I really enjoyed this letter written by Linda Holmes on the NPR blog called Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees about how of the ten movies Pixar has released, all ten of them have central characters who are boys or men. While these movies feature women and girls, the female characters tend to be princesses.

Holmes letter says I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Frog Princess. Not a girl who’s a side dish, but a girl who’s the big draw.

I love that line “a girl who is not a side dish.”
Unfortunately the girl as the side dish dilemma has been around since the birth of fairy tales. It’s hard to believe that so many years later, ladies are still eye candy characters.

However I did think that Hellen/Elasticgirl was a strong female character in The Incredibles. Although she was designed to look pretty hot in her tight little spandex suit. Blogger Caitlin GD Hopkins wrote that Pixars female characters are “helpers, love interests, and moral compasses to the male characters whose problems, feelings, and desires drive the narratives.” Check out her excellently detailed breakdown of all the Pixar female characters here.

What do you think? Does Pixar create good female characters?