Pixar's new movie "Brave," which hits theaters on Friday,
could quite possibly have the largest share of redheaded characters of
any major studio release in the history of color cinema.
The movie's protagonist, Merida, has red hair, and so do her three
mischievous little brothers, who are known only as "The Triplets." All
four have inherited their coloring from their father King Fergus, who
literally reigns over the mythical Scotland of the movie. And the
large-group shots in the movie always include an unusually generous
smattering of auburn manes.
But if any company were going to produce such an enthusiastic ode to
gingerdom, it was bound to be Disney's Pixar. Since releasing "Toy Story
2" in 1999, the studio has had an unprecedented proportion of redheaded
characters in its movies. Every movie the studio has made -- aside from
those, like "Cars" and "A Bug's Life," that are not about humans -- has
featured at least one redhead. Judging from Pixar's oeuvre, one would
never guess that fewer than 2 percent of the people alive today have red
hair.
Merida is not even the the first Pixar protagonist with red hair;
that honor was claimed in 2007 by lanky, hapless Linguini of
"Ratatouille."
"Brave" producer Katherine Sarafian chalked up the red manes of the
new movie's characters to their Scottish heritage. She denied Pixar had
any specific agenda behind its use of red hair. She laughed, for
example, at the suggestion that it resulted from efforts by Pixar
executives Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird -- both strawberry blondes -- to
insert themselves into their movies.
"I wouldn't call it random, because it is really thought through
carefully for each story," Sarafian said, "But I think it might be hard
to relate it to filmmakers' individual looks and how they might want to
insert that as a point of view in the movies."
Mark Andrews, the director of "Brave" and the story editor of
"Ratatouille," said the driving factor behind the decision to make
Merida and Linguini redheaded was artistic.
"Mostly it's a design choice to identify the character quickly from
everybody else that's in the shots or in the composition," Andrews told
The Huffington Post.
Doing this is easier for an animated movie, as the filmmakers can
decide exactly how character looks without having to deal with the
limited resources of a casting pool.
"From an artist's point of view, we're always looking for variation,
so that not every character would have dark hair, even though that would
be more realistic," Andrews said. "One of the great things about
animation is that we have that kind of visual control."
But even if the decision to include so many redheads can be traced to
pragmatic roots, the potential effects of that decision are tremendous.
Pixar's movies -- not including "Brave" -- have grossed
$7.25 billion worldwide
at the box office. Millions of impressionable children and adolescents
have seen each of the studio's releases. For the redheads among them,
Pixar's ginger-headed characters present a refreshing change.
Comedian Matt McCarthy, whose stand-up act riffs on his
redheadedness, told The Huffington Post that as a child, his hair color
made him feel excluded from most mainstream mass culture. "I wish there
had been more more redheaded things or red-centric things when I was 3
or 5 years old," he said.
And the impact might be almost as palpable for Pixar's millions of
fans who lack ginger-colored tresses. Some of them, especially outside
the United States and western Europe, could well have their first real
encounter with redheadedness in a Pixar movie.
"In pockets in the world, anti-gingerism is very big," explained
Marian Roach, author of "The Roots of Desire," an exploration of the
history of redheadedness. "It's really quite tragic. Some people really
do hate redheads, often because their family has hated them forever,"
Popular culture has often supported the spread of anti-ginger
sentiment by perpetuating narrow stereotypes of the significance of red
hair, Roach argued. Those stereotypes are gender-specific: Redheaded
women have traditionally been seen as highly sexualized, while redheaded
men have usually been depicted as evil or bumbling.
Anne Margaret Daniels, an English professor who has been working on a
major study of redheadness since 1997, agreed, adding that prepubescent
redheaded girls are largely depicted as rambunctious and free-spirited.
For that reason, she said, "By and large, redheaded stereotypes tend to
be very positive for girls and somewhat damaging for boys."
It could be argued that Pixar has reaffirmed some of those
stereotypes. At one point in "Brave," Merida's brunette mother Queen
Elena tells her husband that Merida's stubbornness -- like her
redheadedness -- comes from "his side of the family." Jessie from the
"Toy Story" sequels and Ellie from "Up" both match Daniels' description
of the traditional redheaded girl, for example. And Linguini is nothing
if not bumbling.
Andrews did not deny drawing on some cultural artifacts for his
movies. "I'm not saying that all redheads are fiery, passionate,
wild-at-heart people," he said. "They're probably not. But visually, as
hair colors go, they automatically get assigned that choice."
"Because colors inherently have emotion, ideas and information that
go with them," he said. "Red is a warning; it's hot, passionate,
dangerous, wild."
Among the many flame-haired characters that Pixar has created,
there's a great deal of variation. It's not like they all fit in one
basket. Merida, for example, is too richly drawn and contradictory to
fit any one stereotype very easily.
And judging from Andrews' inbox, many redheads seem to be thrilled to have a chance in the spotlight.
"We've been getting tons of emails and mail saying, 'Thank you for
creating a redheaded character. Now there's a character for us, Signed
fellow redheads,'" Andrews said. "And I'm all, 'Where were you when "The
Little Mermaid" came out? Where were you when "Pippi Longstocking" came
out?'
"Redheads have been in movies for a while, especially in animation.
Daphne in 'Scooby Doo' is a redhead," he said. "There's a lot of these
iconic redheaded heroines in animation. Merida's not the first one."
Nor is she likely to be the last, if Pixar continues recent trends.
