Yesterday, March 8, was International Women’s Day, a fact to which a Facebook friend alerted me. I need to mark March 8 down in my mental calendar, for outside of Facebook I saw no mention of International Women’s Day in media or online. I’d hoped I might read a reflection or two on the Opinion pages of cnn.com or The Guardian Online, or a list of outstanding and/or impactful female authors on Tor Publishing’s reactormag.com, but no. Of the media sites I frequent, only Rotten Tomatoes chose to honor the day with a list of Best Women-Directed Movies of the twenty-first century, which includes Anatomy of a Fall and Past Lives, which are nominated for major Academy Awards, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which should be.

My thoughts on International Women’s Day have been mingling with my thoughts on the Oscars, set to air tomorrow night (3/10), as when I reflect on the women in or close to the public eye who have inspired me most, they’re nearly always the women who make art — and I mean art in its broadest sense, encompassing not only painting, drawing, and sculpture but novels, poems, short stories, musical compositions of all kinds, film, and television. Female screenwriters and directors are among my pantheon of heroines. Justine Triet (writer-director of Anatomy of a Fall) and Celine Song (writer-director of Past Lives), even if you don’t go home with Oscars, I honor you in my heart.

Also among the nominees is Maestro, a biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper. It might be a very good film; its Best Picture nomination and Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes suggest it is (although, at 79%, it’s the lowest ranked among the Best Picture nominees. And I admire Bernstein’s work, especially his score for West Side Story. Yet I can’t summon the slightest desire to see Maestro, as I’ve pretty much lost patience with the oft-told tale it tells, of the Erratic and Self-Absorbed Male Creative Genius and His Less Gifted, Long-Suffering (TM) Wife. (In the 1991 coming-of-age movie Paradise, young Thora Birch, wondering aloud what the adults around her mean when they describe a female acquaintance as “long-suffering,” notes, “They never say it about men.”)

Reviewers of Maestro have mentioned that Carey Mulligan, as Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, gives a great performance (she’s nominated for Best Actress) and that the narrative does take the time to show her as a complex and interesting figure who does more than just suffer her husband’s whims. That’s good to know. Yet, sadly, history has already told the story. Bernstein’s compositions have made an impact that will last for generations to come, while the only reason anyone knows anything about Mrs. Bernstein is because she’s, well, Mrs. Bernstein, the not-quite-as-great woman in the shadow of the great man. This kind of story has been told very well, my favorite iteration being Anais Mitchell’s sublime musical Hadestown. Yet I’m just so darn tired of it, especially when Hollywood so rarely flips the script.

This isn’t to say that we never see good movies about women of creative genius. In 2016 we saw two such films, the Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet Passion and Maudie, about folk artist Maud Lewis. Yet there’s no long-suffering man in Dickinson’s life; as a single woman, she’s free to compose haunting, profound poems, isolate herself, and slowly lose her sanity without forfeiting the audience’s sympathy or admiration. As for Maudie, even though she’s the creative one in the marriage, she’s still a put-upon wife, enduring her husband’s mercurial temper and jealousy. Biopics, of course, must at least appear to stay true to history, but the fictional depictions the movies give us of women who make art tend to be worse. Little Women (1994 and 2019) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) notwithstanding, there’s a long tradition of portraying their drive to create (as opposed to procreate) as wrongheaded, if not downright unnatural. Sometimes she’s a straight-up monster with ice in her veins (e.g. 1941’s The Great Lie, 2011’s Young Adult, 2023’s Tar); other times, she’s made to pay for her misguided priorities with her life (e.g. 1948’s The Red Shoes). A man may be forgiven for putting his art ahead of his personal relationships — he’s a genius, after all, and the world would be poorer without his efforts — but for a woman, it’s a deadly sin.

Yet all is far from gloom and doom in this Women’s History Month, for despite the mixed messages our popular culture sends us, women still make good art.

Tony winner Anais Mitchell, Oscar winner and nominee Billie Eilish, Victoria Monet, Ashlie Amber, Gracie Abrams, Keturah Allgood, the Shindellas, Corook, Tyla, Tate McRae, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, and many other ladies are still making music.

Women like Justine Triet, Celine Song, Kelly Fremon Craig, Raine Allen Miller, Sammi Cohen, Laurel Parmet, Charlotte Regan, Nicole Holofcener, Noora Niasari, A.V. Rockwell, Domee Shi, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Sarah Polley, Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow, Greta Gerwig, Sian Heder, Ava DuVernay, Cathy Brady, Heidi Ewing, Fernanda Valadez, Jasmila Zbanic, Chloe Zhao, and Emerald Fennell still make movies.

And Juliet Marillier, Kate Elliott, Kate Forsyth, Shannon Chakraborty, Sharon Shinn, Madeline Miller, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Naomi Novik, Saara El-Arifi, Tasha Suri, Alix E. Harrow, Katherine Arden, C.M. Waggoner, Robin Hobb, Lois McMaster Bujold, Margaret Rogerson, Jordan Ifueko, N.K. Jemision, Nnedi Okorafor, Claire North, Jennifer Saint, Natalie Haynes, Genevieve Gornichec, and many other fantastically talented women are still writing insightful and moving works of SFF.

Happy International Women’s Day from the Gray Geek Lady.

2024 has been an interesting year so far. I’ve finished one script for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company — a new Christmas piece, which I hope will be performed this coming December — and I’m working on another. I’m also teaching an online Composition course for the first time in years, and I can feel myself growing more comfortable and confident with this mode of teaching as Winter Quarter 2024 nears its end. And while I’ve been recording videos for use in my course, I’ve also begun putting on film some thoughts that would have previously appeared in this space. I’m “the Gray Geek Lady,” representing Generation X on YouTube.

For my 2023 Reading Year In Review, I have singled out my three favorite reads of the year, the unquestioned highlights of an overall solid year. I’ve filmed a vlog about each of them.

First, Brandon Sanderson’s Tress of the Emerald Sea, my springtime read.

Then, Shannon Chakraborty’s superlative The Adventures of Amina Al-Sifari, my summertime read and my favorite of the three.

Finally, Saara El-Arifi’s The Final Strife, my year-end read, the first volume of the epic series The Ending Fire. This work deserves far more attention than it seems to be getting.

I already know what I want for my fifty-fifth birthday, coming up in March 2024: tickets for me and my husband to see Beetlejuice the Musical at Atlanta, GA’s Fabulous Fox Theatre. I’m already familiar with the story. I’ve listened to the Original Broadway Cast recording, and the songs are tuneful and fun and at times even poignant. So I know it’s going to be a wonderful time, a perfect celebration for a woman who has loved live theater in general, and musicals in particular, nearly all her life.

This past weekend, Beetlejuice the Musical made the news, and not in a good way. Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and a male companion decided to take in a Broadway touring company performance of the show in Denver. They took advantage of the darkened theater to indulge in heavy petting, raucous singing, and vaping, eventually becoming so disruptive that the ushers asked them to leave. They resisted, and in the end, theater security had to escort them from the building — but not before Boebert, in a tantrum any sane person over the age of sixteen would be embarrassed by, gave the easily recognizable Narcissist’s Call: “Don’t you know who I am?”

When the news broke, social media went wild. Plenty of folks expressed outrage and called upon Boebert to resign from Congress, noting that some politicians have been hounded from office for less disgraceful behavior. But Boebert had her defenders, their most common point being some variation of “who among us hasn’t made out in the back of a darkened theater?” As might be expected, these reactions split along political lines, with those who share her views defending her behavior and those who disagree with her politically demanding her resignation. Yet my frustration with her, indeed with the whole incident, has nothing to do with politics. This is not a political blog and I have no plans to turn it into one. I don’t speak on this kerfuffle as a Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, Constitutionalist, or what-have-you. I speak as someone who loves and values the theater.

The theater is in my blood. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t a part of my life. My father taught history at a small community college in a tiny south Georgia town, hardly an expected cultural mecca. Yet this little college in this little town had a secret weapon: an amazing theater department, which regularly put on productions that infused that lazy community with life and energy, giving them something to look forward to every season. My father, an excellent actor, played everything from Moliere’s titular Miser to the cold-blooded Judge Danforth in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to the equally cold-blooded but more tuneful Edward Rutledge in the musical 1776 to the cantankerous Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner to the the noble Duke Theseus in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My mother also excelled on the stage, playing, among other things, the wise, funny Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man and the harried, ultimately tragic Edith Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank. My sister and I often found ourselves at rehearsals when babysitters could not be found (and when babysitters were found, they were often theater majors). When we were little, we spent our time running through the hallways and playing in the empty classrooms, but as we grew older, we began to pay attention to the shows being rehearsed. Peterson Hall, the home of the productions, became a kind of second school, teaching us about Shakespeare and Greek mythology, the Salem Witch Trials, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Holocaust, and the Ed Sullivan Show (this last when Mom and Dad played Mr. and Mrs. MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie) — only twice as much fun as school has any right to be. Whenever the chance arose, we too auditioned and acted.

When I look back over my life, this stretch of time — from age six to about fourteen — has a glow about it, a glamor. So much of my happiness was bound up with the theater, rehearsing plays, performing in plays, and of course watching plays. Even my memory of the smell of freshly painted sets holds magic for me. As such, I have a bone-deep understanding of the value of the theater, and open, unashamed disrespect for the medium hits me where I love. As both an audience member and a performer, I want people like Ms. Boebert and her defenders to understand one crucial point:

A live play is not a movie.

Movies may be great works of art, and watching a good movie at a theater can be a wonderfully immersive experience Yet a movie differs from a play performance in a couple of key areas. First, when you watch a movie, what unfolds before you is removed from you in time and space. The actors aren’t going to look out from the screen and see you or speak to you, and the audience has no impact on the performances they give.

Second, a movie is a finished product. It will exist forever in its present state, as long as it is maintained. If you see a movie, fall in love with it, and go back to see it again the following week, you’ll be seeing exactly the same movie, even though a second viewing generally prompts a deeper look. Likewise, when you rewatch a movie you loved as a child and find it isn’t as good as you remembered, the movie hasn’t changed; you have. Again, as with the factor above, the movie isn’t influenced by the audience’s response. It is itself, whether we love it or loathe it. Hurl popcorn and/or empty soda cans at the screen, and the movie goes merrily on.

On both these points, live theater is quite different. The actors are performing, and the action is unfolding, in the same time and space as the audience, which creates (or at least should create) a more intimate and collaborative connection between the audience and the play and performers. Unlike a movie audience, a live theater audience can influence the performance, and no two performances of the same show are exactly the same. I learned this when I played my first role at the age of ten, one of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I picked up on which moment in Shakespeare’s comedy were expected to rouse a vocal reaction from the audience; I learned the phrase “Hold for laughs.” When the audiences responded to us, when we sensed they were with us, we fed off their positive vibes and ended the evenings on a natural high. But when we had a “dead crowd,” we were usually exhausted by the end, having given all our energy while getting nothing back. In both cases, we acted our hearts out, but we “crushed it” hardest when our audiences vibed with us. How does the song go? “What is it that we’re living for? Applause, applause!”

Another thing I learned, as one experience on stage followed another, was that even the “dead crowds,” though they might be less vocal, still valued what we gave them. They came to the theater to see a show. If people had no interest in paying attention to what was happening on stage, they didn’t come. That seems so obvious, but apparently, nowadays, it isn’t. Boebert’s behavior showed very clearly that she didn’t care about the show she was at the theater to see, and for me, the biggest mystery in this whole brouhaha is why she chose to go at all, when she and her companion could have saved money by going to a movie instead — preferably one of those “so bad it’s good” movies that no one makes any solid emotional investment in.

Boebert, I’ve heard, is going through a divorce at the moment and is in an emotionally fragile state. I won’t judge her for that; I can even sympathize. Nor will I judge her for things others on social media have mentioned, her lack of formal education (which shouldn’t be an excuse not to crack an occasional book) or her wardrobe choice on the night in question. But for displaying contempt for the art form I love, I will judge her, and harshly. I will judge anyone who does that, whatever their political stances may be.

A movie house may be a palace, but a theater is a temple. Treat it as such.

I’ve found one of “those lines” again, a passage from a book that resonates with me so perfectly and precisely that I feel the author is speaking directly to me. It appears in the thirteenth chapter of Shannon Chakraborty’s swashbuckling Arabian Nights fantasy The Adventures of Amina Al-Sifari, when the title character, a middle-aged sea captain called out of retirement to rescue a young woman from the clutches of a power-hungry sorcerer, is bonding with her former navigator’s wife, Nasteho, over their mutual need to raise their children with love and care yet still hold onto something of their own.

“Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs,” Amina tells Nasteho, “but that does not mean that which makes us us is gone. And I hope … part of me hopes anyway that in seeing me do this, Marjana [her daughter] knows more is possible. I would not want her to believe that because she was born a girl, she cannot dream.” (184)

Amina’s conflict here is not my conflict. I’ve written in this space before about my decision not to become a mother and the factors that went into it, so I don’t need to go into a great amount of detail on the matter again. Yet a character doesn’t have to represent me fully in order to speak to me, and and it brought me joy when I heard Amina put into clear, common-sense language something we’d all do well to understand: motherhood does not, and should not, swallow a woman’s identity whole. She doesn’t stop being a person with interests, ideas, and, yes, ambitions of her own, and any demand for full self-abnegation is unreasonable. Amina wants to be a good mother to her daughter, and her love for Marjana and desire to protect her is a major driving force throughout the narrative. But part of that, as she says, lies in showing the girl that she can do anything, be anything, she chooses. One of the crucial tasks of feminism lies in making certain that the question we start asking our children when they’re around five years old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, is just as relevant for little girls as it is for little boys. Thanks to Amina’s example, that question will be plenty relevant for young Marjana, and that gladdens me.

This isn’t the only thing I love about Chakraborty’s heroine, who has one a spot among my favorite characters in the fantasy genre. First, even though Amina is a bit of a rogue and doesn’t always, or even often, play by the rules, she has a strong moral sense, being fiercely loyal to her seafaring companions and strongly protective of the young woman she has set out to rescue. She might initially take on the rescue mission out of a desire to protect her family, whom the girl’s grandmother vows to destroy if Amina doesn’t do what she wants, but she quickly sees that the villain — a truly loathsome piece of work — must be stopped, for the greater as well as the “lesser” good. For all her flaws, she is a hero, always delightful to see in this Age of Grimdark.

Also, Amina sometimes gets in over her head. Sometimes she’s at a loss to see how she’ll get out of certain situations. Yet she remains tenacious, determined, and above all, resourceful (as I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite traits in a heroine). The fact that she sometimes needs help makes her Crowning Moments of Awesome (TV Tropes) all the more rewarding.

Furthermore, despite her non-traditional calling, Amina isn’t a “Not Like Other Girls” kind of woman, which pleases me in particular because it would have been so easy for Chakraborty to go that route, as other authors have done with female characters who play “masculine” roles. While I do wish Dalila the Poisoner were not the only woman in her crew, at no point in the narrative does Amina express contempt or even disapproval towards women who have made different choices. Nasteho could have been just the wife of Majed the navigator, begging him to stay home with his family and reject the dangerous mission — after all, haven’t we seen this hundreds of times before? — but instead, she and Amina become friends. Amina’s developing bond with Dunya, the girl she rescues, also plays a vital role in the story; as we learn more about Dunya, we see Amina evolving into the kind of mentor we all wish we could have.

In short, Amina Al-Sifari is well worth spending time with, and she’s surrounded by an engaging cast of supporting characters. The world is both richly detailed and agreeably lived-in, and the plot engrossing, as these characters we care about face ever more dangerous obstacles. Five rollicking stars.

It’s late August, and the middle-aged nerdwoman’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of DragonCon, that annual Labor Day weekend celebration of all that is strange, weird, and fanciful, from novels to comics to movies to television to games to costuming. This year will mark my twentieth trip to downtown Atlanta, GA to soak up the atmosphere, greet old friends and make new ones, and gather all the ideas my head can hold of what books to read, shows to watch, and stories to write. I’ve loved every Con, even 2020 when panels and other events were hosted virtually. But this Con is special.

(Yes, I know I say that about every Con, but I mean it this time…)

Among my favorite things about DragonCon is the opportunity it gives me, and any/all of us of the nerd persuasion, to learn and talk about things we love with others who share those passions. If you’re a new Con-goer, it won’t take you long to find your people. Do you love historical fantasy or science fiction with a Steampunk flair? Come gather at the Alternate and Historical Fiction Track. Enjoy shows like Doctor Who or PBS Mystery or Masterpiece Theatre? The Brit Track has you covered. The Science Fiction Literature Track covers both classic and modern print science fiction. (This year I get to serve as a panelist for a discussion of Gender Roles on Anne McCaffrey’s Pern, Sunday at 2:30 p.m.) In the generic Fantasy Literature Track, fantasy of all sub-genres is discussed, yet a more specifically targeted High Fantasy Track covers works with an Epic bent. There’s also a track aimed at aspiring SFF authors, the simply named Writer’s Track, a gold mine of useful advice. Animation, Anime, Comics, Costuming, Horror, Star Trek, Star Wars, and more have their own Tracks where fans can share their thoughts and ideas and learn from experts who have worked and/or studied in those fields. One of my favorite days of the year is “DragonCon-Mobile-App-Goes-Live Day”, when the list of all activities and events becomes available online and I can tap into each Track’s schedule to mark the panels I’m interested in. I have my favorites. I spend a lot of time bouncing between the Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature and Writer’s Tracks, with not infrequent visits to the Brit, Animation, and High Fantasy Tracks, but I look over everything on offer, because something might surprise me, like, say, a Jim Henson trivia contest hosted by the Puppetry Track.

Choosing panels is always fun, but this year there seems to be more of what I go to DragonCon for. Most years I’ll have one or two empty blocks of time in my schedule, when I can’t find a panel that intrigues me so I wander through Artists’ Alley or the Dealers’ Room or grab a meal. This year, almost every hour has at least one panel or event marked in it. Many of the hours have multiple panels competing for my attention. Take Friday at 2:30 p.m. The Diversity in Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Track is hosting a discussion called “Empowering Heroines: Unveiling the Might of Female Leads.” At the same time, the Alternate and Historical Fiction Track is hosting, “Herstorically Speaking: Women You Should Know.” I could learn a ton from either of these panels. How am I supposed to choose between them? I expect that circumstance will end up making the final choice. I’ll file it away under “Problems I’m Happy to Have.”

Yet on Friday and Sunday evenings, I will have an even better problem. The 5:00 – 8:30 p.m. blocks of those evenings often feature panels I’d be glad to take part in, but no can do, because those stretches of time belong to the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. Sunday night we’ll present a revival of our audio dramatization of Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!, originally performed in 2001. I will be playing one of two narrators. If you think narrators don’t have any fun, well, you haven’t read Pratchett.

ARTC’s Sunday night shows are generally devoted to well-crafted adaptations of well-known SFF authors’ work. Friday nights, however, showcase original scripts by the company’s writers, including Kelley S. Ceccato (that’s me). This year, in addition to a new episode of Ron N. Butler’s popular series Rory Rammer: Space Marshal and the next installment of Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope, ARTC will premiere my newest play, A Pane of Black Glass, a loose adaptation of the folktale “The Robber Bridegroom.” This time, I’m directing the piece as well, and I’m tremendously proud of my cast. I still recall the summer of 2004, when ARTC performed a play I’d written for the first time and I heard those wonderful actors breathe life into my story. I’d never felt a rush quite like it. The company has performed quite a few of my plays since then, and that thrill has never gone away. I’ll never get used to it, and I don’t want to.

Only six more days to go! Will I see you there?

By the way, you haven’t really experienced DragonCon until you visit the Caribou Coffee stand at Peachtree Center. If there’s a way to make a coffee geek-centric, they know!

I’d originally intended to write a simple Facebook post expressing my love for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ latest episode, the musical “Subspace Rhapsody,” but I realized I had too much to say on the matter, not just about Strange New Worlds but about my history with Star Trek in general. I’ve always loved the show and its multiple incarnations, but now, at last, I feel like the show loves me back.

I can remember being fifteen years old and devouring the original Star Trek series in syndication, and seething when my local channel decided to discontinue it and air something far less interesting (I can’t recall what) in its place. I’d seen the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in the theater and loved it, but I was still catching up on the original TV show, trying to make sure I saw every episode at least once. As I watched, I took the characters, especially Spock — the more out-of-the-ordinary the characters, the more I’m inclined to bond with them — to my heart, even though I noticed the episodes varied, sometimes widely, in quality. (For those who might be wondering about my favorite Star Trek: Original Series episode, it’s “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Yeah, I’m a bit basic in that regard.) In those days I was an expert at “gender-flipping,” imagining my favorite characters as female, so the fact that the show’s women were either window dressing (e.g. the Enterprise’s female crew members) or villainous (95% of the show’s female guest stars) didn’t turn me away from it. But as I grew older, I grew less and less satisfied, less patient with a pop/geek culture that so rarely showed women acting as heroes. I can’t say I fell completely out of love with it — I still enjoy quite a few of the episodes — but it fell into the general category of science fiction TV shows in which only evil women got to be active and resourceful and to play key roles in the plot. That was my adolescence for you.

By the time Star Trek: The Next Generation came along, I was a young woman, and while I’d learned to accept my least favorite aspects of the original show as being a “product of the time,” I hoped for something more, something better, from the new one. To some degree, I got it. The women of this new Enterprise were at least a little more than simple window dressing, there to be seen and not much else. They actually did things, and sometimes those things had fairly significant impact on the plot. Yet something was still missing. After Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) was written out of the series, the only remaining series-regular women were therapist Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and ship’s physician Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) — caregivers, women with “soft skills.” Nothing ought to be wrong with that; “soft skills” can be very powerful. Yet rarely were they portrayed as decisive or game changing. Troi and Crusher could contribute with those skills, but couldn’t save the day with them. Day-saving was up to the men, who, not coincidentally, were the fan favorites, the stars of all the best-remembered and most highly regarded episodes. The ladies were “hero support,” sidekicks — better than window dressing, but still not heroes.

The first Star Trek series to do well by its female characters came along next. In Deep Space Nine, both Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) and Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) were competent officers who could fight when put to it. Even better, they were flawed, complex characters with interesting backstories, and the show would put them in situations where they had less-than-easy moral and ethical dilemmas to confront. This series, the darkest Trek up to that point, was by no means perfect — for one thing, the Ferengi get far too much screen time for my liking — but it holds up for me as the first series in the franchise to show its women taking decisive action in a good number of the episodes. Star Trek: Voyager continued along these lines, but I only watched a handful of the episodes; for me, while I appreciated what it was trying to do, it never quite captured the magic of the earlier series, perhaps because I found the supporting characters rather dull and one-note. The one character I did like, Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine, got a chance to shine in the recent Star Trek: Picard, and Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Janeway also appeared to advantage in the underrated Star Trek: Prodigy, showing that they could work beautifully when written well. But Voyager began my Trek slump, which lasted through Enterprise and ended with the dark, intense, sometimes confusing Star Trek: Discovery. Discovery has its detractors, many of them criticizing the show for being too “woke,” but it revitalized the franchise, with other Trek shows — Picard, Prodigy, Lower Decks — following in its wake.

Which brings me to Strange New Worlds.

This show technically qualifies as a spin-off of Discovery, in which Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romjin) appeared, all three “legacy characters” from the original series. Fans liked them, and those in charge decided to develop a prequel-to-the-original series that would center on them and add a few more legacy characters along with some new faces. The creative team behind Strange New Worlds have sought to capture the spirit of adventure, the energy, and the optimism of the original show. For my money, they’ve succeeded, as this new show has everything I love about the original Trek (the aforementioned adventure, energy, and optimism) and none of what I hate (the sexism). With my memory of those afternoons spent with syndicated Star Trek back in the ’80s strong in my mind, I can’t help but relish seeing Nurse Christine Chapel (played by Jess Bush in Strange New Worlds) and Communications Officer Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) finally become the heroes they always should have been.

One of the aspects of the show I appreciate most is the care with which it approaches its legacy characters. The creative forces behind it know that much of its audience will have watched the original series, perhaps even to the point of committing whole episodes to memory, and if their prequel incarnations are too far out of line with the “Captain Kirk years” versions of themselves, that audience will turn against them. Accordingly, while we get to know Chapel and Uhura in more depth and detail than we did in Star Trek, everything they do in the new series aligns perfectly with what we know about their “future” selves as we saw them in the original show. They aren’t revamped into martial badasses, and they don’t need to be; we have security chief La’an (Christina Chong) and helmsman Ortegas (Melissa Navia) for that. Like Troi and Crusher of TNG, they have mostly “soft skills.” Yet Strange New Worlds puts them into situations in which those “soft skills” can be the game-changers, the difference-makers. For example, a recent episode, “Charades,” finds Spock and Chapel aboard a shuttle investigating a newly discovered life form; unfortunately, the life forms identify the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock as “defective” and rewrite his DNA so that he’ll be fully human, like Chapel. Chapel, as anyone who has seen much of the original show knows, is in love with Spock, and a fully human Spock just might be able to return her affections. But that isn’t the man she knows and loves, so she takes it upon herself to save that man and restore his true, full identity. When scientific know-how can’t do the job, she gathers the courage to confront the life forms and persuade them to give her what she needs to turn Spock back into himself again. With honest love and pure bravery, she saves him and becomes the episode’s hero.

In the musical episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” it’s Uhura’s turn, and Celia Rose Gooding, a Broadway veteran, makes the most of it.

[Spoilers for “Subspace Rhapsody” ahead]

Exploring an uncharted portion of space, the Enterprise is sending out communication probes, one of which includes a Broadway show tune, “Anything Goes” as sung by Patti LuPone. Shortly afterward, the crew find themselves in a “fold” in which they start singing whenever their emotions run high or strong. This leads to a series of catchy tunes and an opportunity for the cast to show off abilities we hadn’t guessed they had. La’an wonders in song about her closed-off personality and the possibility that she might train herself to take more risks, especially where her crush on the visiting Jim Kirk is concerned. Number One gives both Kirk and La’an tuneful pep talks, sharing her experience and hard-earned wisdom. Chapel sings in celebration of having been granted an anthropological apprenticeship, even though this apprenticeship will take her away from the Enterprise and from Spock, with whom she’s been in a tentative relationship since “Charades.” Spock, having learned to open his heart, sings of how it feels to have it broken. Perhaps not trusting in Anson Mount’s abilities as a singer, the episode gives him only a tense cut-short duet with his girlfriend, with whom he isn’t seeing eye-to-eye on how they should spend their time off together. Uhura, for much of the episode, is witness to all these musical shenanigans, observing them with an eye to figuring out a solution to the problem. Yet Uhura has an advantage: she knows musicals and understands how they work, so she starts to study the ways in which the fold fluctuates whenever the musical numbers happen.

Of all the characters on the original show, Uhura counts as the biggest missed opportunity. At one point, actress Nichelle Nichols was prepared to quit the show in frustration with how little she was given to do; Martin Luther King Jr. himself famously persuaded her not to, pointing out that she was making a difference just by being seen on the bridge, week after week. King’s point was well taken — among those inspired by her presence was a young Whoopi Goldberg, who shouted in excitement at seeing an African-American woman on television as something other than a maid — but the show continued to underutilize the character, though Nichols seized the few opportunities she was given. The writers couldn’t figure out just what a “communications officer” was supposed to do, other than open hailing frequencies and relay messages. Strange New Worlds doesn’t change Uhura’s job title, but rather, it expands upon it. When Gooding finally gets a song in the second half of “Subspace Rhapsody,” it’s an exploration of just what being a communications officer means. Her song takes her through a discovery of her own importance, even as it gives her the needed insight into what will finally disrupt the fold and free the Enterprise from becoming the main set on the show Crazy Ex-Starship Crew. At Pike’s urging, she persuades the entire crew to join her in an ensemble number that will blow the roof off. The ship is saved thanks to Uhura, her knowledge of musicals, and her ability to “keep people connected.”

Strange New Worlds succeeds beautifully with characters like Chapel and Uhura because its creative team understands that the path to heroism doesn’t have to lead through combat training. That’s why it may just be my favorite Trek series of all.

Now we’ve arrived at the Top Five! My five favorite films ever to win Best Animated Feature — not necessarily the “best” from an objective stance, but the ones that stand highest in my heart.

5. Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Of all the Western companies that produce animated features, Aardman Films have perhaps the most likable output of all. Even their weakest films are almost impossible to dislike. 2005’s Best Animated Feature winner isn’t my favorite Aardman work — that would be Chicken Run, which was made and released before the category was created — but it’s still an inspiring combination of humor, horror, and heart, as our heroes, cheese-loving human Wallace and his genius dog Gromit (who expresses himself only with his eyes), try to track down and neutralize a massive monster rabbit that’s terrorizing their village right before a big vegetable festival. I may have been careless about spoilers in my previous posts, but in this case I’m not going to spoil the identity of the Were-Rabbit, because this delightful film isn’t as widely-known and widely-viewed as it deserves to be, despite its Oscar win. Plus, two of Wallace & Gromit’s previous short films also won deserved Oscars. Track this one down and watch it if you haven’t already. If you’re a fan of British humor, as I definitely am, you’ll find it irresistible.

4. Zootopia (2016)

2016 was another of those years with multiple over-the-top strong contenders for the Oscar; I would have been very happy to see a three-way tie between this film, Moana, and Laika’s tragically underrated Kubo and the Two Strings, all splendid films deserving of victory. But this movie ranks this highly on my Favorite Winners list for several reasons. First, the heroine, rabbit police officer Judy Hopps (an in-joke to “21 Jump Street”), is a smart, resourceful, idealistic, yet flawed character, one of the most complex female leads we’ve seen from Disney. Second, the emphasis is not on Judy finding love but on her learning to do her job well, making this movie one of only two Best “Picture” winners (the other being 1991’s Silence of the Lambs) to center on a female lead’s work rather than her relationships. Third, the cross-gender (and cross-species) friendship between Judy and fox Nick Wilde is a treat, as both characters learn and grow as they come to value one another. Fourth, the movie is a gorgeous masterpiece of world-building, the titular metropolis being both elaborately designed and delightfully “lived in.” A joy all around. And oh, yeah: when Mister Big threatens to “ice” somebody, take him seriously!

3. WALL-E (2008)

As with all the best Pixar films, 2008’s winner is stunning to look at, from the opening sequence in the wasteland Earth has become due to humanity’s maxing out its resources, to the scenes that take place on the vast, sterile Axiom spaceship, yet at the heart of the creative and thought-provoking world lies a story of a relationship, in this case the romance between outmoded but adorable trash compactor WALL-E and sleek, state-of-the-art vegetation evaluator EVE. WALL-E is our winsome protagonist, the commoner falling in love with the princess and pursuing her to her palace in space. Wherever he goes, change follows. He brings EVE into the shelter where he keeps all the artifacts he’s saved from the trash cubes, and from this she learns about joy. He bumps into two of the humans aboard the Axiom, John and Mary, thus knocking them out of their motorized existence and enabling them actually to see the world around them, and each other. He bumps into the captain of the Axiom and gets soil on the man’s hands; the captain has never seen or touched soil and has no idea what it is, so he feeds it into a machine to be identified, and thus begins his education about the Earth that he and all his passengers have forgotten. Yet WALL-E himself never changes, never even realizing the changes he inspires in those around him. EVE, by contrast, has a growth arc, making her much more than a simple love interest; she learns to see beyond her “directive” and live, and at the climax she’s as much a hero as WALL-E himself. A beautiful film.

2. The Incredibles (2004)

2004’s winner is the first good (strong emphasis on good) movie to feature a female superhero — two of them, actually — so of course it finds a home near the top of my favorites list. But groundbreaking representation aside, this movie showcases all the strengths of Pixar’s Golden Age. We have a multi-generational ensemble protagonist, directly flying in the face of the lie that animated films are strictly “children’s entertainment.” We have complex characters who evolve through their experience, from insurance adjuster Bob Parr, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible, a reluctantly retired superhero dealing with midlife malaise, to Helen Parr, a.k.a. Elastigirl, a housewife forced back into “hero work” who discovers she misses it a lot more than she thought she did, to Violet, a shy, awkward teenage girl with force-field/invisibility powers, caught between the “normalcy” she thinks she craves and the superhero side that both frightens and excites her. (Preteen speedster Dash doesn’t really change much, but then, he’s a kid, and he’s still a lot of fun.) We have abundant humor, much of it provided by Edna Mode, a fashion designer who creates fabulous and functional costumes for superheroes. (“No capes!”) We have an action-packed plot, as the superpowered Parr family must confront a power-hungry villain who’s been killing superheroes in order to steal their powers. And we have an outstanding voice cast, featuring Craig T. Nelson as Bob, Holly Hunter as Helen, director Brad Bird as Edna, Jason Lee as the villainous Syndrome, Samuel L. Jackson as Bob’s best buddy Lucius, a.k.a. Frozone, and Wallace Shawn making the most of his small role as Bob’s shouty Napoleon of a boss. The movie is like an enormous clock. All the cogs mesh, and it works beautifully.

1. Spirited Away (2002)

This Studio Ghibli film, the jewel in the justly acclaimed Japanese studio’s crown (among many), is visually like nothing you’ve seen. Its setting is a spa for gods, spirits, and monsters that only appears when the sun goes down, and oh, are those gods, spirits, and monsters a fantastically varied lot, some hideous, some beautiful, all weird. Humans who stumble onto this place in the daytime may think they’ve found a deserted amusement park. They’ll be all right as long as they follow a simple rule: Don’t eat the food! Alas, the human couple we meet at the beginning of the film aren’t able to resist the sumptuous smells when the food is laid out in preparation for the evening, and they sit down to gorge themselves. In no time, they’re transformed into pigs. It’s up to their awkward, frightened daughter, Chihiro, to save them. At first, this girl hardly seems up to the task, being the type to jump at her own shadow; her cowardice actually saves her from her parents’ fate, as she backs away from the tasty spread with a shiver and a shake of her head while they urge her to eat. However, as the wizard Gandalf once said of Bilbo Baggins, there is more about her than you guess. She finds in herself reserves of courage, resourcefulness, wisdom, and compassion as she navigates this strange and terrifying world. When she makes mistakes, she risks all to put them right, and by the movie’s conclusion she has saved more than just her parents. Studio Ghibli had made wonderful films about girls’ coming of age before, most notably My Neighbor Totoro and my sentimental favorite Kiki’s Delivery Service, but this is their most complex and perhaps the most rewarding treatment of the subject. It’s certainly far out in front of anything we’ve seen from a Western studio, save perhaps 2020’s Wolfwalkers.

And there it is, the finale of my Best Animated Feature winner rankings. Coming soon: the Best of the Rest (the nominees that didn’t take home the prize).

We’ve reached the Top Eleven in my ranking. From this point, every film on the list is one I love and have watched, or will watch, repeatedly.

11. Finding Nemo (2003)

This product of Pixar’s Golden Age features waterscapes stunning to behold and features such scene-stealing characters as Bruce, the Great White shark undergoing group therapy to change his fearsome carnivore image (“Fish are friends, not food!”) and Crush, the surfer-dude sea turtle whose laid back attitude provides an amusing contrast with protagonist Marlin’s nonstop anxiety. The movie begins on a note of horror, as Marlin the clownfish sees his wife and all their eggs but one wiped out, whereupon he dedicates his life to protecting his surviving offspring, the titular Nemo. When a SCUBA-diving dentist nabs Nemo and place him in an aquarium, Marlin must swim to his rescue, and both father and son must navigate uncharted territory. In terms of representation, male characters outnumber female, but we do get a step away from “male as default” with a major character who could have been male but instead just happens to be female: Dory, a blue tang who proves quite resourceful despite suffering from short-term memory loss. Instead of a bromance, we get a charming cross-gender friendship as the ever-optimistic Dory latches onto worrywart Marlin. The voices are perfectly cast, with Albert Brooks being his anxious A-game to the character of Marlin and Ellen DeGeneres endowing Dory with humor and warmth, but my favorite performance is Willem Dafoe’s as the scarred, hard-bitten Gil, whom Nemo meets in the aquarium and who helps him hatch an escape plan.

10. Shrek (2001)

The inaugural winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar also served as Dreamworks Animation’s warning shot across the bow of the great ship Disney. On its initial release, fans of irony ate it up, relishing such parodies as the “Welcome to Duloc” song (take that, “It’s a Small World”!) and Princess Fiona’s duet with a songbird that ends with the poor bird’s blowing up (take that, Snow White!). But what gives this movie its staying power, for me, are the relationships — misanthropic ogre Shrek’s prickly bromance with the loquacious Donkey and his romance with a princess who isn’t quite what she seems. Fiona’s beauty doesn’t affect Shrek in the slightest; rather, he takes an interest in her when he sees that, as Donkey exclaims, “She’s as nasty as you are!” The romance evolves slowly, something we see all too rarely even in live-action films ostensibly aimed at adults. Also, the traditional Beauty-and-the-Beast formula is upended when Fiona gets her happy ending at the moment she no longer meets the accepted beauty standard. “I’m supposed to be beautiful,” the ogre-fied Fiona says with dismay. “You are beautiful,” the starry-eyed Shrek tells her. That’s all she needs to hear. Perfect. In the voice-acting area, Mike Myers (Shrek), Eddie Murphy (Donkey), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), and John Lithgow (the villainous Lord Farquaad, whose line “Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make” has justly become a meme) all acquit themselves well.

9. Encanto (2021)

In many ways, this is one of those movies seemingly designed to please me. Funny, awkward heroine who likes to make things? Check. Lots and lots of female characters of various ages and body types? Check. One of those characters being a big-hearted Gentle Giant, a trope we rarely see in female guise? Check. A score full of bangers penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the giantess’s song being my favorite? Check. With all this, the story would have had to work hard to lose me. Thankfully, it didn’t. Mirabel, our resourceful, imaginative heroine, is the only non-magical member of a magical family, yet when the magic starts to fail, she takes it upon herself to save it, even though it means confronting her own sense of not-belonging and mending her dysfunctional relationships with her “perfect” older sister and authoritarian grandmother. On her quest to restore the magic, Mirabel becomes an agent of Truth, uncovering secrets that have the potential to upset the family order even more, at least as the stern Abuela Alma would have it. Luisa, our sweet giantess, feels she is worthless if she can’t be of service. Isabela, the perfect beauty with the power to grow vegetation, has a greater affinity for cacti than for the pretty pink flowers associated with her. Mirabel’s uncle Bruno, whom we don’t talk about, is not a ghoulish doomsayer but a loving brother and son with the burdensome “gift” of seeing the future, who has been hiding in the magical casita in order to be close to his family while sparing them his disruptive presence. Yet in the end, as the old saying goes, the Truth sets the family free, and Mirabel emerges with a healthier sense of her own value. Stephanie Beatriz (Mirabel), Maria Cecilia Botero (Abuela), and John Leguizamo (Bruno) are the standouts in a strong voice cast.

8. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

In some years, the field of Best Animated Feature nominees is so strong that any one of them would be a deserving winner. This past year, I loved all but one of the nominees without reservation, the exception being Netflix’s The Sea Beast, which I liked a lot but didn’t quite love due to its overly familiar story beats. Pixar’s Turning Red is a rollicking look at puberty, friendships, and parent-child tensions, featuring an adorable girl protagonist who, in moments of high stress, transforms into an even more adorable giant red panda. Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a stunning sequel to an okay original, with a flawed but charismatic hero in Puss, a not-just-a-love-interest female lead in Kitty Softpaws, and two intriguing villains in the loathsome Big Jack Horner, so repulsive that even his would-be conscience dismisses him as beyond hope, and the mysterious whistling Wolf. A24’s Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is perhaps the most unique of all of them, a mockumentary about a sentient shell’s search for his missing family. You might be forgiven for thinking it’s a short-film gimmick stretched out to feature length, but actually watching the movie would prove how wrong you are as you come to love and root for the tiny Marcel; I should know, because this was exactly my experience.

In any other year, one of these films would have proudly walked away with the Oscar. But this was the year Netflix released Oscar-winning director and producer Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion labor of love, which manages to take a story we know and make it like nothing we’ve seen. His Pinocchio manages to tackle grief, love, death, and fascism with a deft hand. Gepetto and Sebastian J. Cricket are interesting, complex characters far more flawed than their Disney versions, with Gepetto more fearful than welcoming of the new presence in his life and Sebastian serving as Pinocchio’s conscience because there’s something in it for him, but this incarnation of Pinocchio, with his clumsy, confused, and curious joy in the life he’s been endowed with and his devotion to his gruff, troubled “father,” is the most sympathetic I’ve seen. Plus, the animation itself is nothing short of miraculous, a welcome break from the standard CGI we’ve grown so used to. And the nose-growing scenes actually service the plot!

7. Toy Story 3 (2010)

In 1995, Pixar Animation Studios burst on the scene with Toy Story, a hilarious and heartwarming examination of the psychology of toyhood. By treating its inanimate subjects with depth and empathy, Pixar showed itself to be something extraordinary, and it would exploit its strengths in character development throughout its Golden Age — which, many people assert, came to an end with the release of Toy Story 3. The gang of toys in Andy’s room, led by cowboy Woody and Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (brought vocally to life by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen), proved endearing and interesting enough to warrant sequels focusing on the progress of their “lives,” from Woody’s fear of being replaced and Buzz’s acceptance of his identity (Toy Story), to Woody’s growing awareness that as “his” kid grows up, all the toys will be abandoned (Toy Story 2), to the confrontation with that abandonment as Andy reaches college age (this particular film). Toy Story 3, much like Peter Jackson’s The Return of a King, is the climax of a remarkable story, a journey we in the audience have taken along with Woody and Buzz. True, Toy Story 4 came along nine years later to disturb the conclusion — the main reason a lot of people dislike the later film — but Toy Story 3‘s final scene, as Andy gifts his toys to little Bonnie and resists the temptation to hang onto Woody, remains note perfect. The movie also boasts a first-rate villain in Lotso Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty, kind of channeling Gene Hackman), a toy who ought to be adorable but is instead diabolical.

6. Inside Out (2015)

Not Pixar’s first movie with a female lead, but rather Pixar’s first great movie with a female lead, this movie takes us inside the mind of Riley, an athletic eleven-year-old girl whose happy life in Minnesota is uprooted when her dad gets a new job in San Francisco. Riley isn’t the real protagonist, though. That would be Joy, the embodiment of young Riley’s, well, joy, and the driving emotional force in her life so far, whose control over Riley’s mental and emotional console is threatened by the move and who considers it her job to keep Sadness (also female-coded) at bay. Joy’s impulsive reaction when Sadness touches one of Riley’s “core memories,” turning it from bring, happy green to gloomy blue, sends her and Sadness on a wild trip through Riley’s subconscious; meanwhile, the remaining emotions of Anger, Fear, and Disgust must seize control of the console for the first time and, of course, make a mess of their mission to keep things normal. Riley’s mental landscape is richly detailed, getting us invested in her even though we see very little of her from “outside.” The developing friendship between Joy and Sadness is satisfying, and Joy is a complex, flawed, and sometimes even infuriating protagonist — much like Woody, Bob “Mr. Incredible” Parr, Lightning McQueen, and Carl Frederickson. (Funny how these male leads are commonly loved and admired despite their mistakes, while Joy has haters unwilling to forgive hers.) Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Lewis Black (Anger), Bill Hader (Fear), Mindy Kaling (Disgust), and Richard Kind (Riley’s one-time imaginary friend Bing Bong) all turn in solid performances that add to the film’s zing.

As with all Pixar’s best films, Inside Out has its heartbreaking moments, most notably Bing Bong’s noble sacrifice to help restore Joy and Sadness to the console where they belong (“Take her to the moon for me, will you?”). But the most depressing aspect, for me, is the glimpse we get of the mental and emotional consoles of Riley’s parents. Joy is Riley’s driving force, but we see that Sadness controls the mother’s console while Anger drives the father’s. Joy’s initial refusal to surrender control of Riley’s console or acknowledge the importance of Sadness might be seen as “toxic positivity” in action, but the alternative is no more desirable — that as we reach adulthood, we become less and less satisfied with our lives. This, perhaps, is the film’s warning to the adults in the audience. We need Joy as much as Riley needs Sadness.

My husband and I went to our local movie theater to see Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken the other night. Normally a rating in the 60% range on Rotten Tomatoes would put us off, but the trailer looked like fun, and hey, a kraken heroine, which we’ve certainly never seen before, sounded like my jam. So we took a chance — and we ended up leaving the theater a little bitter at having, as my husband put it, “spent our money on mediocrity.” The movie only served to reinforce an unpleasant conclusion I’d come to when the reviews for Ruby Gillman first started to accumulate: that Dreamworks Animation, which seemed to be having a moment with last year’s one-two punch of The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, doesn’t even bother to try when their project has a female lead.

Among Dreamworks’ filmography, the following movies center on a female protagonist: Chicken Run (97% RT rating), Monsters vs. Aliens (74%), Home (52%), Trolls (nominally, 75%), The Croods (nominally, 72%), Abominable (82%), Spirit Untamed (48%), and the aforementioned Ruby Gillman (68%). Of this meager number, only Chicken Run and Abominable boast a critical consensus that suggests a substantial degree of effort was put into them, and only one, the delightful Chicken Run, might manage to earn a place among fans’ rankings of the studio’s top-notch output. Yet despite its charms, Chicken Run — perhaps because it’s regarded as more Aardman Animation than Dreamworks Animation — is rarely mentioned in discussions of Dreamworks’ best films, with The Prince of Egypt, the first two Shrek films, the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon trilogies, and now Puss in Boots: The Last Wish coming up a lot. To be fair, the studio has made their share of “mid” films with male leads as well, most notably The Boss Baby (although that film, despite having one of the most cringe-inducing trailers I’ve ever had the misfortune to see, still managed to make money), but with the possible exception of Chicken Run (if we credit it as Dreamworks rather than Aardman), all of the studio’s best movies center on male protagonists.

Why does Dreamworks seemingly refuse to bring their A game when making a movie with a girl as the lead? I wish I knew, but I have a theory that saddens me. It goes back to that old and disheartening notion that while stories centering on boys/men have universal appeal, stories about girls/women appeal only to girls. A story with a male lead, therefore, must please everyone; money is riding on it, and so more time and creative energy must be put into it. But a story with a female lead only has to be “good enough” to please girls, so the studio may adopt the cynical view that girls, having so little material out there for them, will take whatever they’re given. The low box office numbers for Ruby Gillman suggest this approach isn’t working for them.

Something else I’ve noticed as I’ve been pondering my rankings of Best Animated Feature Oscar winners (which I’ll resume in my next post, I promise) is a difference in the roles given to male characters in female-driven projects and the roles given to female characters in male-driven ones. Consider Zootopia and Moana, both nominated for 2016’s Best Animated Feature. Judy Hopps is the former film’s protagonist, but Nick Wilde is almost as important and just as interesting. Likewise, while Moana is a heroine well worth rooting for, male demigod Maui steals the show by being funny and brash in a way she isn’t allowed to be. (He also gets the movie’s best song, “You’re Welcome.”)

Characters like Nick and Maui will “bring the boys in,” giving them someone they’ll enjoy identifying with so they won’t feel the need to step into the shoes of the female lead. Almost every well-known animated movie with a female protagonist features one or more scene-stealing males: Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, Lumiere and Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast, Mushu in Mulan, Rocky in Chicken Run, Ray and Louis in The Princess and the Frog, Flynn Rider in Tangled, Olaf in Frozen… the list goes on. If characters like these don’t feature heavily, the “wisdom” suggests, then boys won’t show up for the movie, so these roles must be built up, with plenty of visibility in the marketing and plenty of merchandise devoted to them — with the consequence that many an animated heroine isn’t even the most memorable character in her own movie. (Also, in some non-English speaking countries, Tangled was actually titled Rapunzel. In the United States, the movie became Tangled because boys wouldn’t touch The Princess and The Frog.)

Traditionally, no such concerns about big-tent box office have arisen with animated features with male leads; if the protagonist was male, the tent was assumed to be plenty big, and so we saw films like The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book, and then, some years later, Brother Bear, in which female characters only exist if a five-minute villain or a three-minute love interest is needed. More recent male-led films have been a bit more inclusive, with one or occasionally two female characters included to fill the role that the Reel Girl blog calls the “Minority Feisty,” the outspoken, hot-tempered, sometimes capable girl who, even when she is at her most badass, never manages to outshine the male hero or steal any scenes. Rarely is the “Minority Feisty” an animated film’s most memorable character. Almost as rarely is she the character with whom the girls in the audience will identify. How many girls want to see themselves in junior harridan Penny (Mr. Peabody and Sherman)? Or imbecile older sister Courtney (ParaNorman)? Or the underdeveloped “Smurfettes” Gloria (the Madagascar franchise), Tooth Fairy (Rise of the Guardians), or Kevin the bird (Up)? It’s assumed that the girls will instead imprint on the more developed male characters, because girls can do that. We’ve been socialized to connect with characters who don’t share our gender — which is, on the whole, a very good thing. It’s just a shame the same isn’t expected of, or conditioned in, boys.

Boys’ presumed inability to relate to female protagonists, along with the view that boys’ stories are universal while girls’ stories are niche, may be a contributing factor in a number of social ills, among them some (though far from all) male authors’ inability to create interesting and complex female characters who feel like real people rather than a mysterious, incomprehensible Other. Yet I hold out hope that things might yet change, that boys rushing to the theaters to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse might recognize parts of themselves in Gwen as well as in Miles, Peter, or Hobie. They who die by the story might, in time, live by the story.