Fact Check: Only 13 Female Protagonists

"Between 1937 and 2005 there were only 13 female protagonists in animated movies."

I stumbled upon this quote that's been floating around, originating from Miss Representation, though I can no longer find it on their site. There doesn't seem to be any source material backing it up. I feel like this is why it is so important to get some raw data out there about gender statistics in animation, because there isn't a lot to go off of at the moment.

Cartoon Closet 6

Part 6: The Repopularization of the Male Duo

The repopularization of the male duo was directly tied to the creator driven animation movement that blossomed in the nineties. And the explosion of male duos shows was all the more striking in comparison to the eighties which was (almost) completely void of any. Lets looks at some historical context.

A Brief History of the Eighties

Under president Reagan there was a heavy deregulation of children’s media. Limiting the number of commercials targeting children was called out as violating an advertisers first amendment rights. Mark Fowler the elected chairman of the Federal Communications Commission continued the job the president started, saying “The marketplace will take care of children” (Education).

Rubik the Amazing Cube, yes - this actually existed

And take care of them it did.

New York Times Reblog

Dave Itzkoff recently wrote an article for the New York Times looking at the flaws in Fredric Wertham's research for the "Seduction of the Innocent." It is a great article and shows the ways in which major censorship was implemented (through the comic code) based on what now appears to be Wartham's exaggeration of his findings.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article

It is also is very exciting for me, as a blogger, because the article links back to my Cartoon Closet series.

"Elsewhere in the book Wertham argues that the superheroes Batman and Robin represent “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together,” and cited a young gay man who says that he put himself “in the position of Robin” and “did want to have relations with Batman.”

Although I've only been writing the Cartoon Closet for about half a year, it's a compilation of years worth of research. It's really exciting to be getting traffic from such a talented author, and well respected news source. Basically, yay!

Intended Innuendo

Children's cartoons are by defualt a comedy genre. There is a history of intended innuendo, or adult humor that is hidden along side the humor targeting kids. Here are a few examples showing double coded punchlines (this is a just a small handful of the types of jokes that are in kids shows):

 

Cartoon Network Bumper - Powerpuff Girls (Justice League Spoof)

Timeline

This is an ongoing timeline, showing an overview of the events I discuss in the Cartoon Closet series. It is in progress, and I will continue adding more dates and links to it. If you notice something important I'm missing, please comment, so I can add it in : )

Cartoon Closet Part 3

Part 3: Archetype of the Male Duo

The Male Duo in Live Action

The Male Duo Archetype* in animation has its roots in Vaudeville acts. Originally bawdy stage shows based heavily on their verbal humor, the transition to film led slapstick comedy to being the focus during the silent era. With talkies the male duo comedy acts incorporated both slapstick and verbal humor (wiki).

Gay Subtext?

Homoeroticism has been a part of the genre from the very beginning. Part of this has to do with relationship comedy, where the male characters would deconstruct male/female and husband/wife relationships playing the role of one or the other as part of the comedy act.

For instance in Their First Mistake (1932) where Laurel and Hardy adopt a child. In a conversation that takes place in bed, Laurel convinces Hardy he should adopt a baby, in order to keep his wife's mind occupied. That way they could continue going out at night together and it wouldn't bother her so much. But when they get home with the baby, they discover that Hardy's wife is filing for divorce for alienation of affections blaiming Laurel as the other woman (73). This is used to create a mock husband/wife relationship between them, first with Hardy playing the angry wife whose husband is shirking his responsibilities, then with Laurel playing the wife in a sequence that jokes about breast-feeding.

Their First Mistake is unmistakably homoerotic, but whether this was intended, or soley a result of parodying heterosexual relationships it's hard to know. But looking at an earlier Laurel and Hardy, Liberty (1929) we can see, as Russo puts it, homosexuality as a part of farcical misunderstandings (72).

In this movie a running gag involves the two having put on the others pants. They spend the first half of the short trying to find a place to privately switch clothing. The joke hinges on the reaction of those who catch them, and clearly think something naughty is going on. In one case, they are trying to change in the back of a taxi. Caught half-way through by a man and woman, Laurel and Hardy quickly leave, but before the couple enters the taxi the man makes sure no one else is in the back. Who is this third person he's looking for? (a woman perhaps?).

Krazy Kat and Ignatz

Cartoon Worlds and Gender Ambiguity
 

(cartoons have)...always carried the potential for divisions of human/animal, naked/clothed, child/adult, and male/female, playing both and neither as the situation warrants. The characters’ fluidity allows not only for transgressive readings of gender roles, as Sam Abel (1995) argues, but implicit or explicit articulations of same-sex identity, behavior, and desire."

Sometimes when you use quotes like this ("have always carried"), people say that you are misinterpreting older material by filtering it through a modern day context. So, to give an early example of a “male” duo and to show how long the tradition of cartoon ambiguity has existed for I wanted to take a quick look at a newspaper comic strip that started in 1913: Krazy Kat.

 

The comic was set against gorgeous ever changing desert scenery, as surreal and ambiguous as the title character of the strip. The story followed the adventures of Krazy who is madly in love with Ignatz, a mouse who detests the attention and throws bricks at the cat’s head. Krazy thinks the bricks are a sign of Ignatz devotion. The dog Officer of their town (in love with Krazy), constantly tries to arrest Ignatz for his crimes.