to the public. It was an effective way to write an article especially with the topic she wrote about. Critics say how Boxer article is weak and consists of repetition which shows how it wasn’t effective because it shows she don’t know what to say that would further her point. Meanwhile, Boxer’s use of questions and statistics is what makes this article effective due to the reason it shows how she is bringing light on the topic where is the mother. Boxer’s article is an effective feminist piece of writing which brings light to the topic of feminism in this current situation of children films.

In the final analysis, Boxer wrote an article to express her idea of how women figures are absent in children films, to address her point of feminism to the public using rhetorical questions, statistics, and repetitiveness. Boxer wanted to inform her audience that Disney films are mostly consisted of motherless films and that the fathers act as the only parent to the child. This also added to her point and how she would express her idea of feminism to the readers of this article. She achieved success through her style of writing because the first time I read this article I said to myself she’s a feminist. Her usage of questions and statistics is really what solidified her point of view of how she was going to address her ideas of feminism amongst the readers.