Today and every day we pay tribute to one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century, Rosa Parks, who would not give up her seat on the bus and fought all her life for equal rights. “Some people say I was tired” when she refused the bus driver’s order to move to the back of the bus, but as she explained in her autobiography, “The only tired I was was tired of giving.”
Pixar’s New Short is Really Special: Sanjay’s Super Team
Posted on November 25, 2015 at 2:30 pm
The best part of “The Good Dinosaur” is the short film that comes before, “Sanjay’s Super Team.” The Pixar short films are gems but this one is really special. It is the first to feature non-white characters, the first to be based on the life of the person who created it, and the first to touch on religion.
In the film, as a father is performing a Hindu morning prayer ritual with a bell and a candle, his son Sanjay is behind him, trying to watch superheroes on television. Sanjay, who is wearing superhero pajamas and playing with a superhero action figure, has no interest in Hindu deities. But in a lovely sequence the movie shows us the link between the deities and the superheros. And at the end, we see a photo of the real Sanjay with his father.
Here is a clip from the film:
And here the real Sanjay and his producer talk about making it:
What if all the action heroes who saved the world, day in and day out… were girls?
Only 12% of protagonists in major Hollywood films are female. Even in the background, in crowded wide shots, women only make up about 17% of those shown in live action and animated movies. Among the highest grossing G-rated films of all time, female characters are outnumbered by male characters by three to one.
Move behind the camera and the numbers are sadly similar: in 2014, only 15% of films had female directors, 20% had female writers, and a mere 8% had female cinematographers.
50% of the population is female.
This is a problem.
We’re not here to produce the next blockbuster; we’re here to provide a role model in play. When the girls in your life pick up Ruby Rails, we want them to know that they can be a high-flying, fashion-loving programming extraordinaire too. We want them to feel like they can be a boxer, a secret agent, a dinosaur wrangler, or a fighter pilot.
Our girls deserve action heroes with flowing hair and combat boots. Our girls deserve to see themselves on-screen and calling the shots behind the scenes. Our girls deserve more.
“A Ballerina’s Tale” — the title suggests a fairy story, with sugar plums and a happily ever after ending. But this documentary about Misty Copeland is a story about the brutal hard work and resolve necessary to create those exquisitely graceful performances and make them look effortless. Like the Venus and Serena documentary about the superstar tennis champions, this is a story of an African-American pioneer in a world that has traditionally been white. While ballet does not offer a competition as definitive as a sporting event, like the Williamses Copeland has a level of ability, skill, and dedication that made it impossible to put her anywhere but front and center.
And, like the Williams sisters, Copeland is in a field where people in their 20’s and 30’s may be at the end of their careers. Furthermore, like the Williams sisters, Copeland faces an unexpected health crisis that put her ability to continue at risk. Just as she was given the chance for her first lead role, Copeland found that she had a severe stress fracture in her lower leg. She was 29 years old, and did not know if she would ever dance again.
This is a good movie about a subject and a person who deserve a great movie. The drama is compelling, although it is hard to see an ad campaign as the triumph it expects us to cheer. The best parts of the movie are Copeland’s performances, starting with home video footage at the beginning, going back to when she was in her teens. Her grace and stage presence are there from the beginning. We see her stand in her favorite spot in the practice room, admitting she is a perfectionist. We learn a little about the relatively recent but still-prevalent notion that a ballet dancer should be waiflike and prepubescent-looking and as indistinguishable as possible from the other dancers. Copeland has a strong, healthy body, curvier than the typical principal dancer. And she is black. The film’s most touching moments are when the previous generation’s African-American dancers become her mentors, and we see in their eyes, faces, and still-graceful gestures how much it means to them that she may be able to go farther than they did. If this is a fairy tale, they are the fairy godmothers.
Parents should know that this film has frank discussions of racial prejudice and an injury with brief graphic images.
Family discussion: What other fields are as demanding as ballet? What did Misty Copeland learn from the women who went before her?
If you like this, try: “First Position,” “Pina,” and “Ballet 422”
Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, Shanice Banton, and William Hurt star in this film about Jesse Owens, who defied Hitler’s claims about Aryan supremacy to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Here is the real Owens. I was privileged to meet him when I was a teenager and will never forget it.
