![]() ![]() She purrs to Woody an offer to “get someone else to watch the sheep tonight”. From this we can deduce that the story contains far more sexual themes than would previously have been allowed in a children’s animated film.īuzz and Woody compete for the affections of Bo Peep, who is very sexualized for a children’s film, cooing and flirting whenever she is on screen. Potato head comments that he is suffering from “Lazer envy” a reference to the pop-Freudian term ‘penis envy’. This idea is furthered when Woody is threatened by Buzz. ![]() As they watch the incoming birthday presents, the toys agonise at their sheer size, the longest and most phallic-shaped one striking true fear (and admiration?) into hearts of the spectators. From the beginning, power is constructed in terms conspicuously gender coded, at least for adult viewers. These relationships can be seen to have the aforementioned sexual undertones with close reading. Bo-Peep and Andy turn away from Woody and project their affection onto Buzz. Woody’s greatest fear appears to be that he is going to be replaced by Buzz, who represents the new style of masculinity where spectacle and display are more important than practicality. Woody is meant to represent the ‘old school’ thought of masculinity, he is a cowboy and thus most obviously coded as the debunked model of what it means to be a man. In the beginning of the film he conducts a staff meeting about the family’s impending move that highlights his dominant position in the toy community. Woody shows himself to be a natural leader he occupies a position of both paternalistic care and patriarchal dominance. They base their worth on a masculine model of competition and power, desiring not only to be the favourite toy of their owner Andy, but also to posses the adoration and the authority over the other toys in the playroom. They both become a metaphor for the modern man in conflict. The testosterone – pumped, muscle – bound Hollywood is rapidly deflating… Taking his place is a new kind of leading man, the kind who’s just as happy following as leading, or never getting off the sofa.Īt the beginning of Toy Story we clearly see the alpha male model being set up through the characters of Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear. This resistance to the portrayal of the alpha male figure has been mirrored by the rise of the beta male: Susan Jeffords however points out that since Beauty and the Beast, animated films have resisted, and often ridiculed, the machismo once de-rigueur of leading men. In unfortunate modern parlance, he must ‘man-up’ to succeed. He suffers either a mental or physical injury, but must strive on alone, eventually conquering the ailment in order to defeat evil. These damaged or degraded men can be read as a representation of a type of male hysteria, almost a smokescreen for that realignment: “look how I suffer, look how I am feminised through that suffering.” When an alpha male hero finds himself at ‘The Innermost Cave’ of his narrative (the place where he must fight the ‘villain’ of the story) he is usually at the point of death. Masculinity seems to have been represented at either end of a spectrum of extremes:Īt one extreme, we have the man feminised by spectacle and display… at the other we have the damaged man. Susan Powel has pointed out it appears that the screen male is even more damaged than he was 10 years ago. By showing us heroes concerned with power/money/women/violence/material-success we understand that in order to be masculine these are the things that we need to be concerned about as men in order to succeed at our gender. The leading man in film for the past 100 years has embodied the alpha male. However, the film shows that there is more to life for a man than worrying about the functionality of his sexual organ. Woody who is floppy and limp loses his bae (Bo Peep) to the new toy on the block, Buzz, who is hard and ridged and pops up on command. It’s been written about at length that Toy Story has some overtly sexual undertones. You might actually be of better use to society without those instincts. However not being at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean you’ve been emasculated. It’s actually an ode to the modern man and how the muscle bound hunter-gatherer of old has officially been cast aside in modern society. Today you’re going to discover all about how Toy Story isn’t the charming tale of friendship and families that you first thought it was. Pixar not only shatters records at the box office, but also smashes the glass ceiling of conservative ideology one that’s been prevalent in animation since Disney first put his heavy pencil around the outlines of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. ![]()
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