Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

It's been a long time since I guest authored here but, as the father of two daughters and a recruiter for a tech company, there's an important message I want to evangelize.  Now that most of the mass hysteria surrounding Disney's latest princess film has run it's course it's time to take a step back and address the social engineering baked into Frozen.

For the non-parents out there, let's quickly review the tidal wave from Arendelle that swept over the parents of the world in the last 12-15 months. I was planning to see Frozen when it hit the cheap theaters but didn't. Because it never got to the cheap theaters.  It stayed in the full price theaters morphing from regular showings into special sing along showings right through the DVD release ($1.2B global box office). In June, the Billboard Dance Club Songs list was topped by a Disney song (Let it Go), and for the better part of a year parents had to sell heirlooms to buy Frozen birthday party decor off eBay. A year after it released, we went to Disneyland where Kate expected to meet Elsa and Anna.  We got lucky. We had 3-day passes, so we got into the park an hour early one day.  That day, G speedwalked from the entrance to the "Meet Elsa and Anna" fastpass line (yes, Elsa and Anna have their own fast pass line), waited in line for 45 minutes to get fastpasses, and managed to get passes for 2:20 in the afternoon.  They ran out of passes before the park opened for general admission.  When we returned at 2:20 we waited in line again for over an hour to actually meet Elsa and Anna.  Apparently, before they implemented the fast pass system parents were waiting in line for over 5 hours to meet the princesses.  A YEAR after the movie released.

The fanatical devotion that surrounds this film left quite a few people scratching their heads about what caused such an uproar.  Certainly Tangled (Rapunzel), and the Frog Princess (Tianna) didn't produce anything like this. Why this one?  I thought it over for a while and ran some ideas past G.  It turned out we had independently come to basically the same conclusion. The way our kids put it was, "She's a princess, but with powers," which is a major departure from previous Disney princesses.

Not so sure?  Let's review some other Disney princesses:

• Snow White - Beautiful, kind, sickeningly optimistic and helpless before a simple disguise.  She ends up waiting, half dead, for her prince to save her.
• Aurora - Beautiful, loved by everyone, so trusting she dances with strange men who show up in the forest, but ultimately helpless before spinning needles.  She ends up stuck in an enchanted death sleep, waiting for her prince to save her.

Of course these are really old examples.  Maybe a more modern one will be better:

• Ariel - Beautiful, but rebellious, and honestly not so bright.  Helpless before a witch with a lousy sales pitch.  She loses the guy, and gets transformed back into a mermaid after getting her father turned into a worm.  She's stuck waiting for her prince to knock off the witch and then STILL needs her dad to save her from the disappointment of losing her first infatuation love. (Assuming that being transformed into an alien creature and separated from your family forever counts as being saved.)

Now let's talk about Elsa.  She makes awesome stuff with her mind and a gesture, and runs a kingdom (without a guy even!).  Halfway through the movie she "loses" her princess status and becomes Queen Elsa of Arrendelle. Most importantly, she does all this despite feeling unsure of herself.  When she can't keep her fears in check anymore, she gives up the act, exiles herself for everyone's safety, and finally gets to revel in her own power.  "Let it Go" captured the hearts of millions of girls.  They will have to grow up a little before they really understand why its working title was "Elsa's Bad*** Song".

Disney is sending girls a big message here.  You don't have to feel perfect. Hiding your abilities won't help in the long run.  You can make awesome things.  You can be powerful.  This movie is about getting girls into STEM. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)

No, I'm not really kidding. Elsa describes her own soul as a spiral of frozen fractals. She likes to be alone, and her skin looks like she's never seen the sun.  She can make her own dress, bridge, castle, and probably whatever else she wants to.  And she's been doing it since she was little with no training.  She can't stop changing the world around her even when she tries.  Can you say "power geek" louder than this?

Someone at Disney really gets it.  They understand what's keeping girls out of STEM. That's not really a surprise since I'm pretty sure "they" is John Lasseter (current Chief Creative Officer at Disney and former Pixar exec) and his Pixar cronies.  Sound crazy?  Lets review the "Pixar princesses":  Merida (Brave), Ellie (Up), EVE (WALL-E), Sally (Cars), Mrs. Incredible.  This group and the old Disney princesses have never met and it's not hard for me to see where Elsa belongs (or Anna for that matter).  Since Elsa's real heritage is a computer animation studio it's not hard to convince me that the subliminal message coming from her is a whispered "grow up and work for us".

Admittedly what I'm about to say could be biased, because I have a small sample set to work with but here goes.  I haven't seen girls treated with discrimination in the engineering workplace since I started working full-time a decade ago.  At least not in the traditional "you wouldn't understand, why don't you go get us some coffee" way.  I can't imagine a team where people wouldn't listen to a woman's technical input just because she was female.   I'm sure it still happens in some places, but I really don't think fear of being treated like a secretary is the issue.

The issue is at the social level.  In a STEM workplace some girls will end up uncomfortable.  A girl who shows up with a Luis Vuitton handbag and a perpetual manicure because that's how she rolls will likely get professional respect for good work, but she won't be one of the gang unless she's willing to keep her Paladin Blood Elf leveled up to the max or brew her own beer or something equally off the beaten path.  But that's just work, not life.

The bigger problem is outside of work.  The social scene is pretty harsh on girls who get serious about technical stuff.  If a girl wants to go into biology that's OK. That's on the softer end of science. But as soon as a girl says words like "astrophysics" or "focused ion beam", the guys who were going to ask for her number disappear faster than doughnuts at a hack-a-thon.  Not only that, but the girls who were going to invite her along to the next Neiman Marcus shopping trip forget to call her and all her relatives stop buying her gift certificates to Ulta and start buying her pink screwdrivers.  Halfway through college G started telling people at parties she was an "EE" major because a lot of them would just assume that meant Elementary Education and then treat her like a regular girl.

In the long haul, treating girls like they changed just because they are going into a new professional area needs to change, but for now girls need Frozen.  They need Let it Go to sink in deep so they won't freak or feel guilty when someone is intimidated by them.  They need to know that even if you do technical things, and do them well, you can still be a normal person with normal relationships because their abilities don't define them. It will be a tough process but the more girls go into STEM, the more people will realize that being smart and competent in math and science doesn't magically transform a girl into an evil step-sister or a witch. Or a boy.

I really think that ~15 years from now we'll see a small uptick in girls entering the STEM workforce, just from this movie.  But to be honest, I have to find people to hire from now until then, and I don't care if they are male or female.  If you have a daughter, or sister, or friend who hides what she can really do, and isn't heading down the STEM road just because of social pressure, do me a favor: open a door, climb a mountain, build a snowman.  Only love can thaw a frozen heart.

Sanity -- Not Dispensed Here Anymore

I know you all just can't get enough of M's posts, especially his insightful book and movie reviews. Unfortunately for you, M has decided on a change of venue for the majority of his work. Check out his latest movie review (with more pontifications in the works) at:

http://the-last-sane-man.blogspot.com/

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

So you may have noticed that I only review books and movies long after they have been released. I would love for you to believe that I do so only because I care so much about writing quality reviews that I need to see/read it multiple times, or think about it for a while before I write about it.

But those things wouldn't be true, would they? The truth is G and I haven't seen anything that resembles a new release in years. I suppose we saw Enchanted while it was on the tail end of its run at the dollar theater. We have such a backlog of books and movies to consume we probably won't see anything "new" for a few more years yet (unless the screen writers guild gets upitty again).

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (6 out of 7 stars)

Lets get The Bad out of the way first.

The special effects. I'm usually blind to bad special effects but the green screens in this movie just grated on me. After the second time G and I had to stop and stare at a few stills to figure out what made it so patently obvious the actors were not in fact standing in front of the background. We tried to think through color, focus, depth of field, film grain, and lighting (can you tell G likes cameras?). We both think the most obvious problem was the lighting. The act(or/resse)s all looked like they had a spotlight about 2 feet from their faces and the trees behind them looked like they were filmed in the haze immediately following Mount Saint Helens. The lion looked cool though

The witch was just creepy. Not in an evil witch way. More like in the "What are you trying to pretend you're an evil witch or something?" way. G kept wondering whether she was a football player or a Rastafarian or what? No seriously, we both suspect that the actress just couldn't muster the "presence" the role demanded so they tried to patch it up with weird hairdos, odd dresses, and bizarre makeup.

Now on to the Good Stuff.

The story. I mean come on. If you thought I was on to something with the convenient platform for a story about good and evil in my post on Harry Potter you'll probably pee you pants when you think about this one. It's got it all, good and evil, talking lions, ice witches, traitors, long prophisied kings and queens, royal destiny of humans, epic battles, sacrifice, loyalty you name it. There's even some plucky comic relief from the Beavers.

Great character development, mostly about Edmund

The first scene during the bombing Edmund is running off to grab a picture of his dad, forcing Peter to risk himself to come save him. He is always making other people take risks for him, that' just how he rolls. Of course in the next scene, Peter and Susan are playing "I pick a word out of the dictionary and you guess what it means!". Pretty awesome game huh? Edmund thought so too but that's just how Peter and Susan roll.

When Lucy gets up in the middle of the night to try and go back to Narnia, there is a great shot of her putting on her shoes. We see a pair of feet sliding out of bed next to slippers and boots. Then into the boots. Thats because Lucy really believes she will be wandering in snow as soon as she gets down the hall. That's just how she rolls.

When Edmund meets the witch I thought it was telling how casually Edmund treats her. He's British. He should know not to just beg the nearest royalty for candy, but that's just how he rolls.

When Edmund runs off from the beaver's house to find the witch he leaves his coat and freezes all the way there. I suppose because it's a girls coat and Peter suggested he wear it. When he gets there he amuses himself drawing stupid faces on the "statues" because he likes to have control over other people even if they are made of rocks. That's just how he rolls.

If he's British enough to know not to go begging local royalty for candy Edmund should really know not to sit down on other people's thrones, but he likes to feel powerful so he does anyway. When Tumnus points out he's Lucy's sister he responds in perfect Edumund fashion by saying he is Edmund instead of confirming that he is in fact Lucy's brother because being his own man is just how he rolls.

When Susan and Lucy are up in the tree hiding from the wolves, Peter comes to save them and kills the wolf. Aslan knights him, clearly preparatory to the coming battle. Immediately we cut to the witch's camp where they are making all kinds of crazy weapons. It's a really cool parallel. Aslan is preparing people, the witch is preparing things. That's just how the two of them roll.

Other little touches I thought were cool.

When Lucy finds the room with the wardrobe in it there is a dying fly in one of the windowsills. I suppose it's reminiscent of the fact that you can't always get out of this room easily.

When Edmund is eating on the witches sleigh the cup he hands back to the dwarf turns back to ice as he throws it at a tree. Neat visual touch emphasizing the transient nature of what the witch can give. Also, it's really cool the way the witch talks about how she could see Edmund becoming a prince of Narnia since that is exactly what she is thinking, just in a different way from what Edmund is thinking.

When the four of them find Tumnus's house burnt out Edmund steps on the same picture of Tumnus's father Lucy was looking at when she was there. Now it is clawed and broken. I think it means Tumnus has gone to war like his father did. G thinks it reminds the viewer of the fact that Tumnus was suffering the effects of war and he has now brought them on himself and others. Or maybe it's just to drive home to the viewer that Edmund has really messed stuff up. I don't know but it's a cool touch somehow.

It's in the book but the fact that Edmund doesn't get anything from Father Christmas is cool. It's nice to see someone walk that "you can come back but you might have missed something while you were gone" line. Along the same line I like that one of the tigers at the coronation still has the mustache Edmund drew on him when he was a statue. It's nice to see that your actions can also have lasting effects on others.

There were a bunch of other ones too but I'm too tired to put those all here. All in all, cool movie.

Movie Review: Pride and Predjudice

You know how there were a few classes in college you just loved? The ones that had nothing to do with your major but you couldn't help but get an A in because you couldn't stop working on them? Well one of mine was Intro to Film. I am a special sucker for good cinematography and editing. You'll see what I mean. Here we go.


Pride and Prejudice (2005) (i.e. the good one) - 12/13 stars

This movie has it's faults of course. Kiera Knightly is too pretty to play Lizzie but the makers couldn't find any other big name actresses that had the spunk and moxie to play the part. Darcy probably doesn't quite come across as proud enough. G swears that Collins and Mrs. Bennett were better in the Super-sized version.

This version however is fabulous. There are lots of good things but like I said I'm a sucker for cinematography and editing and that is where this movie shines. I cannot believe the director and cinematographer have done effectively nothing else.

This movie has wonderful long takes. A long take is a shot that goes uncut for significantly longer than normal. Long takes require the actors to get the whole thing right in one go, so they aren't used much. There are two long takes that jump out at you. One at the beginning tracking Lizzie through the field then through the house and another following Lizzie through the ballroom. If you watch closely you'll notice there are probably hidden cuts where Lizzie walks behind things (sheet in the opening and pillar in the ball scene) but nevertheless they are well done and let the audience take in a great deal about the family without much dialog (necessary when cutting a 5 1/2 hour movie down to 2). The same technique is used (although I believe serious use of green screen was involved) when panning through the windows the night after Mr. Bingley proposes.

This movie also makes great use of abrupt zooms. I am not a cameraman but I assume these are fairly difficult but they do it well. For example, when Mr. Collins proposes to Lizzie and she abruptly stands up the camera cuts to Lizzie and quickly zooms in on her face creating a very disorienting feeling, which is how Lizzie feels at the moment. You see it again when Darcy bursts in on Lizzy at Mr. Collins' house.

The scene where Darcy is riding away on horseback after delivering his letter to Lizzie is no more than 20 seconds long but incredible. Somehow they found a section of forest with a road next to it they could drive a camera truck down AND that had a parallel path a few yards in straight enough for a horse to gallop on. Then they managed to light and frame the shot so that even outside of the context of the film it is patently obvious that the rider is running away from something rather than towards it by making it appear as if the left edge of the frame is constantly about to catch the rider.

When Lizzie is touring Pemberley she stops to look at the statues. She stands for a while in front of "A Veiled Vestal Virgin" whose true face can't be seen and/or who can't see clearly, and then turns to gaze upon Achilles. Could there be a more poignant visual representation of Lizzie realizing where she and Darcy stand? Possibly, and if so I would really like to see it.

Lizzie spinning on the swing watching the seasons go by is another fabulous way to portray the boring slow passage of time without actually boring the audience with the slow passage of time.

I could go on forever but that would be boring and rather disappointing when reading a review of a movie that manages to avoid that at all costs. Suffice it to say this is one of the better movies I have watched in years. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you have, you should see it again.