- Scientists 3D print tiny cages that hold bacteria – “…instead of facilitating microbial cage-fighting matches, the microscopic structures should help scientists learn how infections spread and how bacteria talk with one another.”
- Janet Yellen to serve as first female head of the Federal Reserve – From Amy.
- Sexual violence common among teens. Feeling responsible isn’t. – And the research cited. (It’s behind a paywall but you can read the abstract.) From Ray.
- Frozen’s head of animation says animating female characters is hard because ladies are really emotional – And you have to keep them looking pretty!
- And something random because it made me laugh: Brides throwing cats.
Re: Frozen
I get what he’s saying: when you confine female characters to a very, very narrow range of acceptable appearances, it becomes difficult to animate them as all of their expressions will tend to look the same and you look pretty lame as an animator. (As an aside, I think Fox News has similar problems.)
Fortunately for him, it’s very rare for movies to pass the Bechdel test, so he probably doesn’t have to worry about two of his clone women actually being in frame at the same time.
A simpler way to put it is: our douchey assumptions on female appearance lead to an emergent property of making us look pretty douchey.
You know, if it were a complaint about the hair of female characters, it might make sense – hair is extremely hard to animate at a high standard, and it gets tougher the longer it is, which means female characters will usually be harder to animate than males based on the hair alone – but emotion? Really? What, so men don’t get emotional (and the example given was anger, which is a stereotypically male emotion at that).
Men are permitted to get angry, look hideous and frightening, and will still look sexy and desirable.
Women are required to stay pretty no matter what emotions they’re exhibiting. It gives a much narrower set of permissible facial expressions.
Think of Beauty and the Beast. The Beast could get pretty angry and he was still Mr. Awesome Angry Beast with his Justifiable Emotions. Now imagine Belle letting her face get all contorted like that. ZOMG! She’s not pretty for two seconds!
Consequently, she’s limited to the range stretching from “fear”, through “deadpan” to “chagrin” in response to negative events.