Stepmothers and Scenery: Reimagining Older Women in Animation

By Phoebe Pineda

When we were learning about narrative point of view, my middle school English teacher gave us an assignment: rewrite a fairy tale from a different perspective. I picked “Little Red Riding Hood,” rewriting it from a POV I hadn’t seen before: the grandma’s. I don’t quite remember how my version went, but I do remember Granny being sharp, snarky, and very displeased with the whole wolf situation. And can you blame her? She can’t defend or save herself. She’s the poor hapless victim of circumstances beyond her control, of the consequences of other people’s decisions.

Unfortunately, Granny’s helplessness—and her inability to affect the narrative—echoes a longstanding pattern in Western storytelling, one that persists even in contemporary media. In 2019, the Geena Davis Institute analyzed 32 popular films and their depictions of characters 50 years and older. They found that while older characters in general were underrepresented in film, women made up a smaller percentage of these characters than men. They also tended to receive less screen time, less speaking time, and were more likely to be portrayed according to negative stereotypes: lonely, unfashionable, and mentally and physically incapable. Only 25% of the films analyzed passed the researchers’ “Ageless Test,” which gauges not only whether a movie includes a woman character aged 50 or older, but whether that character is complex and multidimensional.

In other words, to quote the researchers, older women in film do not have “fully realized lives,” but are often merely “scenery in younger people’s stories.” And, indeed, none of the women in the films featured in the study were in leading roles.

It’s difficult to gauge how older women are represented across the media landscape as a whole, so I’ve decided to look at a genre I know well: animation. Over the years, I’ve observed that middle-aged and older women in animated movies tend to fall into certain archetypes. They might be wicked stepmothers chasing youth, or bumbling comic relief. They might die within the first five minutes, or simply not get much to do. Even when they get to kick butt (like Queen Lillian in Shrek the Third), they’re usually still not a focal point of the narrative.

Disney and Pixar, for their part, have made more of an effort to bring older women into the spotlight. As a result, a common thread has emerged among some of their recent movies: the old vs. the young. We see a plucky young protagonist butt heads with a strong-willed matriarch and her rigid worldview, and these characters’ struggle to understand each other drives the story forward. Brave’s rebellious princess Merida attempts to change her mother using magic, with disastrous consequences. Encanto sees Mirabel, the only grandchild in the family without a magical gift, grapple with her abuela’s lack of approval. And in Turning Red, middle schooler Mei’s social life finds itself upended by both puberty-induced red panda shapeshifting and her mother’s resulting overprotectiveness.

These films, and these characters, have given us some of the most moving scenes in cinema. They demonstrate just how powerful representation can be when done right. But they also position their mothers and grandmothers as antagonists, obstacles blocking their child or grandchild from achieving their dreams. Though these characters have concrete motivations and dynamic character arcs, allowing them to grow and evolve alongside their younger family members, the narrative does not center on their stories. Coco would have been a very different movie if it was told from great-great-grandma Imelda’s or even great-grandma Coco’s perspective, rather than Miguel’s.

We tend to think of animation as being for kids, particularly in the U.S. Indeed, if an animated protagonist isn’t an animal or a sentient toy or an emotion, they’re probably under the age of 20, occasionally a bit older. Of course, there’s no actual rule that says only kids can enjoy animated movies. But even if the target audience for most animated films is children, that doesn’t mean mothers and grandmothers have to stick to the sidelines.

Perhaps the most famous animated movie about an old person is Pixar’s Up, in which grumpy Carl Fredricksen sets off to fulfill his late wife’s dream of traveling to Paradise Falls. Released in 2009, Up remains a classic not only for its iconic (and tearjerking) “Married Life” opening sequence, but for Carl’s growth as a character as he finds a new lease on life. Over the course of the film, Carl becomes both an accidental action hero and surrogate grandfather to Russell, a young scout who gets swept up in his adventure. Director Pete Docter has said he wasn’t concerned about younger audiences connecting to Carl because he thought they would relate to him like they would a grandparent. “[We] got to show it to kids, and they loved it,” he told one interviewer about Up’s initial test screenings. The actual box office numbers agreed: Up became the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2009, and according to exit polls, 53% of the movie’s audience was female, while 47% was under 17 years old.

The way older characters are depicted on screen reflects how we as a society view aging and the elderly, argues Morehead State University professor Sylvia Hennenberg. When older women in children’s media are depicted as cruel, ineffectual, or otherwise removed from the action of the narrative, says Hennenberg, we’re not only reinforcing stereotypes about what it means to grow old as a woman—we’re depriving young people of the chance to bond with their elders. We’re missing out on opportunities to build connections across generations and to understand each other.

So how can animation reimagine its older women characters? One franchise that comes to mind is The Incredibles, where we watch stay-at-home mother Helen Parr transition back into superhero work as Elastigirl. We can also look to our neighbors in other countries: Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky features the pirate captain Dola, who despite being a side character is one of the most memorable and unique personalities Studio Ghibli has to offer. Filmmaker Satoshi Kon also provides compelling leads in Tokyo Godfathers’ Hana, a homeless trans woman who takes in an abandoned baby; and Millennium Actress’ Chiyoko, a former film actress reminiscing over her career. And on the television side, there’s Eda of The Owl House, the chaotic witch who becomes teenager Luz’s magical mentor.

Funnily enough, years before I wrote my version of Red Riding Hood, the movie Hoodwinked presented its own spin on the classic fairy tale. Hoodwinked reimagines Little Red’s story as a witty whodunnit, where the characters we know and love find themselves caught up in the hunt for the notorious Goody Bandit. Each member of the film’s ensemble cast presents their side of the story during separate police interrogations, allowing us to get to know them in greater detail. And Red’s Granny Puckett is no slouch: in addition to running a successful baking business, she’s also an extreme sports champion! Not only does she thwart a hit job by a troupe of skiing mercenaries, but she also leads the charge in rescuing Red from the Goody Bandit’s clutches.

But if we’re looking at the potential of the older woman as the protagonist, as the undisputed hero, the clearest blueprint might be the resounding success of Everything Everywhere All At Once. Though not animated, it touches on the same themes of generational disconnect as several of the films I’ve previously mentioned. Except rather than center on the child, it centers on Evelyn Quan Wang, an exhausted immigrant mother and laundromat owner turned reluctant multiversal traveler.

While they initially conceptualized a more traditional male martial-arts action hero, directors Daniel Kwan and Scheinert (the Daniels) found that reworking their lead’s gender allowed them to more deeply explore some of the dynamics and struggles common among Asian-American families. “[It became] a movie about our moms,” Kwan told Salon. “[To] watch someone like that go through this journey felt so much more powerful and so much more nuanced in a way that was harder to imagine with a male character.” Michelle Yeoh, who portrays Evelyn, told NPR she saw the role as “a perfect opportunity to give a voice to the very ordinary mothers and [housewives] who [get] so taken for granted,” to show them that they, too, could be “superheroes.”

I, personally, am holding out hope for an adaptation of Sleeping Beauty about the three fairies learning how to raise a child—pardon the pun—on the fly. Or perhaps a movie about a Filipino grandma, a lola, much like my own: one who gossips at the mahjong table, admires fine jewelry, and cooks the best kare-kare you’ll have in your life. (She might even secretly dabble in magic!)

All this to say that in an animation landscape saturated with sequels and spinoffs, there are still new stories to uncover, and new characters to fall in love with. Maybe we just need to look in the right places. Maybe it’s time we gave our elders a chance to shine.