Monsters, Inc.

Fix-it Friday: Part 1
Monsters, Inc.

Pixar is one of the few studios that can boast consistent production of "four quadrant movies," films that entice all four age groups/demographics. These four quadrant films are colorful and action-packed for the kids, and have thematic sophistication and humor to satisfy the adults.  It's a win-win for everyone! Except the ladies who Pixar repeatedly bashes through innumerable counts of exclusion, sexism, and drawing the majority of their female characters with the exact same face. 

I hadn't seen Monsters, Inc. in a decade and was excited to watch. The first scene won me over with its belabored corporate lady monster trying to teach some hopeless new scare recruits. And it's downhill from there. 

The Counts Against 

1. Mike and Sully's Walk to Work (aka World Introduction)

       A. There is, in this entire sequence of store clerks and monster children, a single female monster. A tiny Wife Monster kisses her tiny Husband Monster on the cheek and says "have a good day, at work, honey!" as he flies away. 

2. Enter  Monsters, Inc. and meet...

            A.  Celia: a young, hot, trophy of a receptionist. 

CELIA (to Mike)

Googly bear! 

MIKE

[wishes her a happy birthday]

CELIA

Googly woogly, you remembered. Hey Sully Wully!

    

 B.  Roz: an old, slug-like hag of a receptionist. 

MIKE

Good morning, Roz, my little succulent garden snail. And who would we be scaring today?

ROZ

You didn't file your paperwork last night. 

It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly snail. 

3. Pixar's insistence that during the few scenes Roz and Celia are in, the focus should be on their appearances. 

             A. When Mike brings Celia to an expensive restaurant for her birthday dinner. 

CELIA

Oh, Michael! I've had a lot of birthdays...well...not a lot of birthdays, but this is the best birthday ever. What are you looking at? 

MIKE

I was thinking about the first time I laid eyes on you. How pretty you looked. 

CELIA (bashfully)

Stop it. 

Thanks, Pixar for complicating the hot receptionist character by making her defensive of her age. 

               B. When Mike hasn't filled out his paperwork and tries to woo Roz again. 

MIKE

Roz, my tender oozing blossom. You look wonderful today. Is that a new haircut? Come on, it's a new haircut, got to be a new haircut. You've had a lift, you've had a tuck. Something has been inserted into your skin to make you look...

Mike trails off because he can't think of anything positive about her appearance. It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly, snail. 

               C. After work, Mike describes to Sully how excited he is to take Celia out to dinner.

MIKE

What a night of romance. Tonight is about me and Celia. The love boat is going to set sail. Because that face of hers makes my life go--

He bumps into Roz and screams. It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly snail. 

4. The male and female bodies

Male monsters have all different sorts of anatomies: furry, scaly, many-armed, spiked-heads, rubber-like skin. Male monsters (except for the head suit-wearing spider monster, and the child-catching yellow-ruber-clad swat team) are naked.  There is a single unclothed female monster in the opening Monsters Inc. commercial.   

But Celia is clothed, and in a tight, short little outfit to boot. Roz is wearing a sweater that shows off her saggy boobs although her lower-body is naked and unsexualized--probably partly due to the fact that she is ugly and old, so much easier to posit her as a non-sexual being. 

The combination of naked male monster bodies and clothed female monster bodies perpetuates the infuriating status of male bodies as un-gendered and sexless and female bodies as inherently shameful, derivative, sexual, and in need of policement or clothes.  

The Counts For

1. Boo 

Charming, playful, capable, loving Boo. She is obviously the center of this movie, the catalyst of Sully's change. She also can't really talk (Pixar enjoys this havoc-wreaking, silent-besides-one-word female trope as we'll see in Up). I do like Boo as a character. I really do. I'm glad she's a little girl even though her existence in the Monster world sets up Mike and Sully for a tired men-can't-really-parent cliche. But again, I recognize that Pixar chose to make this third, crucial character a girl because a boy would be just as cute at this toddling, babbling, nonsexualized age. 

2. Roz and Celia help out in the end!

     

      A. Hey look! Celia causes a distraction by making an announcement on the loudspeaker to help Mike find Boo's door!

      B. Oh, wow! It turns out that Roz is the head of the secret investigation looking into Monsters, Inc. But she was just letting the men do all of the onscreen work. So cool! Now her old ugliness is totally validated. 

         Q:  Boo is an awesome female character who balances out two male leads. Why                        isn't Boo enough? 

        A: Sexism is in the details. It's in the subconscious decisions of the writers,                              directors, producers, artists, who draw crowd scenes with 30 male monsters                       and 2 female monsters. It's in the subconscious decisions to make every                               other role besides Boo, Celia, and Roz a male: two leads, two villains, two                             bumbling teenage interns, the special Scaring Monsters task force, the                                 Scaring Monsters' hypemen, the restaurant patients, the monsters interviewed                     on televisions, the monsters on the way to work, the SWAT team, every other                       monster with a line. By showing this absurd ratio of men to women, we                               condition children to believe that men are more visible, vocal, and important                         than women. Men are the majority, the constant, and women the rare                                    exception to male existence. 

FIX-IT

My Suggestions to Pixar 

1. Take the four main monsters, two good monsters, two evil monsters, and make half of them women

          AND/OR

2. Take the two receptions and make one of them a woman

          AND/OR

3. Take the two bumbling teenage interns and make one of them a woman (but without making this character have a huge crush on Sully)

          AND/OR

4. Take all the Scaring Monsters and all their hype men and make half of them women 

         AND/OR

5. Make sure your extra scenes have 50% women in them

        AND/OR

6. Use those huge, f***ing creative brains of yours a little more creatively for women. It mystifies me that the men whose imaginations could create the vibrant, nuanced world of Monsters, Inc. could not imagine a world where female monsters did more than sit behind desks at a big company and take the boss' calls.