Debbie Schlussel: Geena Davis' Stupid Cartoon Study
It's a good thing Geena Davis isn't really President. And even better that her "Commander in Chief" show is in hiatus hell.
But, unfortunately, with too much time on her hands during the hiatus, Davis and her silly See Jane foundation (about which we've written) backed a University of Southern California study of gender in cartoons. (Gee, that sounds like a tough Ph.D. thesis: "I Watched the Simpsons.") Now Davis is whining because 65% of cartoon roles are male and claims it hurts girls.
C'mon, they're cartoons! Who cares what they're "plumbing" is? Among the cartoons the study attacks, Woody and Buzz Lightyear of Disney's "Toy Story"!
USA Today quotes the fake Prez as saying:
To just continually see worlds where girls are sidelined or don't exist or are very peripheral to what's going on, they sort of grow up realizing that they can just discount girls and that they don't have to be interested in what girls do.
Whatever. Most of the Loony Tunes and Disney animated characters were men. Because they didn't have female characteristics, they're bad for girls?
Davis wants a dumb, narrow 50/50 split in male and female cartoon characters.
[It's] important for boys and girls to see girls taking up half the planet - half the space of whatever movie they're watching.
If Geena Davis really believes in this silly philosophy, then she should believe in the 50/50 rule for ALL interactions between the sexes, as in:
* Men should get 50% of the decision about whether the baby is aborted;
* Women should pay 50% of the child support they usually get and spend on themselves, their new boyfriends, and occasionally the kids the money is supposed to be for;
* Men should get 50% of the actual, physical full-time custody of their children in a divorce (currently, over 70% of the female parents get this; men about 13%);
* Men should get 50% of the slots in colleges/universities and grad schools (currently they get far less and it is steadily declining from even that)
Etc., etc., etc. . . . . .
Posted by Debbie on February 10, 2006 03:47 PM to Debbie Schlussel