refining these impatient ores

[lotesse]

I am taking the day off. The Boy is off, and my class this morning was canceled, and amazingly enough I don't have any major deadlines to meet for the next two weeks. Of course, then it will be the end of the semester - but today is mine, at any rate, to do whatever I like with! At present that means reading fic. Later I think it will mean going to the movies. Paul, maybe, or something else. There's Metropolitan Opera this weekend, and I'm excited about that!

Watched How To Train Your Dragon again last night - I am in total imminent danger of picking it up as a new fandom. It's so many things that I liked in kidlit - moppetty little boy makes good, and the sweetness of the animal friend story. Not to mention the lovely lessons in anti-disablism and nonviolence and forgiveness and the ability to befriend those who aren't exactly like yourself. And Hiccup is a great protagonist, between the sarcasm and the quick wits and his underlying sweetness.

I would not be at all surprised to find myself writing it. Or at the very least offering for yuletide next year.

Comments

[thistlerose]

I've been avoiding "How To Train Your Dragon" because of my annoyance with the dearth of female protagonists in children's films, but ... it looks so cute! It's wearing me down. The dragon looks like my cat. I think I need to watch it after all.

[lotesse]

I did the same thing - the previews made it look really kind of sexist and irritating. And it is guy-heavy, but out of the five child-characters two are girls, they're both actually badass, and crowd scenes, at least, contain plenty of warrior women.

But it's also doing really sweet and lovely things with masculinity, and that's why I'm inclined to - somewhat - forgive it. The protag is a tiny skinny brainy nerd who begins by believing that he has to kill to become a man, and ends with him transforming his community by virtue of his clever mind and loving heart. Masculinity as an anxious structure with violent consequences gets pretty thoroughly critiqued.

[ilthit]

It doesn't pass the Bechdel test and most characters are male, but it has alpha female/beta male romance. :D That always makes me so happy. Also, Ruffnut (not the love interest) is a thug, which I love because you never see girls in films being thuggish and rowdy like that.

[thistlerose]

I watched it tonight and I thought it was utterly charming. Toothless doesn't just look like my cat; he acts quite a bit like my cat. *g* But I still don't see a compelling reason for a male protagonist.

[lotesse]

No, I don't either. The common wisdom that girls will watch boy protags but boys won't watch girls still seems to be taken as such. Or - the dragon could be a girl, or the boy could have a complicated relationship with a mother or -

there are so many ways out of the imbalance, and they're all so easy. It's beyond aggravating that no one in the industry is willing to give a damn. (this is why I keep clinging to Miyazaki!)

[thistlerose]

It's so disheartening.

All the while I was enjoying the movie, I kept thinking - what if Hiccup were a girl? What if her father were upset because she wasn't a warrior like her mother had been? What if, instead of a love interest, Astrid were the BFF? (Or, what if Astrid and girl!Hiccup were attracted to each other??) I don't think the movie would have lost anything.

Miyazaki is wonderful. He gets it. And boys still want to see his movies!

[ilthit]

Well, it was based on a kids' book, and publishers still think that if you have a book about dragons it's a "boy book" and so it has to have a boy protagonist. I think I read something about that being J.K.'s reason for writing about a boy wizard rather than a girl. Interestingly, HTTYD was also written by a woman. One of my favourite kids' book series (very juvenile, like the original HTTYD actually, but I don't know, I like it) is The Little Vampire, and that's another fantasy series starring a boy written by a woman.

So, you know, I blame kids' book publishers, but it's not like they're wrong. I think I read that there have been studies showing that boys won't see girl movies, but girls will see boy movies, and any kids' movie starring a girl is in danger of being pegged as a girl movie. It's all down to socialization, though. I don't know much about kids, I've known boys who like My Little Ponies and I watched a young boy once who was quite happy to watch the Tinkerbell movie, probably just because I, as the resident adult, didn't act like that was weird, and there was no one else around.

[thistlerose]

Yeah, I've heard that too and I believe it. Rather, I believe that that's what the publishers and producers think. I just wish like hell that parents and teachers would do what they can to counter this idea that girls can only be protagonists if the target audience is female.

I read a lot of fantasy/adventure books when I was younger, and while I loved most of the male protagonists, I was drawn more to the girls - like Eilonwy, Eowyn, and Aravis - and wish they, or women/girls like them, had had starring roles.

[elderberrywine]

It was a surprisingly sweet movie. I saw it in 3D and to this date, it's the only movie that has actually made 3D a virtue, IMHO. 3D is normally something I avoid like the plague, but oh, those gorgeous flying scenes were to die for.

And I must admit that I was a soggy mess at the ending.

[ilthit]

HTTYD <3 <3 <3