Barstool Sports is a famous and well known sports and pop culture blog founded by David Portnoy in 2003. Within Barstool Sports is also Barstool Smokeshows, a page and blog dedicated to posting, praising, and sexualizing skinny and pretty college aged women. Around many college campuses, it is not hard to find a barstool “Saturday’s are for the boys” flag proudly billowing or an embarrassing drunken video taken from a party being shared on platforms such as these. Although the company began as a way to discuss college life and sports, it has snowballed into a sexist and unfunny company which promotes and pokes fun at sexual harassment, racism, cyber bullying, drunkenness, and idiocy. Barstool creates a culture of toxic masculinity by sharing and praising men taking advantage of woman, making sexual comments, becoming physical with others, or drinking and doing drugs.
A large reason for why Barstool is both unfunny and cruel towards women and minority groups is the lack of female representation on the writing and creating teams. Very few women work or write for Barstool and those that do are often harassed sexually or verbally. Little action is taken against the assaulted and those in positions of power, creating a sense of fear to discuss such attacks and disregard for those that are reported or occur. For example….
Because the writers and creators of Barstool’s content are one dimensional, often white, hyper masculine men, the content that is created is geared towards the same audience. There is little respect or room for non offensive, racist, or sexist humor and commentary. The woman that do work for this company often serve as visual props or objects to lure more men into viewing this content, rather than working alongside their male counterparts to rebrand the companies culture and image (even the merchandise Barstool creates is sexist, as seen by their misogynistic tops and tapestry’s). If women however were given a voice within this company, it would be extremely beneficial to barstool. Being more inclusive of different genders, races, sexualities, and cultures would increase Barstool’s views and fanbase. Jokes would be funny and relatable without being sexist or offensive. Barstool has a large influence on the young men who consume it, and thus should make sure to post content that does not reinforce rape culture and toxic masculinity.
Animation is an amazing medium to communicate stories and human experience through. Animated films can have a major impact on the people who watch them. With all of this potential reach animation has, you might think the people who create these films think about the audiences they are putting their content out to; however, this is not always the case. While there are fantastic stories created with animation that portray minorities well, or touch on serious topics, one major area is often overlooked when it comes to animated film and tv. There is a lack of representation of disabled persons, specifically deaf people, in animation.
Disabled Character roles?
People with disabilities are usually not shown in animation, and when they are, it is often not a main character. This lack of representation is upsetting because children who watch these shows will not have a character to look up to who is like them. It is important that companies who make far reaching film and tv start pushing for more diverse content that normalizes these disabilities to show these children they can have a great life like anyone else. Quasimodo (shown below) is one of the very few disabled characters in any animated film or show that is not only a main character, but is portrayed in a way that shows how human he is and the kindness in his heart.
Even in modern film, there is a lack of representation. The recent movie The Peanut Butter Falcon was a major step in the right direction. The main character and actor has down syndrome and the actor was able to present at the oscars, which was the first in history.
Quasimodo, Hunchback of Notre Dame
Is being Deaf a disability?
There is controversy about whether or not being deaf is an actual disability. Due to the physical difference, it is categorized as one because most people can hear. The Deaf Community does not always agree with this. Studies show that deaf people can grow up and be just as socially mature, intelligent, and well-adjusted as their hearing peers because the disability does not have to do with cognitive ability. Deaf people see this “disability” more as a difference and protest that they are just as capable as any hearing person. The way deaf people are taught and treated also has an impact on this. Deaf people who grow up learning sign language learn the same as hearing people, just in a different way. A deaf person who grows up being forced to learn oral skills and lip reading can often struggle being in hearing schools and feel ostracized or left out. This video about a girl in hearing school is a great example of this how animation can tell a story like hers in a way other mediums couldn’t.
Lack of Representation
Whether or not you as an individual consider deafness as a disability, it is still underrepresented in animation. Watchmojo.com put out a list of the top 10 deaf animated characters in tv on their website, and almost all of them were minor characters on shows that are not well known at all. Not only does it make deaf people seem weird to hearing children or children who do not have direct experiences with disabled people, but it can communicate to those children who have disabilities, or are deaf, that they can only be side characters in life. Even when researching about deaf representation for this blog, there was a severe lack in information and research. Most of the articles were written by upset mothers or college students in papers for their classes. It is clear that this issue is not really being considered or looked into. It is sad to see such an important topic to be overlooked. When searching on the internet about Sign Language specifically in animation, the only topics that came back were about technology, not stories.
General Amaya, The Dragon Prince (left) , Gabriella, The Little Mermaid Tv Series
Animation is currently being used to teach sign language. Apps, such as Mimix3D, and technological advances (shown below) have allowed people to create various ways of capturing ASL in a 3D space that people can use to learn the language. This is an amazing tool, but unfortunately is not well known. The information on these technologies can only be found easily if you are looking for it. While this is great, it is still upsetting that the stories behind deaf people are not portrayed. The apps do not teach about the vast culture or individual experiences like animation could.
Screenshot of animation teaching software (left) and Singaloud, technology that translates ASL (right)
Video of this kind of technology
Companies need to make a change
If major companies, such as Disney or Dreamwork’s Animation, started creating more content that featured disabled people, the industry would start to change. Right now due to the lack on representation, people are not really thinking about the issue or considering it. If a company with power made a compelling story about someone with a disability, it would bring light to the issue and might help motivate people to discuss these topics more, normalizing the content and creating a real difference. It is disappointing at this point in the current state of the world that there is still such a lack of representation for minorities or people with disabilities. Animation has endless possibilities and should be used in that, pushing the envelope on storytelling instead of retelling basic stories without representation.
On Sunday, February 9, the short film, “Hair Love ” won best animated short film at the Oscars. Former NFL player, Matthew A. Cherry, accepted the award stating, “‘‘Hair Love’ was done because we wanted to see more representation in animation, and because we wanted to normalize black hair,’ Cherry said from the Dolby stage on Sunday.’” (TheWrap)
However, as beautiful and tender the animated film is, it sheds an important light on a big issue that has prevalent in America for some time– the discrimination and and hatred based on hairstyles of black men and women, young and old.
Cherry utilizes his voice and platform to bring attention to the Crown Act, a law in California, New York, Montgomery County, Maryland and New Jersey that protects against discrimination based on hairstyle by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles in the Fair Employment and Housing Act and state Education Codes.
The CROWN Act,which stands for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is a law that prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture.
Across America, both full and part time working black employees and students face discrimination based on their ethnic hairstyles. It affects their ability to work and study in order to make a contribution to the growing workforce and education system in the U.S. The discrimination that they face unfortunately proves that racism did not suddenly end after the anti-discrimination acts in the 1970s. It continues to occur in both schools and workplaces for many black people. The style that they choose to use for their hair unfortunately dictates whether or not they are capable of working, studying, and even raise a distraction for their white counterparts.
The Sony produced short film brings attention to this issue at an event that is watched by millions of people all over America. This proves the power that animation has in spreading an important and impactful message to viewers in the United States. Animated films are not made only for the purpose of entertaining children, but to focus on pressing issues in both the U.S. and every other country in the world. The possibilities are endless with animation. Matthew A. Cherry and Sony utilized this power to spread an important message about the ever prevalent issue that is currently happening in the U.S..
It is with their hope and mine that audiences take away the significant issue that can be resolved by Congress. Currently, it is legal to discriminate against a person in the workplace or in schools because of their natural or protective hairstyle in all states except for California, New York, and New Jersey. Hair discrimination remains a source of racial injustice with serious economic consequences for Black people. A petition was created by the CROWN Coalition to help end this discrimination in the Workplace and Schools.
You’ve probably heard of the movie Cats, and might have even had the unfortunate opportunity to see it in theaters. But for those who haven’t it’s essentially the story of a group of cats who compete through song for the coveted prize of dying first.
So in more depth, every year at the Jellicle ball, Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) has to make the Jellicle choice. The Jellicle choice is basically which cat gets to die so they can be reincarnated into a better life. So throughout the movie the cats perform musical numbers about themselves to show why they should be picked. Theres also a villian cat named Macavity (Idris Elba) who tries to sabatoge the other cats so he can die first instead. In the end the cat who wins is Grisabella (Jennifer Hudson), a cat that used to be popular but is now old, washed up, and sad winning through her song “memory” where she reminisces about the old days. As such Grisabella gets to ascend into the Heaviside Layer (Cat Heaven).
Cats: The Musical
I think when they were making this movie, they were also reminiscing about the old days. Cats the movie is a spin off the widely successful broadway musical Cats. The musical for Cats is estimated to have grossed around 3.5 billion by now. The musical and the movie both share the same plot but the musical has been around since 1981. The pull of the musical was its strangeness, it was praised for costume and set design, its ability to send the audience into a fantasy world, and also for the constant action that the musical performances brought. Cats is a good indicator that to do a successful remake, it takes more than just switching out the stage costumes for uncanny valley CGI.
Despite the star cast and successful musical predecessor Cats the movie was a flop. And a spectacular one at that with the currently estimated loss being around 100 million at the box office and a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Cats the movie has different layers of bad, too many to unpack. From the song that Rebel Wilson cat does where she eats roaches with CGI human faces, to the song that Jason Derulo cat does about being sexy in a “milk bar” since cats don’t drink beer. Here is perhaps maybe the most cursed moment in the film where not only does Rebel Wilson eat a roach but also peels off her skin to reveal clothes underneath.
we live in a world where people decided to spend money to make cat rebel wilson eating human cockroaches a reality https://t.co/hOX44ktvSt
Also with the CGI fur some critics did think that it was a bit strange that some of the cats wear clothes for their regular outfits (i.e coats, pants, etc) while others do not. Stranger still that most of the cats not wearing clothes were those played primarily by the younger actresses.
Another one of the interesting things to come out of it was the fact that the movie was patched while in the theaters. Patching a movie is rare but not uncommon, so if you were lucky enough to see Cats when it first came out you might have caught Judi Dench’s human hand.
It is believed that they did not want to delay the release because they wanted to be Oscar nomination eligible, as if releasing an unfinished version of the film would somehow make them eligible. There was a bit of worry that at least for CGI animated films, other movies might try to something similar where they release unfinished versions as well. But hopefully, no other animated film will try to follow in the steps of Cats.
If anything we can only hope that Cats can serve as a warning as what NOT to do for a CGI remake.
In 2019, leading animation films had more female characters than ever. An article from variety discusses the different leading characters from animated films that were released the past year.
Films with unforgettable characters include “Toy Story 4”, “Frozen 2”, “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”, and “Missing Link.”
The field of animation has finally recognized that both boys and girls show up to watch animated films. When girls used watch these films and saw a lack of representation of themselves in the top rated films, it was discouraging and heartbreaking. However, boys saw plenty male superheroes and leading characters, which was great for them. However, it is realistic to add more female characters because just as many girls watch animated films as boys.
It is progress to see more animated films showcase powerful female characters, such as Anna and Elsa from “Frozen 2”. It is empowering for females to see themselves on a big screen, which is exactly what we need in today’s generation. More and more women are becoming involved in the entertainment industry, in hopes to make a strong impact on the community.
