Spy Kids

Spy Kids

Dimension Films & Troublemaker Studios

Released: 2001

Written & Directed: Robert Rodriguez

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Alexa Vega, Carla Gugino, Daryl Sabara

Rated: PG

GRADE: 4.5/5

Remember this movie? I loved this movie as a kid and rewatched it recently thinking I was going to be disappointed, but NO! It’s actually wayyyy better watching it now as an adult-ish human person. It’s SO QUEER!

Here’s a quick recap: The movie follows the Cortez family: Gregorio (um, awesome name, right), Ingrid, Carmen, and Juni. 

Mommy Spy and Daddy Spy were international spies who got married and went under cover when they had kids. So think of Mr & Mrs Smith as its prequel. Basically, spies start disappearing and Mom and Dad Spy go looking for them and get caught so it’s left to the kids to save alllllllll the spies. Alan Cumming plays Floop, who is a villain (gonna talk about him in a hot sec) and is the host of a kid’s show and an inventor who is working for an evil dude who is paying him to create an army of robot children to take over the world. You know, normal stuff. New kid spies Carmen and Juni end up saving their parents and happily ever after blah blah blah. Just go rewatch it (it’s on Netflix!).

Spy Kids has a few things go for it.

First! Daddy Spy is Mexican! We’ve got an interracial marriage AND mixed race kids. INTERSECTIONALITY BONUS POINTS! Looks like we’re off to a good start.

Next, Juni. Poor little Juni. He’s not just bullied by the awful white boy in his class, the bullying makes him so stressed out that his hands sweat and cause warts, making the bullying worse L That’s no fun. So he’s definitely got some othering/queering story stuff going on. There’s this one really awesome moment when Daddy Spy is dropping Juni off at school and sees him get bullied and he goes into a dream sequence where he confront’s the Daddy Bully and punches him in the face because he’s an international spy and he can do that, but instead he just stays in the car. It’s a sad moment but it feels very real and heartfelt and I’m sure lots of parents of queer kids can relate. Also, the actor pulled a bit of a Neville Longbottom:

Things get better, kids.

Next, the women in this movie are pretty kick-ass. Carmen is fiercely independent (if a bit rebellious) and has so much agency the whole time they are dodging all the people who are after them. Also, when Daddy Spy tells Mommy Spy that he’s gonna go off on a mission, she totally puts her foot down and insists that she go along with him. Look at that outspoken feminism. 

(I also totally had a crush on Carmen as a kid, fyi. She looks like this now so...)

Here’s the big one! FLOOOOOOOOOP. Floop. Floopy Floop. What an awesome character name. AND he’s played by out bisexual actor Alan Cumming (bisexual visibility points! Wanna watch a cool thing about bisexual erasure? Click here!). 

Besides that, evidence for queerness comes from how damn campy he is! He hosts a kids show called Floop’s Fooglies where the characters literally enter by sliding down a rainbow…

I mean, come on. 

For the first 45 minutes of rewatching this movie, I was really disappointed because I thought Floop was just another queer villain character to add to the ginormous list. BUT NO! Well, yeah he still does bad villainy stuff, but (spoilers!) we actually learn that he doesn’t really care about the villain stuff, he really just wants to make a good kids’ show which is kinda adorable. His evil minion Minion is the actual evil one. Floop helps Carmen and Juni defeat Minion at the end of it all. That’s pretty cool. Dismantling the gay villain trope one character at a time! Major points on that one.

AND THIS MOVIE IS SO CAMPY! ALL THE CAMP! ALL THE BONUS POINTS!

In sum, this movie is way better than I thought it would be upon rewatch and I seriously recommend it since it’s up there on the queer scale.

MVQ: FLOOP!

OTP: Floop and one of his Thumb Thumb henchthumbs. I mean, do I have to explain that one?

Favorite Moment: When Floop realizes the error of his ways! Also there’s an awesome surprise George Clooney appearance that’s pretty epic.

Snow White and the Seven Little People

Walt Disney Pictures

Released: 1937

Directors: A lot of people

Starring: Adriana Caselottie, Lucille La Verne, and a bunch of other people no one knows

Based on the Grimm Brother's fariytale, Snow White

Rated: Unknown (because the MPAA didn't exist back then)

GRADE: .5/5

We're going old school this week. Real old school. Snow White is pretty much the first movie primarily made for kids back when movies were still talkies and Walt Disney was just another white dude. It's been a long time since I've watched this one and upon reviewing...I've got some thoughts (surprise surprise).

The original Grimm Bros fairytale is not all that different. The biggest indiscretions are that the evil stepmother actually enacts three ruses to kill Snow White. First tying SW's shoe laces so tight (a bit of a stretch, I know) that it cuts off her circulation and she faints, next by poisonous comb, and finally by the infamous poison apple. The next difference is when she first finds the dwarves' house. In the Grimm's version, she eats their food, drinks their wine, and sleeps in the seventh dwarf's bed. A bit like Goldilocks. Actually, a lot like Goldilocks. And finally, the prince doesn't wake her up from "true love's kiss" he pretty much just picks her up and that does it.

I want to have a quick chat about Snow White before we kick off our queer reading. SHE’S SO ANNOYING. She has absolutely no agency in her life/story. The only thing she contributes to the plot is that she’s too pretty. When she does contribute to the story all she does is clean…And half the time she’s just being a crazy person who talks to animals. SHE CAN’T DO ANYTHING WITHOUT HELP FROM TINY WOODLAND CREATURES! She’s one of the least feminist characters I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something.

On to the queerness. I want to start with the visible queer characters and then get into speculation because there really isn’t much to go on with this movie.  

The Seven Little People (the PC term, btw):

There’s queerness here on a few different levels.

11. Depiction of a marginalized population that is outside of the able norm

Steps onto soapbox. Visibility is a catch-22. On the one hand, early depictions of marginalized populations, much like the “Seven Dwarves” in this movie can lay foundation for damaging stereotypes that take a long loooooong time to overcome. But on the other hand, visibility is an important step toward nuanced and thoughtful portrayals of marginalized peoples. Whatcha gonna do? Be smart about depictions of marginalized populations. It’s that simple. Steps off soapbox.

22. Seven little men living in a house together and spending all their time with each other…sounds like some queer shenanigans went down in that little house in the woods. Hi-ho hi-ho, am I right?

33.  Dopey. Probably my favorite character in the movie. I’ll tell you why. He’s non-verbal. Not only is this characteristic incredibly endearing, I think it’s really telling. I’m going to make a bold statement: I think Dopey is somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. He’s probably high-functioning non-verbal. Now, this interpretation of the character has some problems. First, his name. “Dopey,” and the insinuation that he’s stupid/dumb is emblematic of terrible societal perspectives of people on the Spectrum. That sucks. He’s also a used as a comic relief at his own expense for most of the film and doesn’t have much agency. But there are some cool things too! In my experience, kids on the Spectrum love Disney and animated movies (read this awesome article about a boy on the Spectrum who understands the world through his love of Disney sidekicks). Now this is obviously a generalization, but I think it’s super important for a non-verbal kid on the Spectrum to see a character like him/her in a Disney movie, particularly a character who is well loved and cared for by those around him. And how could you say no to that face?

Ok, on to queer speculation. Interesting that the following two characters have most of the agency in the movies. Hmmmmmm…

The Evil Stepmother. Dat makeup doe. The sculpted eyebrows? The obsession with Snow White’s feminine beauty? That weird hood thing? I think she’s a fabulous drag queen.

I don’t think it’s so farfetched. Ursula’s animation in The Little Mermaid was actually based on the famous drag queen Divine (more on that in a future post). So why not the Evil Stepmother? She’s also technically a witch since she has magical powers. She also turns into a hag at the end of the movie when she gives Snow White the infamous poison apple. The connections between witches/hags and queer/lesbian culture go way wayyyy back. For a modern example just look at Willow and Tara in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. If you haven’t watched it, shame on you. Give it a quick Google. I’ll wait…

Basically the Evil Stepmother is a drag queen with a bad case of green-eyed monster syndrome for Snow White.

Finally, The Prince. He represents the norm: male patriarchy, royal privilege, white, etc. But, something’s a little different about his animation. He looks a little…feminine.

BuzzFeed thinks he looks like Liza Minnelli. I think he looks like a butch lesbian.

So, if we take these two ideas (Evil Stepmomma as drag queen and The Prince as a butch lesbian) we get an interesting, nuanced look at gender struggles in the queer world. Both characters’ motives center around Snow White and her feminine beauty, the Evil Stepmomma is jealous of it and wants it for herself, and The Prince objectifies it. The Evil Stepmomma dies in her pursuit and The Prince succeeds in swooping in and saving the day with true love’s kiss. The drag queen who goes from the masculine to the hyper feminine is doomed, while The Prince goes from feminine to hyper masculine and wins the heart of the damsel in distress. Basically, the patriarchy wins. Ugh. Bleh. Not a very progressive queer message.

MVQ: 

DOPEY! I think I've sufficiently explained my love for Dopey.

OTP: 

All Seven Little People. They've gotta come out as poly. I'd read that fanfic.

Favorite Moment: 

I really enjoy the song "Someday My Prince Will Come," but I hate the lyrics (and Snow White's singing voice). I like to change the lyrics to "Someday My Butch Will Come."

WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION!

The Lion King

Walt Disney Pictures

Released: 1994

Directors: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff

Starring: Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sebella

Rating: G

GRADE: 4/5

The Lion King is one of my all time favorite movies. I've rewatched it many times over the years and it just gets better and better. So let's dig in, shall we? Warning: spoilers ahead (If you don't know the plot of this movie I have no idea what planet you are living on or the situation of your depraved childhood, but you've seriously gotta get on that).

Before I get into the plot, characters, yada yada, first I have to get something big out of the way. This movie is about talking animals, not humans. So…this presents a complication to my queering mission. What is the difference between normative and queer in this animal world? Well. It’s not really an animal world. This animal world has a lot of human additions. The whole royalty thing? Not really how lion prides work. Actually, female lions pretty much run the pride; hunting, taking care of the cubs, defending land, all that kinda stuff. Male lions are actually sorta helpless. Mufasa being king of the pride, that’s plain old human patriarchal systems talking. So if we want to define what normative is in this animal world, let’s look to the royal family and the patriarchy that’s been constructed there. Where patriarchy leads, heteronormativity usually follows. The first family (Mufasa, Sarabi, and Simba) is the quintessential normative nuclear family disguised as lions. They have yellow fur – the lion equivalent to whiteness – they are privileged as royalty, straight, and able. And to top it off our protagonist Simba is male. That’s the normative side of it all. Now let’s get to the queer stuff.

First, let’s look at Scar. HE’S NOT WHITE (yellow, whatever)! His fur color is much darker than Simba and Mufasa (maybe he was adopted? Who knows?). It’s more of a dark reddish-brown than this world’s normative yellow. That’s the first clue. He’s also never EVER pictured with a lady friend. So he can’t be presumed straight. That leaves room for queerness to swoop in and do its work. (Bonus points for intersectionality!) But poor old Scar is a bit repressed. He’s got some hella serious gay shame going on. Represented by the huge scar on his eye that gives him his name. I don’t think it’s too far of a leap. I like to think he got the scar from being bullied as a cub for having different colored fur, but that’s just me.

Scar is just one in a long line of queer villains in kids’ films. I’ll probably talk about that a lot in these posts. In many of these cases, the queer villain trope pretty much sucks and is more than detrimental to queer visibility. But this movie is an exception. That’s because of Timon and Pumba.

Timon and Pumba. Where do I start? They’ve always given off a Bert and Ernie kinda vibe. Not to mention the fact that Timon is voiced by out actor Nathan Lane. AND that they are an inter-species couple (intersectionality points!). Plus, the whole hakuna matata thing? Aka no worries aka don’t care what people say aka we’re here we’re queer and that’s a-ok. When little Simba turns up all sad and orphaned in the African desert left for dead by his dear gay Uncle Scar, Timon and Pumba stumble to the rescue. They come in with their hakuna matata attitude and successfully parent Simba from a cub to a lion. Simba has gay dads! How freakin’ cool is that?

So we have these two queer representations: Scar with his gay shame, and Timon and Pumba’s happy coupledom. What does all this boil down to? Gay shame = downward spiral ending in death by vengeful hyenas. Gay pride = happy ending earning a spot on Pride Rock next to your adoptive son who has successfully ascended to his rightful throne. Sounds pretty damn queer to me.

MVQ (most valuable queer): Poor Scar. I’m gonna give this one to him because he deserves something good in his sad shame-filled life.

OTP: Timon and Pumba, duh.

Favorite moment: “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King.” All time favorite Disney song. Sorry to all those “Circle of Life” fans. Not only is it catchy, but it’s a pretty good theme song for aimless Millennials who just can’t wait for financial stability.

WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION!