“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” purrs the shapely Jessica Rabbit in Disney’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
Mrs. Rabbit’s hyperbolically feminine frame lampooned the exaggerated hourglass figure of most animated heroines, but the girl protagonists of Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” possess body types more reflective of reality.
In fact, when depicting the film’s Hawaiian characters, animators were instructed to “chubby it up” to capture writer/co-director Chris Sanders’ rounded designs.
“It created a lot of excitement in the studio, because there’s almost a female shorthand that you get used to sometimes in the animated world,” Sanders said during a recent visit in Chicago. “And [our characters] defied all that.”
After years of catching flak from parent and feminist groups for depicting girls as miniature women with impossibly perfect bodies, Disney may be changing with the times. The female images in “Lilo & Stitch” seem diametrically opposed to the Barbie doll depictions of Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” and Pocahontas.
No more hourglasses
“A lot of women have complained over the years that there’s one type of girl you see in the Disney films,” said Cindi Leive, editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine. “They have little hourglass shapes. A lot of moms worry that this might lead their daughters to idolize a very particular type of look and a particular kind of body.”
“Lilo & Stitch” represents a departure from the Disney animated canon, not only for its outlaw-alien-meets-islanders plot, but also for its Monty Python-esque humor and wrecking ball behavior toward Disney conventions.
True, big sister Nani is left to raise problem child Lilo after their parents die (absentee or deceased parents being a Disney staple), but alien Stitch throws a monkey wrench in the format when he falls from the sky and Lilo adopts him as a fellow misfit.
Pug-nosed and chubby fingered, Lilo and Nani are still cartoons, but ones lovingly designed by director Sanders, who also provides the voice of Stitch. Feeling that Hawaiian culture had been “treated rather lightly” by Hollywood, Sanders also sought out advisers to depict customs and characters with accuracy and respect.
“We have a lot of female characters in the film, predominately Nani, and we just wanted to make her look like a girl,” Sanders said. “We gave her more substantial legs and a real pelvis, sort of a more comfortable body. More ample.”
Characters well received
When Sanders and co-director Dean Deblois auditioned child actors for the voice of Lilo, Sanders said he was surprised at the compliments he received from parents on Lilo’s demeanor and design.
“The reaction to her was so positive from everybody,” he said. “There was 100 percent excitement about that.”
First impressions of Nani and Lilo from feminist centers of thought have been measured but positive.
“You have complete control as an animator. That’s even more of an opportunity to be more realistic because you’re starting from scratch,” said Lisa Miya-Jervis, co-founder of the magazine Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. “Animation has a real potential in that respect that hasn’t been fulfilled up until now. I am happy to see the different feel for `Lilo & Stitch.'”
Miya-Jervis was critical of Disney’s traditional treatment of the female form, particularly Pocahontas’ costume, which she described as “very bustier-and-slit-skirt as interpreted through the . . . diorama of what Native Americans wore.”
“Disney’s track record in this area is pretty awful. I don’t feel like I should have to thank Disney for not giving us another Pocahontas, but it is also gratifying to see that they haven’t,” Miya-Jervis said.
Only in a very few instances has Disney responded directly to criticism, most notably changing song lyrics offensive to Arab culture in 1992’s “Aladdin.”
Janet Wasko, Disney scholar and author of “Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy,” said “Lilo & Stitch” may not represent an apology for past depictions, but a studio evolving with the culture.
“[Lilo and Nani] are very different from other Disney characters in their typical animation films,” Wasko said. “For women, they don’t have exaggerated sensual features. Compare Nani to, say, the Little Mermaid, who is highly sensual with exaggerated hourglass features.”
The director’s idea
Director Sanders said the film’s variety of female body types represents a personal choice, and not an initiative within Disney itself.
“I think that Disney Studios is open to directors and writers creating something of their vision. In our particular case, we wanted to break a few conventions. One of those was with character designs, to bring back a very rounded look,” Sanders said.
The female and male characters all reflect that sensibility, Sanders said. “There was never a meeting . . . the designs never raised concerns.”
Not only is Lilo herself outside of physical conventions, but she delights in her photo collection of overweight, even obese, tourists.
Leive, whose May issue of Glamour launched a new commitment to making plus-size models a part of the magazine, said the depictions of Lilo and Nani can only draw trust to the Disney brand.
“It definitely seems like it’s showing a different body image, and I think that’s something a lot of women will cotton to,” Leive said. “Judging from the response we got to our May issue, I feel like Disney could definitely have a hit on their hands with this character.”
`A trickle-down effect’
Bitch’s Miya-Jervis said Hollywood’s obsession with ultra-trim waifs has contributed to an unhealthy standard for women in live action and animated films, a standard society is moving past.
“There’s a lack of trust in audiences to accept people with more average bodies, but I think audiences are desperate for it,” she said.
Leiveadded: “This heroine seems as if she is a little more realistic, and that can’t help but have a trickle-down effect to the girl who is sitting in the movie theater subconsciously comparing herself to what she sees on the screen.”
