hmm. I had planned on seeing this next week/ Perhaps not now.

Oh, there are many delightful things about it.

If you can see past the gender roles. Which are no worse than most Disney gender roles. But no better either, wherein lies the problem.

Oh geez. I was actually kind of looking forward to this. Now I have to wonder whether I'll find it more annoying than fun.

There's actually lots to like, but I have more and more trouble seeing past poorly rendered female characters, these days.

Strangely, the lack of girl didn't even occur to me. What did occur to me, and strike me as cutting close to humorous bone, was that I got the feeling that Remy wasn't interested in romance not because he was too young, but because he was an Artist and had no time for that sort of thing.

I got the feeling that Remy wasn't interested in romance not because he was too young, but because he was an Artist and had no time for that sort of thing.

Also, because there are no female rats. :-)

Hmm. Well, maybe it's terrible of me to say it, but it seemed superfluous to me. Art sometimes devours other parts of one's life... one of those unsavory secrets about artists that I was honestly surprised to see disguised but present in the movie.

But it is a good point, and peculiar now that I think of it.


Will you hit me with a folded newspaper if I say posts like this make me paranoid about having the right quota of women|minorities|gays in my work? *cringes*

I don't think it should ever be a quota thing, or that the men and women need to exactly balance out. But I think having none is different from not worrying about a precise balance--that having no women (or female rats) is a sort of blindness. If there happened to be 10 male rats and 5 female rats--no big deal. The characters aren't always going to be in exact balance, of course. But none? Or only one, a token? It ought to be instinctive that that makes no sense, no paranoia required. :-)

The thing is--if the rats were all female, everyone would notice, and comment on it. It would instinctively seem odd.

Of course you/we should all try to reflect equality in our art and in every moment of our daily lives! Would you ever say it's okay for you to be a racist as long as it's just during evenings and weekends? NO!

We MUST promote quality between sexes, among races, among ages, among religions, etc. If we don't think about it with everything we do, how can we claim we are trying to progress as human beings???

The answer is we can't.

Ratatouille contained three female characters...
1. The old lady (in the beginning)
2. The (bitchy) cook who ends up working under a goofball of a main character
3. The critic (who we never actually see) who first gave the goofball
a good review of his soup

My point? This kind of lack of sexual equality is far worse than
those horrible Girls Gone Wild ads or Hooters restaurants. Why?
Because it is so weaved into the mainstream that half of us/you
don't even believe it to be there!!! Well, it is. Either do something about it or you are saying you promote gender inequality.

That hadn't even occurred to me! I really liked the movie. I thought it was one of the best kids' movies I've seen in a long time. I was more disturbed by the violence early on (the guns).

Pls feel free to delete this comment if it's too far off-thread. But you've just described something that's been bothering me about the Obama/Hillary race. She's got the qualifications, paid her dues, worked her way up ... and now here's this inexperienced flashy man barging in front of her.

If Obama is really as great as people say, he'll still be around next time, with more experience. But the Clintons are too old to wait for next time (Bill had heart surgery in 2004.)

Heh. In that case, I'm not convinced either of them has put in all that much time really, but that's a whole other debate ... I certainly don't disagree that Hillary gets given a hard time in all manner of other directions on account of gender though, and always has been.

It's a whole new school of film criticism: what would a woman in an Icelandic saga do? (Don't misunderstand me, it sounds like just the approach we need.)

It does change one's perspective, when one realizes that 800 years ago some folks, at least, were writing stronger female characters than we seem able to write today!

Yep that's the problem with way too many children's movies - even in this day and age: When in doubt go with a male hero. I'm trying to think of an example of a heroine in a Pixar/Disney movie in recent years but am not having much luck.

And the fact that we do it more with children's movies than with others is really, really creepy, isn't it?

It's bad enough that in a recent animated movie, the cow hero had udders.

...

---L.

Lilo and Stitch. (Not that I disagree, just pointing out an obvious exception.)

True. That was 5 years ago. 4 years before that we had Mulan and 3 before Mulan there was Pocahontas. I say we're overdue for another.

I comfort myself with the notion that if Colette were a woman in an Icelandic saga, she would consider Linguine beneath her, and would find someone to kill him if he thought otherwise.

Now that's a movie I would like to see. Probably not appropriate for small children, alas.

Maybe we could spin an parallel to the ninja replacement meme--rewriting stories to fit Icelandic ssgas?

I actually thought about a Saga Replacement Score to parallel the Ninja Replacement Score. It's harder, though. I mean, we pretty much always know exactly what a ninja will do if inserted into a story, while a saga woman is harder--she won't go along with the traditional vision of a male dominated vision of a Disney hero story, but she also won't step in and become the hero herself in quite the way I'd want her too, because in her world, women in the sagas (based on my reading so far, anyway) are deeply powerful, but exercise that power in completely different ways than the men, and don't take them on the way directly, the way they would in a contemporary story.

Still, I'd rate the Saga Replacement Score for this one at at least one, maybe two, if one of them could be a rat. :-)

Thank you that bothered me too. Why the hell do they do that?

And why do they especially do it in kids' movies, more than in adult ones? (Not that adult movies don't also have issues with female characters.) It's creepy, really. Why is it so hard to have a realistically mixed-gender group of talking animals?

I'm another one who didn't even notice the rats were all male. Remy's father and his brother, obviously I noticed. Weren't those two the only other rats in the whole film who were individuals? I wasn't surprised there was no other parent in sight anywhere; I've read comments elsewhere about the lack of two-parent families in Pixar and animated Disney films.

I didn't like the Colette character, but it never struck me as odd that there would be no other female working in the kitchens of three-to-five-star Parisian restaurant.

I did think they dealt with Colette being the only female character well (though I wonder why she had to be the only one), and that it might even reflect the business she's in reasonably well ... but making her become the support to the other characters, rather than letting her remain an excellent chef in her own right, made less sense.

And there's really no good reason at all for having no female rats. I don't understand that one at all, but children's animation does this even when the animals that are talking are actually female--say, when they're worker ants, or cows.

Once you do begin seeing it, it's really really glaring.

I've always kinda hoped that the last Harry Potter book would reveal that everyone's assumption that Harry is meant to grow up to be the super-fabulous savior of everything is wrong--that he's a normal boy-wizard with a cool scar and PTSD, and that what saves the day is Harry and his excellent friends working together.

Hermione ought to run that place.

Did you see Bitch Ph.D.'s comments on the movie?

http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2007/06/rat-in-kitchen.html

There's also a discussion in the comments over Pixar's "no girl protagonists". It is annoying since they *do* make some of the best movies around, but where are the girls?

oh, and P. and I saw the movie last weekend and just loved it! :)

I think she's pretty much on about the things the movie does well.

Well, except that I also kinda don't like that it buys into the myth that innate talent is worth more than hard work in the arts, which even aside from the gender issues isn't really true.

Well, that is what makes so much Fantasy such drippy balderdash. It's your destiny, babeeeee. Who your parents are determine that you are great. The divine right of kings, the nobility and all that bunk.

Independence Day, while the lights go off all over this nation every single day and both parties and the media collude in the lights of civil liberties and all our other liberties going out, has made me pretty crazy.

Love, C.

"...the notion that a woman who works hard is secondary to a man who doesn't work hard but who has dreams and a good heart."

Guh.

Good points. I've been inured to such and don't really notice anymore. Colette, I did notice, was the pastry chef, which is often done by women according to the chef books I've been reading lately.

Have to point this out to my daughter who saw it with me. Thanks.

Grr. Sure I'll enjoy the movie, but damn it all, why is coming up with an interesting, delightful female character so difficult? I've surely met enough funny, loud girls and women to know there are plenty of models out there. Next thing stories will have all the girls in pink worrying about breaking nails (now if the nails were long enough to be weapons and these were fears of losing a sharpened edge, okay.)

Liesl

My scanning has gotten up to the November 24, 1832 issue of The Penny Magazine, which has an article on "The Economical Mice of Iceland".

Do tell ...

THE ECONOMICAL MICE OF ICELAND.

Dr. Henderson, in his Travels, gives his testimony to the correctness of the popular belief amongst the natives of Iceland, of the remarkable instinct of a species of mouse, the accounts of which have been doubted by some naturalists. He says, "This animal, which is supposed by Olafsen and Povelsen (writers on zoology) to be a variation of the wood, or economical mouse, displays a surprising degree of sagacity, both in conveying home its provisions, and the manner in which it stocks them in the magazine appropriated for that purpose. In a country, says Mr. Pennant, where berries are but thinly dispersed, these little animals are obliged to cross rivers to make their distant forages. In their return with the booty to their magazines, they are obliged to repass the stream; of which Mr. Olafsen (Olafsen and Povelsen) gives the following account:--'The party, which consists of from six to ten, select a flat piece of dried cow-dung, on which they place the berries on a heap in the middle; then, by their united force, bring it to the water's edge, and, after launching it, embark, and place themselves round the heap, with their heads joined over it, and their backs to the water, their tails pendent in the stream, serving the purpose of rudders.' Mr. Hooker, in his 'Tour in Iceland,' ridicules the idea of any such process, and says, that every sensible Icelander laughs at the account as fabulous."

Dr. Henderson then goes on to corroborate the statements of Olafsen and Pennant: "Having been apprised of the doubts that were entertained on this subject, before setting out on my second excursion I made a point of inquiring of different individuals as to the reality of the account, and I am happy in being able to say, that it is now established as an important fact in natural history, by the testimony of two eye-witnesses of unquestionable veracity, the clergyman of Briâmslaek, and Madame Benedictson of Stickesholm, both of whom assured me that they had seen the expedition performed repeatedly. Madame B. in particular recollected having spent a whole afternoon, in her younger days, at the margin of a small lake on which these skilful navigators had embarked, and amused herself and her companions by driving them away from the sides of the lake as they approached them. I was also informed that they make use of dried mushrooms as sacks, in which they convey their provisions to the river, and thence to their homes. Nor is the structure of their nests less remarkable. From the surface of the ground a long passage runs into the earth, similar to that of the Icelandic houses, and terminates in a large and deep hole, intended to receive any water that may find its way through the passage, and serving at the same time as a place for their dung. About two-thirds of the passage, in two diagonal roads, lead to their sleeping apartment and the magazine, which they always contrive to keep free from wet."

I thought I'd check out your journal and saw this post.

I have to admit, the lack of female rats never occurred to me. I did think about Collette being the only female, but I assumed that it was unfortunately a cutthroat and sexist business (especially with the head chef in charge!). Now that you've pointed it out, I'll have to think about it for awhile.

You're definitely right in saying that if it had been a cast of all-female rats, people would have noticed. Hmm!

Interesting that you saw Rémy's story as being about talent before hard work. I thought it was about him studying secretly so that he could choose his own path, even if his family didn't agree with it.

What made me really, really angry: the notion that a woman who works hard is secondary to a man who doesn't work hard but who has dreams and a good heart.

(the Magical Negro as pharmakos)

When you get a strong female chara, all she is there by the end for is to boost the Hero, instead of the guys being there to help her accomplish her mission.

--Yes, I am STILL pissed off at ROTJ for depowering Leia. It doesn't go away!