After seeing the preview for Aardman’s “Pirates” I posted a pretty scathing commentary: Porno or pirate movie for kids?
Some commenters were upset that I judged the movie without seeing it. I wasn’t judging the movie, I was writing about the preview, about how movies are advertised and marketed.
But now, I’ve finally seen the movie and am sorry to report that it’s more sexist than I thought.
When I saw the preview, I was upset that Cutlass Liz, the female pirate, was ogled and hooted at by the male pirates. She wears tight clothing and a belly shirt. Basically, the female pirate is totally sexualized.
But here was my mistake: From the preview, I believed that Cutlass Liz had a major part in the movie. I thought that in spite of her appearance, she would be portrayed as a bad ass, that she’d have a major role in the narrative as a competitor with the Captain (the star of the movie) for the “Pirate of the Year” award.
Cutlass Liz is only in three scenes. She’s a minor character in the film with almost no lines or action sequences at all. One of the few scenes she’s in is a fantasy one: the Captain imagines that he gets awarded the coveted trophy and also the admiration, lust, and batted eyelashes of Cutlass Liz.
After I trashed the preview, I was told by commenters that Queen Victoria has a strong part. In some ways, she does. At one point she rips of her constricting clothing (how original!) and gets into a duel with the Captain. But she is also portrayed as Charles Darwin’s sexual fantasy. Gross. Why?
Another female is the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate. Ironically, she is not curvaceous like Liz, who constantly swishes her hips, or Victoria, who has a hugely exaggerated posterior. SCP has the fate of many heroic females in kidworld: she dresses as a male in order to have adventures and be powerful. She wears a beard and has hardly any lines. Her biggest scenes are when she is naked in a bathtub. More sexist jokes ensue here. Ha ha ha.
The best female character in “Pirates” is the dodo. Her role is central to the plot of the movie, but she can’t talk.
The sexist jokes start with the first lines of the movie where the Captain refers to “scantily clad mermaids” and don’t stop until the finish when Darwin laments about impressing women. Female characters exist mainly for that reason: to provide inspiration for the male characters to be strong, brave, and adventurous.
The only slightly redeeming thing as far as sexism in this movie for kids is the way that the compassionate captain and his crew fail to live up to standards of masculinity, choosing the dodo bird, their friend, over recognition and gold.
Reel Girl rates “Pirates: Band of Misfits” ***SS*** Don’t expose your kids to the sexist stereotypes that this film relentlessly promotes.
By the way, after the leper community complained about bias, Aardman did, in fact, change the line in the movie about the “leper” boat. Now it’s called a “plague” boat.
Reel Girl 
Reblogged this on myfirstblog5.
Thanks for telling us this, I was thinking of watching this movie after watching a review, now I know better.
Thanks, no PIRATES for me and my girl this time !
I saw it. Loved it. I’m seeing it again tomorrow and I will see it several more times and probably buy it on DVD.
I will support this movie because it’s funny, original, witty, charming, and chock full of incredible animation.
I had to keep reminding myself that the character who moved in such a believable and fluid way, were all PUPPETS made of wire, cloth, and plasticine being manipulated, by hand, one frame at a time by an animator. Holy crap that’s awesome.
I say, take your family to see it and support it because it’s currently not doing well at the box office (what a surprise… the most original and entertaining animated movie of the year that blows all the live action movies out of the water comes out and it’s barely seen by anybody. Happened with Rango and Fantastic Mr. Fox too).
And it wasn’t sexist. At least intentionally.
I highly doubt they were sitting around in their bowler hats twirling their mustaches thinking about what they can do to piss off feminist bloggers and corrupt little girls minds. I think they were just thinking about how to make an entertaining film that everyone can enjoy regardless of age.
It’s not a kid’s movie by the way. Like the “Wallace and Gromit” films, it’s a movie that anyone can enjoy, kids and adults, that isn’t geared toward any particular age group at all.
There’s a big difference between that and a “kid’s movie”. “Curious George” is a “kid’s movie”. “Pirates” is not.
And for a so called “kids movie” there sure as hell were a lot of adults rolling in the aisles when I went to see it. I don’t think there was one kid in that theater.
Support this movie, support stop-motion animation, and support animation as an ART FORM and not a GENRE catered towards a specific audience.
Sexism doesn’t have to be intentional. If you step on somebody’s toes, do you tell them not to complain because it wasn’t intentional? And if it happens to be somebody whose toes get stepped on, several times, every damn day, by a few who do it deliberately and many who just can’t be bothered to look before they take a step, do you still tell them that if it’s not intentional it shouldn’t matter?
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