Shallow Depths
Apr. 9th, 2014 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilI don't have any new movies to write about, but for some reason I was cogitating about The Princess and the Frog recently, and something stood out to me that hadn't before. I like this movie a lot and think it's generally under-appreciated, though I can see it would be incredibly frustrating for girls with darker skin to finally see a Disney heroine who looks like them - only to have her spend most of the movie as a frog! But, predictably, what I'm going to talk about here is gender roles.
This film has two characters with very similar traits. Both are shallow, self-absorbed, focused on material possessions and superficial romances. One, Naveen, is male and the other, Charlotte, is female. Naveen is the male protagonist of the story. But Charlotte is only the female sidekick. Naveen's character has the chance to undergo a process of maturity and improvement, an arc that has just about equal focus as the Tiana's. Charlotte remains fairly static, with one small moment of growth when she gives up her dreams of marrying a prince so Tiana can be happy. It's nice of her, but after all, there are plenty of other princes to scheme after.
It doesn't ruin the movie for me. On my first viewing I was more concerned that Charlotte would turn out to be a villain, or at least a catty rival pitted against Tiana, so I was happy they let her be a supportive friend. I also thought it was an amusing and somewhat ironic parody of princess-obssessed culture. But it reminds me of a larger trend in stories, wherein the trope of the Shallow Guy is frequently used as the romantic lead who will of course be conveniently reformed for the benefit of his love interest. Yet the Shallow Girl is rarely used the same way. She's usually a side character, comic relief or a contrast to the more level-headed, mature female lead. I'm certainly glad that female characters aren't invariably painted as silly empty-headed things, but as I've mentioned before, it's not fair for the women to possess all the maturity and responsibility in a relationship while caring for a man-child.
The thing is, if you look at the differences in Naveen and Charlotte's development within the story rather than external cultural influences, it's really just the fact that Naveen's parents cut him off instead of continuing to spoil him, which then leads to him getting tangled up with the Shadow Man and forced to spend time with Tiana. Is this also a function of gender? Maybe. Maybe his parents wouldn't have worried about their child developing self-sufficiency if it were a girl. Or maybe being actual royalty rather than New Orleans pseudo-royalty requires more maturity. In any case, there's no definitive reason, story-wise, why Charlotte is less deserving of a good old dose of reality compared to Naveen.
Ah, I'm over-thinking things as usual. Yes, and yet I think this has more general ramifications than Disney heroes and heroines. As I just said, I'm glad that women aren't unilaterally portrayed as silly and empty-headed. That's because I don't want female characters to be flat, caricatured depictions. I want them to be rich, multidimensional and varied. That means they need flaws - as wide a spectrum of flaws as male characters are given. This, of course, depends on the assumption that there are just as many females in any given story as males. And we have a long way to go before that happens. Here's hoping.
This film has two characters with very similar traits. Both are shallow, self-absorbed, focused on material possessions and superficial romances. One, Naveen, is male and the other, Charlotte, is female. Naveen is the male protagonist of the story. But Charlotte is only the female sidekick. Naveen's character has the chance to undergo a process of maturity and improvement, an arc that has just about equal focus as the Tiana's. Charlotte remains fairly static, with one small moment of growth when she gives up her dreams of marrying a prince so Tiana can be happy. It's nice of her, but after all, there are plenty of other princes to scheme after.
It doesn't ruin the movie for me. On my first viewing I was more concerned that Charlotte would turn out to be a villain, or at least a catty rival pitted against Tiana, so I was happy they let her be a supportive friend. I also thought it was an amusing and somewhat ironic parody of princess-obssessed culture. But it reminds me of a larger trend in stories, wherein the trope of the Shallow Guy is frequently used as the romantic lead who will of course be conveniently reformed for the benefit of his love interest. Yet the Shallow Girl is rarely used the same way. She's usually a side character, comic relief or a contrast to the more level-headed, mature female lead. I'm certainly glad that female characters aren't invariably painted as silly empty-headed things, but as I've mentioned before, it's not fair for the women to possess all the maturity and responsibility in a relationship while caring for a man-child.
The thing is, if you look at the differences in Naveen and Charlotte's development within the story rather than external cultural influences, it's really just the fact that Naveen's parents cut him off instead of continuing to spoil him, which then leads to him getting tangled up with the Shadow Man and forced to spend time with Tiana. Is this also a function of gender? Maybe. Maybe his parents wouldn't have worried about their child developing self-sufficiency if it were a girl. Or maybe being actual royalty rather than New Orleans pseudo-royalty requires more maturity. In any case, there's no definitive reason, story-wise, why Charlotte is less deserving of a good old dose of reality compared to Naveen.
Ah, I'm over-thinking things as usual. Yes, and yet I think this has more general ramifications than Disney heroes and heroines. As I just said, I'm glad that women aren't unilaterally portrayed as silly and empty-headed. That's because I don't want female characters to be flat, caricatured depictions. I want them to be rich, multidimensional and varied. That means they need flaws - as wide a spectrum of flaws as male characters are given. This, of course, depends on the assumption that there are just as many females in any given story as males. And we have a long way to go before that happens. Here's hoping.
