Review: Wreck-It Ralph
Apr. 17th, 2013 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowfireflameConsidering some pretty horrific incidents such as the insane sexual harrassment of Anita Sarkeesian, who runs the video blog Feminist Frequency (major trigger warnings on that situation, by the way), it’s not surprising that some gamers have been responsible for cultivating a reputation for sexism and exclusiveness in the gaming community. But with this poor reputation, you might not expect an animated movie about video game characters—and produced by Disney on top of all that!—to be one of the best examples of gender equality done right that I’ve seen in quite a while—and definitely the best example I’ve seen in an animated movie in...possibly forever. And yet Wreck-It Ralph is just that.
I knew I was onto something good when in one of the opening scenes there is a generic gamer presented, and she’s a young girl who is almost instantly bullied by two male gamers hogging a game she wanted to play. She responds calmly and politely to their childish behavior.
That’s not all. A baking game is run with a male narrator, there is a king who doesn’t mind being surrounded by pink (although he is a bit defensive to others about this choice), and there is an entire game dedicated to some ruthless female car racers being obsessed with car mechanics in what amounts to Candyland (“Sugar Rush,” lol). The heroes are a young girl suffering from a disability and a conflicted game character who is frustrated with always having to be the “bad guy” in his game and getting no appreciation for his role. At one point the girl with the disability has the opportunity to become a princess and to rid herself of her disability, but she turns them down with the reasoning that that life “isn’t really her.”
But the best part for me was the romantic couple consisting of a hardcore BAMF female and a friendly, easygoing male who repeatedly takes the role of the damsel in distress. There is a scene between them, and I am not kidding, where enacting a consensual BSDM scene with her as the dom and him as the sub literally saves the day.
Added to all these surprising elements is a very moving storyline about self-acceptance and friendship filtered through fun video game elements (with several in-jokes), told with gorgeous animation and a soundtrack that included a Japanese theme song (*fangirls*). I was really, really not expecting this movie to be nearly as good as it was, and it was easily my favorite animated movie of last year.
I knew I was onto something good when in one of the opening scenes there is a generic gamer presented, and she’s a young girl who is almost instantly bullied by two male gamers hogging a game she wanted to play. She responds calmly and politely to their childish behavior.
That’s not all. A baking game is run with a male narrator, there is a king who doesn’t mind being surrounded by pink (although he is a bit defensive to others about this choice), and there is an entire game dedicated to some ruthless female car racers being obsessed with car mechanics in what amounts to Candyland (“Sugar Rush,” lol). The heroes are a young girl suffering from a disability and a conflicted game character who is frustrated with always having to be the “bad guy” in his game and getting no appreciation for his role. At one point the girl with the disability has the opportunity to become a princess and to rid herself of her disability, but she turns them down with the reasoning that that life “isn’t really her.”
But the best part for me was the romantic couple consisting of a hardcore BAMF female and a friendly, easygoing male who repeatedly takes the role of the damsel in distress. There is a scene between them, and I am not kidding, where enacting a consensual BSDM scene with her as the dom and him as the sub literally saves the day.
Added to all these surprising elements is a very moving storyline about self-acceptance and friendship filtered through fun video game elements (with several in-jokes), told with gorgeous animation and a soundtrack that included a Japanese theme song (*fangirls*). I was really, really not expecting this movie to be nearly as good as it was, and it was easily my favorite animated movie of last year.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-04-18 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 02:01 pm (UTC)