Feminisney: The “Winnie the Pooh” Films
Discussing the unfortunate trope of The Default Male
New to this series? Figure out what’s going on here!
Last week, I took a vacation (first of my adult life) and went to Disneyland for the first time. It seemed like something I had to do. Not just because I live in SoCal now, but also because I can’t really claim CineNation Disney film expert without a pilgrimage to the theme park, right? But the vacation is now over, and I’m easing back into writing these columns. I want to finish up the pre-Renaissance before I delve into The Little Mermaid (admittedly, to buy myself more time for research).
So here’s the first of the two final Feminisney posts about Disney’s films before Ariel hit the big screen. The movies will almost certainly be a bit obscure and not have much to directly discuss, but when I say all Disney animated feature-length, theatrically released films, I mean ALL. So, for you, here are the analyses of 1977’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and the more recent 2011 Winnie the Pooh. And it feels somewhat timely to discuss them, as it was just announced that Ewan McGregor has signed on to play the role of a grown-up and disillusioned Christopher Robin in the live-action version of the franchise. …*sigh* I get the feeling Fox’s Goodbye Christopher Robin might be a bit more interesting, but we’ll see.
The Films
I originally split this into two entries, per my usual style, but they are markedly similar films. Essentially, the films are loosely based on the various books written by A. A. Milne, who based his books on his son, Christopher Robin Milne, and his toys, Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear, Eeyore, Piglet, and Roo (with Rabbit and Owl being created for the stories). Thanks in part to Disney’s franchising of the characters, Pooh and company have been childhood icons for decades. The two films I’ll be discussing today follow similar paths in style. Open on a real room, open a book, and show the characters living in and interacting inside the world of a book. A narrator drives/reads the story, with the fourth wall (of them being characters in a book) is broken constantly (the book can be flipped upside down, the characters interact with letters, etc).
The 1977 film is more a sequence of vignettes that don’t really tie together in a plot (which makes sense as it’s four previously released shorts edited together for a feature film) while the second tries to create a more obvious plot via Pooh’s grumbling tummy and lack of honey and Eeyore’s missing tail. But the stories are really just character-driven adventures. Pooh is hungry for honey and a bit daft, Piglet is frightened, Kanga is motherly and kind, Roo is energetic, Owl is incredibly verbose, Rabbit has anxiety and a garden, and Tigger is aggressively energetic. Throw them in a Hundred Acre Wood and see what develops.
Number of named characters with speaking lines: 9 in the first, 10 in the second. (In the first, Gopher is never named. In the second, the Backson is given lines in a post-credits scene.)
Number of named female characters with speaking lines: 1 — Kanga
Does the film pass the Bechdel Test? Nope.
Number of named non-white characters: 0
Number of named non-white female characters: 0
Number of openly non-heterosexual characters: 0
Number of openly transsexual characters: 0
Is there a heterosexual romance? Nope.
True Love’s Kiss? No.
Number of female mentors or rulers? 0
Number of named female characters wearing “men’s clothes” (pants instead of dresses): 0 (With 0 men wearing “women’s clothes”.)
Main character male or female? Male
Number of named female characters saved from peril by male characters: 0
Number of times named female characters saved from peril by male characters: 0
Number of named male characters saved from peril by female characters: 0
Number of times named male characters saved from peril by female characters: 0
Number of named female characters breaking gender stereotypes with their actions (performing “masculine” feats): 0
Number of named male characters breaking gender stereotypes with their actions (performing “feminine” feats): 0
It may surprise you, unless you read the introduction, but there’s not really anything to discuss in terms of feminism with these films. Kanga is the only female character in both films, and she is somewhat unfortunately never given any focus at all. The first film leans most heavily on Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet, and Rabbit, with maybe a bit of Owl, while Kanga and Roo (and really Christopher Robin, too) are largely background. The second film improves Kanga’s presence, but not terribly much, making the focus more on Pooh, Tigger, Owl, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin. She is more present and involved throughout, but only as a member of the general group. Additionally, it’s unfortunate how defined she is by motherhood and domesticity. The only thing we really know is she’s a mom and she knits. And the second film focuses on those points almost exclusively. Is there anything wrong with being a mother and/or knitting? Of course not. But it is unfortunate that the only female is represented by such gender-driven ideas.
That’s pretty much everything for the specifics in the characters. What can be discussed, as a general note on media, is the tendency to make male the default. After all, you may find it very odd, especially if you think feminism is silly or garbage, that I’m attempting to analyze a children’s film about anthropomorphized stuffed animals through a feminist lens. And it certainly does seem odd to do so. After all, there’s nothing sexual here. There’s only one actual human. The other characters are all animals/toys. They don’t wear much, if any, clothing. And there’s no obvious focus on gender roles or anything relating to gender. Except that in the films, possibly reflecting the books, the characters have their genders defined by their pronoun and all but Kanga are male. Not only that, but the voice actors are all male, except for Kanga’s.
“Well, Sean,” you might think, “Aren’t you going a bit crazy? Of course the male characters are voiced by men. That’s how it works.” Well, not always. There are a lot of characters and voice actors whose genders don’t match up (see Bob’s Burgers for several examples of both men voicing women and women voicing men). But the voice actors aren’t exactly the point. The point is, in media in general, we tend to default to male pronouns and descriptions for characters. Men often appear to be the baseline and women need to have some sort of defining features so that everyone can tell their gender. Pink clothes, makeup, a curvier body, etc. This is a trend that has popped up constantly throughout this Feminisney series, even in animals, and now in characters who hold no physical suggestion of gender, nor any story requirement for gender to be defined.
And it happens all the time in other media as well. Comic books have always been, in my mind, one of the worst offenders. How many times have there been original female characters in the comic book world? Compare that to original male characters. Then notice how many times the male characters are given breasts and a slimmer frame to become female versions of the male character. She-Hulk. Batgirl. Supergirl. Spider-Woman. These characters can be developed and grow into their own defined roles and beings separate of the men, but the default tends to be men first, add attributes to make female. It’s rare, if it ever happens, that original female superheroes are given male counterparts after the fact. (And I checked: I’m not the only one who’s noticed this trope.)
This trend is certainly not one started by Disney, and again, they may very well have simply been following the texts of A. A. Milne. But, it should be something writers and filmmakers and creators of other media are actively aware of. As a trope, it’s dangerous as it treats men as the ordinary and women as markedly different. Which they have been throughout history. Men hold positions of power more than women in every facet of Western, European-centric society, and likely most all other society. It’s something that has been going on for millennia, but that doesn’t make it right or good. And sure, in art, it’s often society bleeding into it, but the entire point of this series has been that art can bleed into society as well. Representation matters. So, while Winnie the Pooh might seem like an incredibly weird starting point for this particular discussion, it’s an important discussion to have. If you read through something you’ve written or made and you notice that you’ve defaulted to cisgendered men or heterosexuality or white people when none are necessarily important to the story, maybe look into rewriting some of the characters to more accurately reflect the diverse world we live in.
Representation matters. Even among bears stuffed with fluff.
Fun Notes:
“I am short, fat, and proud of that.” Pooh bringing the surprising healthy body image message.
There’s a weird part of me that wants Danny Trejo to be the voice of Eeyore, hearing this original.
These movies are actually really fun in their meta nature. After all, Gopher, who is never named by the characters, continues to say “I’m not in the book.” It’s a clever reference to both phone books and the fact that Disney Studios invented the character.
“Heffalumps and Woozles” was quite the terrifying song in my youth. Reminiscent of “Pink Elephants on Parade”.
In the new film, we learn that Christopher Robin is just as terrible a writer as the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood. Is that because Christopher Robin taught them how to write? Or is it because they’re not actually alive and he’s simply acting out the stories on his bedroom floor?
The animation in the new movie is a lot more smooth. And it feels so markedly different from the versions I grew up with, somehow.
John Cleese being the narrator might be the best thing in the new movie.
I didn’t really realize just how classic Winnie the Pooh was to me and my youth until watching this movie and getting grumpy about the voices being wrong. Like, I like Craig Ferguson, but him as Owl is weird. And makes the character weird. Like he’s crazy/a bit of a jerk.
The Backson is the new movie’s attempt to get another Heffalumps and Woozles, but it doesn’t really match up.
Next week, I’m probably taking another Feminisney break as I write a column I’ve been researching for a while now. It involves a couple of directors and the Marvel Cinematic Universe… That’s all I’ll say for now. Especially since some recent news from Marvel is making me retool what I was originally gonna say. But after that, I’ll be back to cover the final 3 pre-Renaissance films. And who knows what I’ll say. Until then, continue to let me know what you think!
