I liked Geena Davis better when she had a job (and Joe Kelly is an idiot).

A few days ago, I biliously frothed about GLAAD's upbraiding of American Idol, because of Simon Cowell's insensitive treatment of a cross dresser. A couple of minutes ago, I read an article in a similar vein. This time the gripes came from Geena Davis, who, when she isn't empowering women to drive convertibles off cliffs, is busy founding gender-advocacy programs. As you might imagine, she is not advocating on behalf of little boys.

Her program, called See Jane, falls under the greater auspices of Dads & Daughters, and they both seek to increase balanced gender represenation in children's entertainment. This aim, in an of itself, is not a bad thing at all, though if you need a reason why there is a greater proportion of male characters to female characters in kids shows, simply compare the entire run of My Little Pony to any one episode of G.I. JOE; you will find that cartoons geared exclusively for girls are pretty lame.

Anyway, this group did a study on the top-grossing G-rated movies from 1990 to 2004, and it discovered that the male-female ratio in this films is a distressing 3:1. Clearly this a notable statistic, but I question the validity of its claim, largely because I don't think these people consider minor details such as narrative context. Joe Kelly, who co-founded Dads & Daughters, remarked that the findings of the study exposed a flaw in Toy Story, and made him realize that the only female character was Bo Peep. Well, Joe, if you can take a momentary break from your hand-wringing, you might notice that the setting of Toy Story takes place in the bedroom of an eight year BOY. I don't know if you are aware of this, Joe, but most boys don't play with girls' toys. On account of most boys being boys.

--The Robo-Pirate