{"id":240,"date":"2014-09-11T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T09:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/?p=240"},"modified":"2014-09-17T15:51:59","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T15:51:59","slug":"barrel-chests-brawn-and-buffoonery-controlling-images-of-masculinity-in-pixar-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/2014\/09\/11\/barrel-chests-brawn-and-buffoonery-controlling-images-of-masculinity-in-pixar-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrel Chests, Brawn, and Buffoonery: Controlling Images of Masculinity in Pixar Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just read and reviewed<\/a> Shannon Wooden and Ken Gillam\u2019s Pixar\u2019s Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age<\/em><\/a>. And I thought I\u2019d build on some of a piece of their critique of a pattern in the Pixar canon to do with portrayals of masculine embodiment. In Black Feminist Thought<\/em><\/a>, Patricia Hill Collins<\/a> coined the term \u201ccontrolling images\u201d to analyze how cultural stereotypes surrounding specific groups ossify in the form of cultural images and symbols that work to (re)situate those groups within social hierarchies. Controlling images work in ways that produce a \u201ctruth\u201d about that group (regardless of its actual veracity). Collins was particularly interested in the controlling images of Black women and argues that those images play a fundamental role in Black women\u2019s continued oppression. While the concept of \u201ccontrolling images\u201d is largely applied to popular portrayals of disadvantaged groups, in this post, I’m considering how the concept applies to a consideration of the controlling images of a historically privileged group. How do controlling images of dominant groups work in ways that shore up existing relations of power and inequality when we consider portrayals of dominant groups?<\/p>\n

Pixar films have been popularly hailed as pushing back against some of the heteronormative gender conformity that is widely understood as characterizing the Disney collection. While a woman didn\u2019t occupy the lead protagonist role until Brave<\/em><\/a>(2012), the girls and women in Pixar movies seem more complex, self-possessed, and even tough.\u00a0 [Side note: Disney\u2019s Frozen <\/em>is obviously an important exception among Disney movies. See Afshan Jafar\u2019s nuanced feminist analysis of the film here<\/a>.]\u00a0 In fact, Pixar\u2019s movies are often hailed as pushing back against some of the narratological tyranny of some of the key plot and characterological devices that research has shown<\/a> to characterize the majority of children’s animated movies. But, what can we learn from their depictions of boys and men?<\/p>\n

Philip Cohen<\/a> has posted before on the imagery of gender dimorphism in children\u2019s animated films. Despite some ostensibly (if superficially) feminist features in films like Tangled<\/em><\/a> (2010), Gnomeo and Juliet<\/em><\/a> (2011), and Frozen<\/em><\/a> (2013), Cohen points to the work done by the images of men\u2019s and women\u2019s bodies\u2014paying particular attention to their relative size (see Cohen\u2019s posts here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>). Cohen’s point about exaggerated gendered imagery of bodies might initially strike some as trivial (e.g., \u201cDisney favors compositions in which women\u2019s hands are tiny compared to men\u2019s, especially when they are in romantic relationships\u201d [here<\/a>]), but it is one small way that relations of power and dominance are symbolically upheld, even in films that might seem to challenge this relationship.\u00a0 How are masculine bodies depicted in Pixar films? And what kind of work do these depictions do? Is this work at odds with their popular portrayal as feminist (or at least feminist-friendly) films?<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

Large, heavily muscled bodies are both relied on and used as comic relief in Pixar\u2019s collection. It’s also true that some of the primary characters are men with traditionally stigmatized embodiments of masculinity: overly thin (Woody in Toy Story<\/em><\/a>, Flic in A Bug\u2019s Life<\/em><\/a>), physically awkward (Linguini in Ratatouille<\/em><\/a>), deformed (Nemo in Finding Nemo<\/em><\/a>), fat (Russell in Up<\/em><\/a>), etc. Yet, these characters often end up accomplishing some mission or saving the day not because <\/em>of their bodies, but rather, in spite<\/em> of them. When their bodies are put on display at all, it\u2019s typically as they are held up against a cast of characters whose bodies are presented as more naturally exuding \u201cmasculine\u201d qualities we\u2019ve learned to recognize as characteristic of \u201creal\u201d heroes. As Wooden and Gillam write:<\/p>\n

Amidst ostensibly ironic inversions of power in the Monsters<\/em> films and The Incredibles<\/em>, male bodies are still ranked according to a tragically familiar social paradigm, whereby bigger, stronger, and more athletic men and boys are invariably understood as superior to smaller, more delicate, or intellectual ones. (here<\/a>: 34)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wooden and Gillam use Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story<\/em> as, perhaps, the most glaring example . When we first meet Buzz in the Andy\u2019s room, Buzz does not recognize himself as a toy. He is foolish, laughably arrogant, imprudent, and, quite frankly, a bit reckless. Yet, the audience is supposed to interpret Buzz as the other toys in Andy\u2019s room do\u2014we’re in awe of him. Buzz embodies a recognizable high status masculinity. Sulley in Monsters Inc. <\/em>occupies a similar body and, like Buzz, he is instantly situated as occupying a recognizably masculine heroic role (a role that is bolstered by the comically embodied Mike Wazowksi, whose body works to shore up Sulley\u2019s masculinity). While Buzz and Sulley\u2014and similarly embodied men in other Pixar movies\u2014are sometimes teased for conforming to some of the \u201cdumb jock\u201d stereotypes that characterize male action heroes of the 1980s, their bodies retain their status and still work as controlling images that reiterate social hierarchies.<\/p>\n

In C.J. Pascoe<\/a>\u2019s research on masculinity in American high schools<\/a>, she coined the term \u201cjock insurance\u201d to address a very specific phenomenon. Boys occupying high status masculinities were afforded a form of symbolic \u201cinsurance\u201d that enabled them to transgress masculinity without affecting their status. In fact, their transgressions often worked in ways that actually shored up their masculinities. This kind of \u201cjock insurance\u201d is relied upon as a patterned narratological device in Pixar movies. Barrel-chested, brawny, male characters are allowed to be buffoons; they\u2019re allowed to participate in potentially feminizing or emasculating behaviors without having those behaviors challenge the masculinities their bodies situate them as occupying or their status (in anything other than a superficial sort of way).\u00a0 For instance, Sulley, Mr. Incredible, Lightning McQueen, and Buzz Lightyear perform domestic masculinities in ways that don\u2019t actually challenge their symbolic position of dominance. Indeed, the awkwardness with which they participate in these roles implicitly suggests that these men naturally belong elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\"ParrIn The Incredibles<\/em>, Bob Parr\u2019s incredible strength and monstrous body look silly accomplishing domestic tasks or even occupying a traditionally domestic masculinity. His small car helps is body appear laughable in this role as he drives to work. At work, Bob\u2019s desk plays a similar role. His body is depicted as not belonging there\u2014domesticity is symbolically holding him back. This sort of \u201ccrisis of masculinity\u201d narrative plays out in the stories of many of these characters. So, when they occupy the role they are initially depicted as denying, the narrative creates a frame for the audience to collectively experience relief as they take on the heroic roles for which their bodies symbolically situate them as more naturally suited. The scene in The Incredibles<\/em> in which Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) quits his job by punching his boss (whose physically inferior body is regularly situated alongside Bob\u2019s for comic relief) through a wall is perhaps the most exaggerated example of this. The pleasures these films invite us to share at these moments when gendered hierarchies of embodiment are symbolically put on display play a role in reproducing inequality.<\/p>\n

Similar to Nicola Rehling\u2019s analysis of white, heterosexual masculinity in popular movies in Extra-Ordinary Men<\/a><\/em>, portrayals of masculinity in Pixar films work in ways that simultaneously decenter and recenter dominant embodiments of masculinity \u2013 and in the process, obscure relations of power and inequality. \"ScreenIndeed, side-kicks and villains are most often depicted as occupying masculine bodies less worthy of status. These masculine counter-types (like Randall in Monsters Inc.<\/em>, Sid Phillips in Toy Story<\/em>, or Buddy Pine\/Syndrome in The Incredibles<\/em>) embody masculinities portrayed as \u201cdeserving\u201d the \u201cjustice\u201d they are served.<\/p>\n

The films in Pixar\u2019s collection show a patterned reliance on controlling images associated with the embodiment of masculinity that shores up the very systems of gender inequality the films are often lauded as challenging. To be clear, I like these films \u2013 and clearly, many of them are a significant step in a new direction. Yet, we continue to implicitly exalt controlling images of masculine embodiment that reiterate gender relations between men and exaggerate gender dimorphism between men and women.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, when you point out how patterns reproduce inequality, people expect you to provide a solution. But, what would challenging these images actually look like? That is, I think, a more difficult question than it might at first appear. A former Dreamworks animator, Jason Porath, might help us think about this in a new way. Porath\u2019s blog\u2014Rejected Princesses<\/a>\u2014was recently featured<\/a> on NPR\u2019s All Things Considered. On the site, Porath plays with \u201cprincessizing\u201d unsung heroines unlikely to hit the big screen.\u00a0 His tagline reads: “Women too awesome, awful, or offbeat for kids’ movies.” \"tumblr_n7dwg3bfii1ry5q8mo5_1280\"<\/a>Yet, even here, Porath relies on recognizable embodiments of \u201cthe princess\u201d to depict these women\u2014like his portrayal of Mariya Oktyabrskaya<\/a>, the first woman tanker to be awarded the \u201cHero of the Soviet Union\u201d award. Similarly, cartoonist David Trumble produced a series of images<\/a> that \u201cover-feminize\u201d real-life heroines like Anne Frank, Susan B. Anthony, Marie Curie, Sojourner Truth and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. While both of these projects make powerful statements, we need more cartoon imagery that challenge these gendered embodiments alongside narratives and characters that support this project. What that might actually look like is currently unclear. What is clear, I think, is that we can do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just read and reviewed Shannon Wooden and Ken Gillam\u2019s Pixar\u2019s Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age. And I thought I\u2019d build on some of a piece of their critique of a pattern in the Pixar canon to do with portrayals of masculine embodiment. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins coined the term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1958,"featured_media":249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30335,26,175],"tags":[25189,1976,30366,30365,21696],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feminist-sociology","category-public-sociology","category-sociology","tag-masculinities","tag-masculinity","tag-masculinity-in-movies","tag-masculinity-in-popular-culture","tag-pixar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/files\/2014\/09\/Syndrome2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}