So when I saw this picture for the new Pixar movie Inside Out,
at first I thought the characters were three women and two aliens, but after seeing the trailer I realized the purple and red things were supposed to be dudes. After tracing their faces, I figured out why I was so weirded out:
The two male characters have extremely distinctive face shapes, while the three female characters basically have the exact same shape; round with a small nose.
Now everyone has read about the Elsa/Anna/Rapunzel face debate, but I wanted to see just how far this face thing went. And boy does it go far.
I took pictures of both male and female characters from recent Disney/Pixar movies:
And then traced both of them. Look at the diversity of male face shapes:
AND THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING RIDICULOUSNESS THAT IS SHOWN HERE:
WHAT
THE
FUCK
Just take a second to scroll up and look back at the original pictures in case you think I’m joking.
Apparently every Disney woman is a clone/direct descendant of some primordial creature with huge round cheeks and a disturbingly small nose, because there is no other explanation (yes there is(it’s lazy sexism)) for the incredible lack of diversity among these female faces.
DISNEY.
WHY DOES EVERY WOMAN THAT YOU HAVE CREATED IN THE LAST DECADE HAVE THE EXACT SAME FACE SHAPE? AND DON’T TELL ME IT’S BECAUSE WOMEN ARE HARDER TO ANIMATE. STOP ASSUMING EVERY WOMAN HAS A ROUND BABY FACE AND A SHORT CUTE BABY NOSE. YOU CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
TL;DR: Boys in animated movies have faces that are square, round, skinny, fat, alien-looking, handsome, and ugly. The only face that girls get to have is some round snub-nosed baby face. That’s not right.
You know what? You’re right. Men in Disney films, and in the animation of many many other companies tend to have more angular faces, often with more prominent chins that are generally either very broad and flat, or pointed. Oddly enough that usually coincides with their role in the film, with the hero or supporting characters having a broader jaw and chin and antagonistic characters and villains often having a more pointed chin and less prominent jawline.
Likewise, women in Disney films tend to have more rounded faces that evoke a sense of softness and femininity associated with innocence and youth. Oddly enough though, I’m not seeing a few characters in your list of CGI Disney women, namely Sargent Calhoun, and Mother Goethel, both fairly prominent characters in their respective films. How odd that characters that don’t fit the same character archetype, or embody the same principle character elements happen to have different face structures. It’s almost as though because these characters don’t agree with your conclusion they’re not worth mentioning, despite being more prevalent in the films than several other characters exemplified.
These character design choices are less Disney being lazy or misogynistic, and more principles of character design. When one wants to evoke a series of expectations for a character, one chooses features or patterns that are commonly associated with those features. Protagonist women are animated with softer faces, more rounded features and often with large eyes as these are features that are indicative of femininity, innocence, and youth. THESE FEATURES HAVE BEEN UTILIZED SINCE THE START OF ANIMATION AND CHARACTER DESIGN. Protagonist men are animated with features that are also soft, but cast more angularly and with more broad faces as those characteristics invoke a sense of masculinity, sturdiness and reliability. Meanwhile antagonists are more commonly portrayed with sharper features, harder eyes and often with sharper jawlines and smaller or more pointed chins as these features are commonly associated with weakness, cruelty and a conniving nature. Look at Mother Goethel whom you neglected to include and you’ll likely see all of that.
Disney does use more rounded softer faces for their women characters, and more varied faces for the men, that’s true. They don’t do it to be lazy though, they do it to invoke reactions and emotion from the audience just from SEEING the character, whether the audience realizes it or not. News flash, Disney’s not the only company to do this, it is just more noticeable because Disney releases products more regularly than many other animation studios.