The hidden meanings in kids' movies | Colin Stokes | TEDxBeaconStreet

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Captions
Translator: Luis Javier Salvador Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard You know, my favorite part of being a dad is the movies I get to watch. I love sharing my favorite movies with my kids and when my daughter was four, we got to watch "The Wizard of Oz" together. Totally dominated her imagination for months. Her favorite character was Glinda, of course. Gave a great excuse to wear a sparkly dress and carry a wand. You know, you watch a movie enough times and you start to realize how unusual it is. Now, we live today and are raising our children in a kind of children's fantasy spectacular industrial complex. But "The Wizard of Oz" stood alone, it did not start that trend. Forty years later was when the trend really caught on with, interestingly, another movie that featured a metal guy and a furry guy rescuing a girl by dressing up as the enemy's guards. (Laughter) Do you know what I'm talking about? (Laughter) Now, there's a big difference between these two movies, a couple of really big differences between "The Wizard of Oz" and all the movies we watch today. One is there's very little violence in "The Wizard of Oz". The monkeys are rather aggressive as are the apple trees. But I think if "The Wizard of Oz" were made today, the wizard would say, "Dorothy, you are the savior of Oz that the prophecy foretold. Use your magic slippers to defeat the computer-generated armies of the Wicked Witch." That's not how it happens. Another thing that is really unique about "The Wizard of Oz" to me is that all of the most heroic and wise and even villainous characters are female. Now, I started to notice this when I actually showed "Star Wars" to my daughter, which was years later and the situation was different. At that point, I also had a son. He was only 3 at the time. He was not invited to the screening. He's too young for that. But he was a second child and the level of supervision had plummeted. (Laughter) So, he wandered in and it imprinted on him like a mommy duck does to its duckling. Is he picking up on the fact that there are only boys in the universe, except for Aunt Beru and, of course, this princess who is really cool but who kind of waits around through most of the movie so that she can award the hero with a medal and a wink to thank him for saving the universe, which he does by the magic that he was born with. Compare this to 1939 with "The Wizard of Oz". How does Dorothy win her movie? By making friends with everybody and being a leader. That's kind of the world I'd rather raise my kids in. Why is there so much force, capital F Force, in the movies we have for our kids and so little Yellow Brick Road? I know from my own experience that Princess Leia did not provide the adequate context that I could've used in navigating the adult world that is co-ed. (Laughter) You know, there was a kind of first-kiss moment when I really expected the credits to start rolling because that's the end of the movie, right? I finished my quest, I got the girl, why are you still standing there? (Laughter) The movies are very, very focused on defeating the villain and getting your reward and there's not a lot of room for other relationships and other journeys. It's almost as though if you're a boy, you are a dopey animal and if you are a girl, you should bring your warrior costume. I mean, there are plenty of exceptions and I will defend the Disney princesses in front of any of you. But they do send a message to boys. The boys are not really the target audience. They're doing a phenomenal job of teaching girls how to defend against the patriarchy, but they're not necessarily showing boys how they're supposed to defend against the patriarchy. There are no models for them. And we also have some terrific women who are writing new stories for our kids. And as three-dimensional and delightful as Hermione and Katniss are, these are still war movies. And, of course, the most successful studio of all time continues to crank out classic after classic, every single one of them about the journey of a boy, or a man, or two men who are friends, or a man and his son or two men who are raising a little girl. Until, as many of you are thinking, this year, when they finally came out with Brave. I recommend it to all of you. It's on demand now. (Laughter) You remember what the critics said when Brave came out? "Ahh, I can't believe Pixar made a princess movie". Now, almost none of these movies passed the Bechdel test. Alison Bechdel is a comic book artist and back in the mid '80s she recorded this conversation she'd had with a friend, about assessing the movies that they saw. It's very simple. It's just three questions you should ask, Is there more than one character in the movie that is female who has lines? So, try to meet that bar. (Laughter) And do these women talk to each other at any point in the movie? (Laughter) And is their conversation about something other than the guy that they both like? (Laughter) Right? Thank you. (Applause) Thank you very much. Two women who exist and talk to each other about stuff. It does happen. I've seen it. So, let's look at the numbers. 2011, the hundred most popular movies. How many of them do you think actually have female protagonists? Eleven. But there is a number that is greater than this, that's going to bring this room down. Last year, the New York Times published a study that the government had done. Here's what it said. One out of five women in America say that they have been sexually assaulted sometime in their lives. Now, I don't think that's the fault of popular entertainment. I don't think kids' movies have anything to do with that, but something is going wrong and when I hear that statistic, one of the things I think of is, that's a lot of sexual assailants. Who are these guys? What are they learning? What are they failing to learn? Are they absorbing the story that a male hero's job is to defeat the villain with violence and then collect the reward, which is a woman who has no friends and doesn't speak? Are we soaking up that story? You know, as a parent with the privilege of raising a daughter, like all of you who are doing the same thing, we find this world and this statistic very alarming and we want to prepare them. We have tools at our disposal like girl power and we hope that that will help. But I got to wonder, is girl power going to protect them if at the same time, actively or passively, we are training our sons to maintain their boy power? And I'm talking mainly to the dads here. I think we have got to show our sons a new definition of manhood. Now, the definition of manhood is already turning upside down. I mean, you've read about how the new economy is changing the roles of caregiver and wage earner. They are throwing it up in the air. So, our sons are going to have to find some way of adapting to this new relationship with each other. And I think we really have to show them and model for them how a real man is someone who trusts his sisters and respects them, and wants to be on their team, and stands up against the real bad guys, who are the men who want to abuse the women. And I think our job in the Netflix queue is to look out for those movies that passed the Bechdel test, if we can find them, and to seek out the heroines, who are there, who show real courage, who bring people together and nudge our sons to identify with those heroines, and to say, "I want to be on their team", because they're going to be on their team. When I asked my daughter who her favorite character was in "Star Wars", you know what she said? Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Glinda. What do these two have in common? I think these are the two people in the movie who know more than anybody else and they love sharing their knowledge with other people to help them reach their potential. They're leaders. I like that kind of quest for my daughter, and I like that kind of quest for my son. I want more quests like that. I want fewer quests where my son is told, "Go out and fight it alone" and more quests where he sees that it's his job to join a team, maybe a team led by women, to help other people become better and be better people, like "The Wizard of Oz". Thank you. (Applause)
Info
Channel: TEDx Talks
Views: 3,553,238
Rating: 4.6448822 out of 5
Keywords: Star Wars (Film Series), Psychology, Fathers, \Dad's Journey\, Film (Invention), Children, Mother, \United States\, English, Film (film), Culture, tedx talks, TEDxBeaconStreet, Heroes, tedx talk, ted, ted x, Mom, Childrens, Parents, Parenting, \Wizard of Oz\, Gender, \Star Wars\, ted talks, tedx, Movies, Kids, Dads, \Kids Movies\, Hero, Family, Princess, Parent, Education, ted talk, \Hidden meaning\
Id: Nx8RRIiP53Q
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)
Published: Thu Dec 20 2012
Reddit Comments

Got to see this talk live. Really great. Standing ovation.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 5 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/straightgangsta πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jan 07 2013 πŸ—«︎ replies

I always roll my eyes whenever I hear any variation on the phrase "I think we have to show our sons a new definition of manhood", like he says at 8:20. First off, and most importantly, you don't have to do shit to "be a man" except be male and turn 18 (or pick some other age if you want). Everyone agrees with this when applied to women.

This whole "who's a real man?" thing fits right in with traditional gender roles, which say (among other things) that women are these beautiful delicate flowers ("sugar and spice and everything nice"), who must be protected from the dangers of the world (and the corrupting influence of property and voting rights). And men are only valuable to the extent that they're useful, in particular the title of being "a man" is something you earn, not something you get by birthright. Often that use is protecting the women and children (a grouping that fits right in with said gender roles).

Second, listen to what he says, specifically, a real man is:

A real man is someone who trusts his sisters and respects them and wants to be on their team and stands up against the real bad guys who are the men who want to abuse the women.

This is a bad definition. A "real man" (to the extent that's a thing) is defined only by his relationship with women and nothing else? And who identifies "bad guys" as being other men? If you're gonna have a definition, it oughta be about one's self, not about living for others. Perhaps this isn't his whole definition, but these "real man" definitions always have this characteristic, where being a "real man" is what can you do for others.

One thing he sort of gets at earlier which sounds right to me, is that there's 2 archetypes of male characters you see. The goofball and the warrior (and I'd add Homer Simpson-style slob to the "goofball" category). There's a gap between those two, which is where a good role model oughta be. Especially considering of those two archetypes, one is totally inaccessible to the average person, and one isn't something you wanna be (I'd add a third archetype, which is someone like Don Draper or Walter White, the guy who's really talented and good at something, but also really fucked up and has massive flaws, but I guess this doesn't apply to kids movies).

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 7 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/NUMBERS2357 πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jan 07 2013 πŸ—«︎ replies

Blergh. He had a few great points and I agree with the general idea of what he's saying, but it was so mixed up that it ruined the entire talk for me.

He started strongly, talking about his son and The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy as a non-violent(ish) protagonist, but then he gendered everything and it went down hill from there.

"They are doing a phenomenal job of teaching girls...We don't show boys how to defend against the patriarchy, there are no models for them." This is still one of the main problems in our general perceptions of media. A movie with a male protagonist is just a movie, but a movie with a female protagonist is a chick-flick. Why can't his son learn bravery from Katniss Everdeen? Because she's a girl?

He goes on to wonderfully site the Bechdel test, but then cherry picks his examples of 'warrior women' and 'dopey animal men'. Yes the male cartoon animals that you're showing are bumbling and stupid in kids movies. All the sexy girls in armor that you are showing are adult movies. What do the women look like in the cartoons? What do the men look like in the adult movies? Didn't you just say that only 11 out of the top 100 movies in the past year had female protagonists? I'm sick of the 'girls can only learn from girls, boys can only learn from boys mentality.'

There were other things that irked me: "I will defend the Disney Princesses to any of you." "We must model for them a real man." etc

I'm glad we're having the conversation, but it seems like his steps are adding to the problem.

Ugh. It pissed me off at the end, I had to turn it off.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 6 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/archar πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jan 07 2013 πŸ—«︎ replies

That was so right. We have a negative culture here, and we need to change it.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 2 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/RatherWittyUsername πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jan 07 2013 πŸ—«︎ replies

While I like his entire message, I'm not quite sure about his inclusion of Princess Leia. I might be biased, but she was my childhood hero, and I loved that here in this big action-y movie that she had a blaster and was a leader. I mean, I understand what he was saying, but I feel like there are better examples of the damsel in distress trope than Leia. (though yeah, the whole "there are no female pilots!" thing bugs me, too).

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 2 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/proserpinax πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jan 07 2013 πŸ—«︎ replies
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.