What is Femenism?
Any person that defends women in any way is called a femenist by feminists.
Feminists defend women through the glasses of feminism. I defend them through other ethical principles. Some feminists will call me a femenist anyway. Others will recognize that our ideological divide is significant and will act accordingly.
So, what is feminism? The dictionary says:
"Belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests"
But when I say "feminism" I specifically mean “Any movement that defends women and / or their interests in a questionable or condemnable way. This happens when one or more of the following are present:
+ erroneous beliefs are used to justify the defense of women (ie., Marxist feminism)
+ unlawful methods (ie., bombing a city hall so that women can vote)
+ Pretending to give to women rights that they do not have (ie., abortion, the priesthood)
How Does Feminism Express Itself In Family Movies?
I have to be very honest with you: feminism in family movies is a relatively recent phenomenon. In fact, some of the movies that claimed to be femenist were actually hurtful for the movement, because they tried to defend femenist doctrines in a clumsy, preachy and harsh way. This led many into rejecting some forms of feminism.
This doesn't mean that one can't learn feminism from them, or that there aren’t femenist movies that actually pay attention to details and write effective propaganda.
There are 3 main ways in which we can find feminism in this films:
Be Yourself Feminism is when a femenist message is implemented through a be-yourself plotline
Brat Feminism is that style of feminism which teaches girls to be mean and selfish. This movies either try to justify this behavior or glorify it.
Strong Female™ Feminism is when the movie portrays it's females as unstoppable forces of nature, whose only limit is the patriarchy and whose male companions are dumb and slow.
There's technically nothing wrong with Mary Sue type characters, but this specific films do this in the name of feminism.
We also need to distinguish between a movie with feminism and a movie about feminism.
A movie with feminism is a movie that inserts some feminist ideas in a movie that focuses on other topics.
A movie about feminism is a movie were the plot revolves around feminist ideas.
Movie with Feminism: Zootopia, Spider Verse 2
In Zootropolis, our main character is a female rabbit who wants to be a cop. She is ridiculed because rabbits are weak, but it's not like this doesn't have a feminist undertones.
In Spider Verse 2, we have pregnant spider person:
Movie About Feminism: Amazon's Cinderella
Amazon's Cinderella revolves around multiple feminist ideas. For example, Amazon's Cinderella wants to be a powerful entrepreneur in a society where people don't let women sell anything. She's a deconstruction of a classic fairy tale.
Be Yourself Feminism: Brave (2012)
First we should have a quick recap about what "Be Yourself" is
"The most prevalent moral that we can find in family movies is what I call the "Self Acceptance" message, or, alternatively, the be yourself message.
"Be Yourself" is a rather ambiguous frase, but under closer examination I realized that it is a slogan for the following principles:
1: You are perfect just the way you are. Accepting yourself is virtuous.
2: You shouldn't stop doing what gives you happiness / identity for the sake of others.
3: Others should accept you just the way you are and you should accept others just the way they are."
Some movies express this message with a character who wants to do something, or belongs to some group (is) that isn't accepted by others.
In the case of Brave, we are introduced with Princess Mérida. Her definition of "be yourself" would include shooting arrows, riding on her horse and behaving with harsh manners.
Merida is herself when she does this things, but her mother Queen Elinor expects a different type of daughter - one that follows rules and acts elegantly. This rift between them is increased when it's time to find a suitor to Merida.
You see, Merida can't be herself because she is a princess and her mother wants her to behave like a normal princess. She is rebelling against patriarchal law. While the movie isn't as obviously feminist as Barbie (2023), everyone can tell what the writers were thinking.
Bratt Merida, exhausted by her mother's nagging, throws a massive temper tantrum in public and breaks a family tapestry. Called by weird blue lights, Merida finds a witch, and asks her to "change" her mother. The witch then turns Queen Elinor into a black bear. Awesome daughter, asking random crones to give drugs to mom.
This totally unexpected transformation allows Queen Elinor and Merida to mend their relationship. The way I see it, Merida realized she was fighting the wrong enemy: the enemy wasn't her mother, but the expectations of society.
Later, Merida returns home and gives a big speech about how she shouldn't be pressured into marriage. She's learnt from her mother, that she can use soft power (a fairly feminine quality) to get her femenist wishes.
In the end, as Merida and Queen Elinor forgive each other, their styles of being women - the tomboy and the queen - have been synthesized. This movie wasn't written with hostility towards girly women. Instead it tried to unite them with Tomboys against inconvenient cultural conventions.
Brat Feminism: Toy Story 4 (2019)
There are a lot of harsh, rude characters in Hollywood. It's not just girls. However, when a movie shows a female character acting with disrespectful, poor manners - and it can be interpreted as an attempt to teach feminism - we have a Brat Femenist Character.
I think all the characters in this page are bratty to some extent, but Bo-Peep from Toy Story 4 really takes the cake.
You see, the original trilogy portrays Bo-Peep as a sweet love-interest. She's got a secondary role and was probably too girly for modern Disney.
In Tou Story 4, Bo-Peep experiences a brutal personality swift. During a flashback scene, she is suddenly a girl boss who wishes freedom.
Long story short, Bo-Peep is separated from the classic Toy Story cast. And when she reunites with Woody, she is a condescending girl boss who loves freedom. And she's learned to be mean too!
The movie wants you to believe Bo Peep and Woody love each other, but the reality is different. She sees him as a clingy, weak ragdoll who is too obsessed with working for his owners.
She even disrespects him multiple times; she calls him an accessory, doesn't appreciate his ideas, and it's quite clear she considers him a wimpy toy who is often an obstacle.
Bo-Peep is never told she's wrong and never apologizes for her rudeness, which is ignored by everyone in the movie.
Woody even leaves the rest of his friends and responsibilities to stay with her. Bo-Peep behaves in a fairly reprehensible way but I guess that's okay because she is independent now.
Perhaps if Empowered Bo-Peep was a one in a million case, she wouldn't be here... but she's not alone.
Strong Female™ Feminism: Captain Marvel
The Strong Female Character™ is a relatively new invention of Hollywood propaganda. She is overpowered, learns all things with extreme speed and sometimes she is just written to excell all her boy counterparts who are often dumbed down to make her look cooler.
No Female Character™ is written equally. Some are made with more effort than others. You see, the Strong Female™ is often just a way in which lazy / edgy writers pretend to the feminists for the journos to applaud.
In Captain Marvel, we are introduced to Carol Danvers, a military pilot lady who was captured and brainwashed by the alien race Kree. She fights in their army and believes her powers were given by them through a neck implant. Her teacher Yonn-Rogg says she needs to "keep her emotions in check" to improve her skills.
But when Danvers returns to earth, she learns the truth. Her powers come from an explosion she caused to save a blue cube from the Kree, who are evil, and killed her mentor and friend Wendy Lawson. Danvers snaps the neck implant and discovers she is more powerful without it - the implant limited her powers.
In short, Carol Danvers was not stopped by her emotions (a feminine trait), but by evil alien men telling her no.
During a moment of distress Carol remembers every time she was told "no". She was told "no" when her dad said she shouldn't be in a go-kart competition. When the soldiers laughed at her during military training. When she was not allowed to fly planes. But Carol always stood again. She's a really Strong Female™.
Danver's male counterparts is Nick Fury, a secret agent that had been previously established in the Marvel Movies. While other Strong Female™ movies humiliate their boys in every possible way, Captain Marvel does it once. You see, Fury is quite famously lacking an eye. Many fans speculated that he had lost it in a particularly heroic / gruesome way, for Fury uses his mutilation to scare people through the Avengers movies.
Well, here, in Captain Marvel, we learn Fury lost the eye because he was playing with an alien cat. The scene is treated like a joke as if loosing an eye was a laughing matter. The fans were offended. But Hollywood smirked at them because they are "feminists" and therefore they are good people.
The Strong Female™ movies follow similar patterns. The guys are either extremely sexist or disrespected. The girls excell at everything they do, and if they fail, it's the guys fault.
Conclusion
In order to be delivered from movie feminism, the following would be useful.
+ Often feminism is the result of a bad relationship with men. Here in Mexico, many guys are seriously disrespectful. They harass women, they act violently towards them and many can't even be present for their children. Is it really a surprise that there are feminists everywhere?
Therefore, one should NEVER show favoritism towards male children over female children. Boys should be taught to respect women, and there's nothing wrong with that.
+ Girls should also be taught to place limits on boys, and a healthy self-confidence should be encouraged.
+ There is also nothing wrong with boys learning to place limits on women.
+ Some historical knowledge about the origins, doctrines and negative effects of feminism should be given. Make sure to find actual sources & arguments, not propaganda from lazy neo-con sites (like The Daily Wire).
