Horton Hears About Gender Inequality?
While most of what I’ve heard about the Horton Hears a Who movie has been positive, as long as you didn’t expect the verbatim book, Peter Sagal from NPR went to see the movie with his wife and three daughters, and is less than thrilled. Most of his ire, other than what seems to be a general dislike of Jim Carrey, centers around an addition to the Whoville saga:
In a new subplot added by the filmmakers, the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters. He has one son. Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day? Go ahead, think about it, I’ll wait.
No I won’t. What’s so irritating about this casual slap at daughters is the sense that the makers of the film didn’t really mean it. They seemed mostly interested in riffs on pop culture and jokes about violating bodily integrity. But what writers are told, you see, in Hollywood notes meetings, is that every character has to make a journey, towards something he needs and ultimately gets, and what they decided the Mayor of Whoville needs was a better relationship with his son. Here is a father with 96 daughters — 96 amazing, beautiful, unpredictable, mysterious, distinct, glorious human beings — but gosh, what in the world is he going to care about? I know, let’s give him a moody silent uninteresting offspring, but this one’s got a Y chromosome… that’ll be boffo box office!
As a viewer, I am very forgiving about changes to the story to make a movie — I tend to evaluate movies on their own merits and failings, and try not to read “isms” (or stupidity) into the changes that were made from the book. However, with 96 daughters and 1 son worked into the plot of the movie itself, it doesn’t require a book comparison to see some sexism here.
The rant by Sagal is definitely worth reading, especially the bit with him and his daughters in the car afterwards. But one of my favorite parts?
Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?
Well, Peter, not if they watch Joss Whedon’s movies… 
Posted by Erin | Apr 3rd, 2008 | in Movies
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these kind of ’subliminal’ messages are in almost all children’s movies. the most emancipated Disney heroine seems to be Belle, who goes off with an abusive monster and in the end, everything is hunky-dory and they all live HEA.
what a crock.
nice post.
Yep.
We wonder why the divorce rate is so high and some young girls are still believe they’re “just not good” at math and science. Hmm.
Disney’s Snow White is a trip. She escapes murder at the hand of her family and winds up having to live with a group of single, strange, little men in the woods. She’s poisioned by a witch, “dies” and lies in suspended animation (har har, bad joke). Her hansome prince comes, kisses her (necrophiliac) and is wisked of into a fairytale marriage. (Rasberry sounds)