Why Aren’t All The Cartoon Mothers Dead?
In her essay “Why Are All The Cartoon Mothers Dead”, the writer Sarah Boxer addresses gender inequality in society by acknowledging the lack of the main characters' mother in popular children’s movies:
“Bambi's mother shot. Nemo's mother, eaten by a barracuda. Lilo's mother, killed in a car crash. Koda’s mother and Brother Bear, speared. Poe's mother in Kung Fu Panda 2, done in by a power-crazed peacock. Ariel's mother in the third Little Mermaid, crushed by a pirate ship. Human baby's mother in Ice Age, chased by a saber-tooth tiger over a waterfall.”
By presenting these popular kids movies and how the main characters’ mother was killed, she is assigning blame to the directors of these movies for how kids are being raised. Consequently, Boxer illustrates her views on gender inequality as
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He is protector and playmate, comfort and buddy, mother and father.” However, what gets people thinking in Boxers essay is her strong use of diction to capture the attention of other radical feminists who might be subjective towards this topic. “At one puzzling point, Ellie, the very picture of strength, yells to Diego, “You can do it! Push, push!” as if he were the one giving birth. He snaps back “You have no idea what I'm going through!”(He's fending off vicious blue dinosaurs-more work than childbirth, from the looks of it.)” Her excessive use of language combined with the demonstration of how the main character's life becomes better without the mother in it, helps us understand how she feels about gender inequality in