gender-problematic

Rating: 2/10 (14 July 2005)

While I enjoyed the animation and the style of the film, about an hour into it I became increasingly uncomfortable as the true roles of the characters began to emerge. I found the final plot to be somewhat incoherent and very problematic in terms of reinforcing negative gender stereotypes and un-empowering gender roles. For example, why is the main female character and an additional female character attracted to Howl when he is never around, highly volatile and outrageously needy? Why does the main female character give up her hat business to clean his castle? Why are age and weight the predominate indicators of social disgust and unattractiveness? Why does Howl's big scene displaying his love for the main character consist of little more than buying her gifts and showing off his power? Why is the broomstick the most considerate, caring male character in the picture and also the one that no one wants to be in love with? I have very little experience with children's films, but would like to think that a theater full of attentive, undiscerning children would be an arena that demanded a higher level of responsibility in terms of presenting characters that empower the viewers as opposed to propagate oppressive stereotypes.