Film Theory Finale: Don’t Trust Your Heroes

You know, film theory tends to get itself a bad rap.

As the middle child of the theorist lineup, it tends to get overlooked or forgotten.

So much so that it's become its own meme at this point.

And yet, of all the channels, film theory covers, by my estimation, the most important topics.

Don't get me wrong, you have plenty of silly episodes mixed in here, like How to Kill Deadpool,

Willy Wonka's OSHA violations, me trying to become host to Jeopardy,

your lost guys, by the way.

But you also have episodes warning about deepfakes, propaganda, net neutrality, copyright,

how fragmented pop culture is eroding our collective sense of identity,

resulting in heightened levels of depression and isolation.

Those are important and heavy topics to cover, because, as we said in one of our recent theories,

media is a tool that can enact change and influence public thinking at a global scale.

The entertainment we consume, it shapes us and our beliefs.

And like any tool, it can transform into a weapon if misused.

Which is why today's episode, my final film theory, feels so important.

Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that's now entering its zaddy era.

Today, I wanted to start off with a question.

I want you to think about all the media that you consumed during your childhood.

All the TV shows and movies that you loved as a kid.

And now, with the perspective that you've gained as you've gotten older,

can you name for me five good father figures from children's media?

I'm talking about wholesome dads who want the best for their kids,

who try really hard to teach them and nurture them and show them love

and all the good things that dad should be doing.

Legitimately, go down to the comments, type out who comes to mind.

Because I consume a lot of media, and I had a hard time making this list.

Back when we brought Leon as creative director here on Film Theory,

this was actually one of the first conversations he and I had about the state of media.

Even more recently, we've asked this question around the office,

and people really struggle with it.

I mean, it's not impossible to come up with a list.

You'll eventually get there.

But it's shockingly hard.

Our list ended up being Bandit from Bluey, Arthur Weasley from Harry Potter,

Uncle Iroh from Avatar The Last Airbender,

Mufasa from Lion King,

and Goofy from a Goofy movie.

But the fact that it took us a significant amount of time to do is pretty darn telling.

Fathers in sitcoms are usually bumbling buffoons, deadbeat dads, or need anger management.

And it's not just a lack of good dads here either.

Honestly, most of the male characters that you see across media,

both young and old, they're not great.

Classic cartoon kids are almost universally bratty, cruel, greedy, or inconsiderate.

Why do you do this?

You're so stupid!

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Even the oldest of old-school animated characters

that have been sanitized to be as brand safe and neutral today as possible,

they started off as horrible jerks.

Abruptly, he becomes an uncontrollable monster.

They're angry, they're violent, they're not good people.

So, why do I bring it up in my final episode?

Well, as a dad, I've started to pay a lot more attention to these sorts of things in the media that I watch,

because I want to know if it's something that I can actually share with Ollie.

And surprisingly, there isn't a lot that I'm super happy with sharing.

And it all comes down to a lack of shows with characters that I actually want Ollie to grow up to be like.

Now, I can't stress enough that we live in the most open time ever for children's entertainment.

Newer shows like The Owl House, Amphibia, and Kippo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts

are given voices to historically underrepresented groups as both creators and characters.

There is something in there for everyone, and that's awesome.

But the pickings for boy characters that I want my son to try to be like,

of male characters that I want him to look up to,

they are mighty slim, my friends.

That's kind of a problem.

So today, I wanted to look at why.

Why are there so few of these truly great role models for boys?

Why, in this era where we have more choice in what we can watch than ever before,

are there so few choices that have good male role models for my son to look up to?

Well, after diving into the history and economics of this sort of media,

it all comes down, as it so often does, to money.

Surprise, surprise.

Don't touch that dial, my friends.

It's time to crack this case wide open.

So to start things out, it should be noted that gender identity for young children

doesn't really become a factor for several years into their life.

According to research, most kids don't start to identify with one gender or another until the age of three.

And it's important that they're encouraged to explore that at their own pace.

The last thing we want to do is to sort kids who are still discovering themselves into boxes.

And likewise, children can, of course, have role models who are not the same sex or gender that they are.

It is awesome for boys to have role models who are women,

vice versa, and everyone beyond and in between the binary.

I'm just talking about it today because I want to make sure that there are good examples

set across the board for everyone.

And right now, the male category, pretty severely lacking.

And me saying that might come as a bit of a surprise, right?

Like, there are a ton of male characters out there in media.

They have been the bedrock, the focus of entertainment forever.

So how am I possibly standing here saying,

we need more male role models?

Well, this is one of those episodes where just looking at the numbers

isn't going to be telling you the whole story.

A 2008 study from Televizion conducted across 24 countries

found that there were twice as many male characters than female characters in children's TV.

A decade later, a similar study from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

found that roughly half of all episodes of children's entertainment had female leads.

That is good news.

Everything's balanced, as all things should be.

So what's the problem?

Well, again, let me be clear.

This isn't a case of, where are the male characters?

There are plenty of them out there.

We are tripping over them.

Instead, this is a conversation about the quality of those characters.

What's going on with the types of male characters that we keep seeing?

Have you ever stopped and considered how many of them

actually embody the traits that you would want a kid to emulate?

At a quick glance, the modern era,

it's seen a wide spectrum of overwhelmingly positive,

affirming female and female-coded characters.

You have everything from Doc McStuffins to the Miraculous Ladybug,

Hello Kitty, Bluey, Luz from The Owl House,

most of the gems from Steven Universe,

Carmen Sandiego, who's apparently a hero now,

Barbie just had herself an empowering live-action adaptation,

and she's also sort of a YouTube vlogger

dishing out shockingly solid mental health advice.

Maybe I'm just being really unfair on myself.

You know?

I don't always have to be upbeat and positive.

Even parodies of the over-competent, self-reliant neo-heroine

like Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time

ultimately get to be effective political leaders,

excel at STEM fields,

kick butt on the battlefield,

and get the girl in the end.

The fact that these characters exist?

That is awesome.

I don't want to take anything away from that.

And if this is how we're over-correcting for decades

of women being trapped as damsels in distress or trophies,

I am all about that.

But then you look over at the boys,

and things get a bit more complicated.

Sure, there are some truly great and kind characters

that I do want my son to look up to.

For as much fun as I've had here on the channel

saying that he's actually a ruthless businessman,

Rider from the Paw Patrol,

fantastic role model.

He's smart, he's resourceful,

he's caring, he's a leader,

and it was awesome that Ollie dug that series.

Probably in part because he saw Ryder

and wanted to connect with him.

Same thing with Dipper from Gravity Falls.

Also a win for being smart, curious, brave,

and a loving brother.

Also there's a handful of solid early educational programming

with male protagonists like Arthur,

Thomas the Tank Engine, Daniel Tiger.

Though it's worth calling out how few of them

are actually human.

But let's talk for a minute about the characters

that you'd typically see come up in a conversation like this, right?

Well, the problem here is that they tend to have

a huge asterisk attached to their names.

Captain America, Superman, Batman,

Spider-Man, the Ninja Turtles.

They're all great,

but the stories also involve a lot of war,

crime, death, fighting in general.

They tend to solve most of their problems

through punching and physical violence.

Aang, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter.

They're selfless heroes who do what they think's right

no matter what the cost.

But they're also sitting smack dab in franchises

built on needing to be violent.

Fighting, often killing soldiers,

stormtroopers, dark wizards.

Not generally a drawback that you're facing

from traditionally feminine skewing characters

like Sofia the First or Elena of Avalor.

And if they're not violent or surrounded by violence,

well, very often they're just not good.

Johnny Bravo's a big ol' womanizer.

Timmy Turner's a whiny, spoiled narcissist.

Jimmy Neutron's arrogant, destructive, mean to girls,

and regularly uses his intelligence

as an excuse for being a jerk to his friends.

Even Phineas and Ferb,

who are smart and resourceful and funny,

are outright disobeying their parents

each and every day of summer.

Actually, the reason Ollie wanted to stop watching the show,

he was afraid of them getting in trouble

for constantly breaking the rules episode after episode.

I think you get the idea.

Look at media through this sort of lens

and suddenly you see examples everywhere you go.

Just to get some hard numbers in here,

that same Geena Davis study that I mentioned earlier

noted that male characters,

they're more likely to be violent

compared to female characters,

and also almost twice as likely

to be depicted as a criminal.

Remember, we're not talking about fun characters to watch

or characters that you like.

I think most of the examples I listed above

fall into at least one of those two categories.

No, we're talking about characters

that are admirable role models for young boys.

Characters whose activity we want them to imitate

or look up to as they develop during childhood.

I also want to reaffirm,

I personally like all of these shows and movies.

There is no judgment here

if you're a fan of any of these sorts of things.

But they're just not shows that I can show Ollie

until he's much, much older

because of the implicit lessons that they contain.

Boys are violent.

You solve your problems with punching.

If you break rules and treat people badly,

don't worry, there are no real consequences.

You're the main character of your own show

and everything just works out well for you.

So with all of that established,

I think we can start to discuss why

things have ended up this way.

Because this has deep roots in the history of pop culture.

The long and short of it,

when you start to unpack the old media that inspired our modern media,

you find a lot of old-fashioned assumptions

that end up persisting in ways that you wouldn't expect.

Though there have always been trickster boy characters

dating back centuries and cultures all across the world,

the western pop culture version of this archetype

really took shape in the early 1900s

with the creation of Peter Pan by novelist J.M. Barrie.

Though you probably know him best from the 1953 Disney cartoon.

I cannot overstate how influential this one story was.

Everyone and everything from Steven Spielberg

to the Legend of Zelda was influenced by Peter Pan.

That matters.

By this point, I'm sure you know the story.

Peter Pan's a boy who doesn't want to grow up.

He has magical powers and finds other children

who also don't want to grow up,

whisking them away to Neverland

so they can be kids together forever.

In some darker interpretations,

he just straight up abducts the kids.

And even in the Disney version,

from the first time we see his face,

it's clear that this is not a 100% trustworthy good guy.

The whole point of Peter Pan's character though

is that he's fun,

but he's also immature.

He's emotionally stunted.

He's kind of a jerk.

If you aren't also a perpetual child,

you eventually get tired of him.

Especially if you're a girl.

The Lost Boys are called the Lost Boys

because there weren't any lost girls originally.

Peter's explanation is that

girls are just far too clever to become lost like the rest of them.

And when he brings Windy Darling to Neverland,

it throws things into complete disarray

because her relative maturity

makes the other lost boys want to grow up.

The point is,

what Peter Pan explored

was the very rigid classifications of gender

in a child's upbringing during the era.

The idea that on the whole,

girls emotionally mature faster than boys.

Something that has a fair amount of scientific truth to it. Literally,

most girls optimize connections in their brains

at an earlier age than boys,

leading them to cognitively mature more quickly.

The consensus for a long time

has been that boys are born wild and unruly

while girls just grow up faster.

And it's therefore their job to civilize the boys,

to get them to want to settle down

and act like actual human beings.

And that mentality is all over old Disney films.

The seven dwarves live like a bunch of frat boys

until Snow White shows up

to show him how to use a broom and a dustpan.

Beauty and the Beast is all about a big jerk

who literally doesn't know how to act human

until a woman shows up and tells him.

And yeah, that's basically what happens in Peter Pan too.

The lost boys are presented with the options

of staying in Neverland,

where they can run around like madmen

and play pirates and break stuff and make a mess.

Or,

you can go home,

get a job,

and find a Wendy Darling of your own.

In these older stories,

the girl was the reward for the men who grew up.

That sort of thinking,

boys will be boys and the girl's the trophy

that you earn for settling down,

it's not great.

It's how we got a lot of the problematic media

from years gone by.

And more importantly,

the justified pushback against that sort of thinking

is what's led to a lot of the great girl-targeted media

over the past decade.

Movies and series written specifically to show

that girls aren't just there to be prizes for the boys,

or there for the sole purpose

of getting their male counterparts to mature.

They're their own fully realized people,

with beliefs,

virtues,

flaws,

strengths and weaknesses,

thoughts and feelings.

But now I have to ask,

why hasn't something similar happened with boys in the media?

Why are so many of these male characters

just stuck in the older ways of thinking,

and writing male characters

while girls have gotten to grow up?

They're still stuck as Peter Pans,

emotionally stunted and immature. Why?

Well, if there's something that all these years

a hosting the channels have taught me,

is that the real reason so many decisions are made in Hollywood

comes down to one thing,

and one thing only,

the money.

And in children's media,

there's no bigger moneymaker than toys.

See, in Hollywood,

there's a concept known as toyetic media.

This is any movie,

cartoon, TV show,

comic book,

or whatever,

created for the purpose of advertising merchandise.

It doesn't have to be the only purpose of the media,

but a lot of decisions made in Hollywood are done

so that the properties become more toyetic.

A good example of this?

During the pre-production of the 1990s film,

Batman and Robin,

toy manufacturers sat in on creative meetings,

and many parts of the movie were changed

to be easier to make toys out of.

And despite the film itself being a financial disappointment,

the merchandise made enough money

that Warner Brothers continued the Batman franchise with a reboot.

However, the first huge property

that really took advantage of this idea of toyetic media

was Star Wars.

Practically everything within the Star Wars franchise

was designed in a way to let them very easily transfer to toys.

And George Lucas was a savvy enough businessman

to negotiate that he would keep the merchandising rights

in lieu of a higher upfront paycheck.

This is how Lucas made his billions,

not through the movies,

through the toys.

The movies were just a nice bonus on top.

They were great films that happened to act as commercials

for the action figures and plastic lightsabers.

And other companies definitely took note of this.

This led to a slew of toyetic IP being created

for the sole purpose of selling merchandise.

And a lot of the most popular franchises

from the 80s and 90s fall into this exact category.

I'm talking Transformers,

G.I. Joe,

Thundercats,

He-Man, She-Ra,

Pokemon,

Digimon,

even certified classics like Cowboy Bebop.

All of them are made specifically to sell toys,

games,

trading cards,

you name it.

And not because they were the best stories to tell our kids.

But then why are we still selling crummy characters to little boys

and not to girls?

Well, if you look at the way boys and girls relate to their toys,

you start to see one of the big reasons

why boy characters are held to such low standards.

Let me show you an example

from one of the world's biggest toy brands, Lego.

In 2011,

the Lego company completed an exhaustive study

into children's play psychology

that spanned multiple years and continents.

They wanted to look at child development

and feedback from parents

to figure out the difference between boy toys and girl toys.

If there was any difference at all.

What did boys and girls like to play with and why?

And the results were fascinating.

Obviously, this comes with big asterisks

that every child's gonna be different,

but broadly speaking,

Lego found that boys tended to play with their toys and figurines

in the third person,

deciding what actions the characters they were playing with would take

more as a director of sorts.

They were telling the knights or astronauts or superheroes

what to do during play

rather than being the characters themselves

or putting themselves into the character's shoes. For Lego,

that meant that the boys tended to gravitate

towards the IP-based play sets,

Star Wars,

Spider-Man,

situations that were really exciting to direct the action for,

but where you didn't really have to pretend to be those characters

to make it exciting.

On the other hand,

girls tended to play in the first person,

role-playing that they themselves

were the characters doing these actions.

They projected their own identities onto the toys

rather than directing them to do things.

The result of all this?

Lego, who had always prided itself on the idea

that Lego bricks were for everyone,

that they weren't gendered,

they developed the Lego Friends line,

focused more on pastel colors,

sets that seem more like dollhouses than Death Stars,

and redesigned minifigurines to look more human.

Lego Friends is now considered to be

one of the most successful product launches in Lego's history,

doubling Lego's expectations,

tripling their sales with girls in the US and European markets,

and rocketing Lego to become the biggest toy maker on the planet.

Clearly, it met a need in the market,

and the data from their study lines up

with tons of other deep-dive research

about toys and play styles for children.

The big TLDR here is that

boys and girls relate to characters differently.

So when you're creating a TV show,

trying to sell them a bunch of toys,

those shows are gonna look different

depending on who you're targeting.

For girls, you have to create characters

that the girls want to be.

So when you sell them toys,

they want to embody those characters.

For boys, the job's actually kind of different.

All you gotta do is create exciting worlds

and characters for them to direct.

As long as they feel like cool, exciting characters,

job done.

They don't necessarily have to be someone you look up to.

And therefore, you get characters that aren't really good people.

They're just loud and grab your attention.

I bring all this up, Lego and toyetic media,

because I can't help but draw a connection

between the ways these studies observe children playing with toys

and the media that's explicitly being created for them.

Because girls typically roleplay in the first person during childhood,

there's a greater focus on seeing yourself

in these characters from that female-targeted media.

They're designed from the ground up

to be more appropriate role models

because girls would directly identify with those protagonists.

On the other hand,

boys are just assumed to simply watch male-targeted shows

for the cool characters doing awesome things.

They're watching the story in the third person

and incorporating what they see

into the direction that they give their toys later on.

In the eyes of the corporations making the media

and ultimately making the toys,

what's most important here is to make the male characters

cool, funny, loud, and exciting,

which far too often just translates into violent, stupid, and cruel.

And that, I think, is a significant part

of why these male characters just don't stack up,

especially in relation to their female counterparts.

Media, it's powerful.

We see it influence action in the real world.

And with younger girls now being shown

that the world is open to them

and that people should be taking them seriously

by all these female protagonists,

the ball starts rolling to make that a reality.

And now, I want us to be able to do the same

for these male characters.

If we want our boys to grow up knowing

that they should be kind, fair, smart and respectful,

thoughtful and strong in all the right ways,

we need to set them up for success

by putting good examples of these traits in front of them

in the shows that they're watching.

We can still have fun with them.

They can still be heroic and funny,

but they can do all that without being mean

or dumb or violent or destructive.

It won't be easy,

but we've shown over the last decade

that we can make positive change

in the media that's being produced.

And you know what?

It is time that we finally let our boys grow up.

That way, my son, our sons,

can have characters worth looking up to.

But hey, that's just a theory.

A film theory.

Aaaaaaaand cut.