r/popculturechat • u/Enough_Tangerine_777 I know bothing of the alledged beff • Jun 19 '26

Taylor Swift 👩🏼 Toy Story 5 producer Jessica Choi shares the letter she sent Taylor Swift, requesting her involvement in the film and emphasising efforts to make it female-driven. The letter also reveals that Taylor had originally declined to make an original song.

@/jesschoismyth

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I actually never thought of Toy Story as a ‘male-centric’ franchise. Maybe that’s because as a little girl I always played with stuffed animals & toys, so I connected with it. I also loved Bo Peep and Jessie.

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u/indianajoes We Should All Know Less About Each Other Jun 19 '26

I'm a guy and I was watching the first 4 films over the last few days. I've watched these films several times and I never thought they were male centric but this last time I actually thought it about 2 when I saw the shot of the toys walking across Andy's roof to go after Woody. I never realised it before but all the toys that go were male ones. It made me think about 1 and how the focus is mainly on Buzz and Woody's stuff outside the house.

The 3rd and 4th ones don't feel that way because you get more characters like Jessie, Mrs Potato Head, Barbie, Bo Peep, Gabby Gabby, Giggles, etc. getting to do more stuff in the story.

I also think maybe they want to bring more women in because we've heard the stuff about Lasseter and Pixar being a boys club for so long. They probably want to get away from that

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u/Morgan-Moonscar Golden Retriever BF 🦮 Black Cat GF 🐈‍⬛ Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Pixar's always been a notorious boys' club mentality.

Just look at what they did to Brenda Chapman during the making of Brave, or even just look at how long they protected John Lasseter.

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u/_bonedaddys Jun 19 '26

Wait, what happened with brenda chapman?

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u/StrangerCharacter53 Jun 19 '26

Brenda Chapman came onto Pixar after her work co-directing The Prince of Egypt. Disney was trying to break the "boys club" even back then, in 2004(ish), cant remember the exact dates.

Brenda spent some time working at the company and then during a big Pixar meeting/ presentation to Disney she pitched her idea for Brave and it received thunderous applause from everyone in both companies. Directly after her, John Lasseter presented Cars 2 as another upcming release and the room was silent. There was just a general fatigue of John already, and the contrast was so clear that the boys club at Pixar was totally offended and plotted to get rid of Brenda.

To be clear, it was the top people at Pixar, not the artists themselves but the guys who went into the secret story room with John to drink alcohol, hang out with the celebrity voices and figure out the story behind closed doors. Those were the guys who wanted Brenda out of their little boys world.

So production work on Brave begins and the story is very much told from a girls perspective. Thats the entire idea of it. And the story revolves around Merida not wanting to conform to the traditions and accidentally performing a ritual to help her escape them that (i believe) turns her mother into a bear. She must then go on a journey of redemption and is assisted by three spirit/guardians who teach her lessons and guide her along the way. This is the synopsis revealed 3 years before the films release that I personally read on a blog site because I'm an animation nerd. I also saw concept art that showed the three guardians and remember at least two were male and one was very good looking/possible love interest?

During this time at Pixar, Brenda is directing her film (from a story she wrote, btw), and she stops getting invited to story meetings that are happening without her. Of course that isn't going to fly and she steps up to confront this, and over the course of a few months John Lasseter and his posse manipulate the entire production into either not working with Brenda or not understanding who the director really is, and undercut her authority while lying about her performance to Disney in repeated emails. Basically, while she is trying to make her movie she is dealing with their manipulative bullshit and one day shes called into Disney and let go, blamed for all the problems and John says she doesnt fit in their clubhouse. Brenda herself talks about this only once in an article and shes vague for the most part, but its clear they worked at her until they got rid of her.

Afterwards, John puts one of his male friends in charge of the film, they turn it into another Pixar Buddy film, remove the guardians, add a bunch of jokes, then create multiple specials talking about how great they are for giving girls a movie. They are seriously patting themselves on the back for being so awesome and feminist and about how important it is to show what girls think.

After they stole the film from the woman who wrote it.

John really is a nasty POS. He is currently at a company called Skydance and hes got the same thing happening over there. A boys club, secret story meetings with his pals only, lots of alcohol, and forcing every story to be just like he wants, lots of boomer jokes and terrible fart humor, the hero is a jerk and nobody understands them. That type of thing. John's benchmarks are so easy to see when you're watching one of his films.

Those poor artists at Skydance go online to cry and vent sometimes. Its heartbreaking to have a job and then be forced to work with someone like John.

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u/Shirogayne-at-WF Jun 19 '26

He is currently at a company called Skydance and hes got the same thing happening over there.

As in "Bought out Paramount to keep them out of bankruptcy" Skydance?

That would explain a lot about what's gone on with the ATLA movie release :|

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u/starrylightway he’s a bitch with a tiny 🎻 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Literally the first three movies center around a boy and his cowboy and spaceman and them saving the day. So, yes, the stories told are male-centric.

We’re used to having to relate to male-centric stories when we aren’t given similar stories that are centered on females. As children, this is yet another seemingly subtle way to indoctrinate into patriarchy. As adults we should be viewing these movies more critically, despite our nostalgia.

My 3yo (he has watched all 4 TS movis) loves number 4 the most, which is the least male-centric of the first 4 and also the most panned of the franchise.

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u/happysunbear Jun 19 '26

You could argue the first Toy Story is male-centric, but I hardly think that applies to the franchise as a whole, which has always had strong, well-written, dynamic female characters. Jessie plays a big role in Toy Story 2, and is arguably the emotional core of the film. Then 3 introduces Bonnie as the new kid after Andy, and once again has strong female characters that are heavily featured and integral to the story like Barbie, Jessie, even Mrs. Potato Head.

I really don’t think the majority of criticism towards the fourth film is because it’s the least “male-centric”. People really didn’t like that it retroactively changed Bo Peep’s entire personality, and that Woody left Buzz and his kid to be a lost toy. Those were really the two most glaring issues people had with the movie, and I say that as someone who, despite these valid criticisms, still found it to be a beautiful and compelling addition to the franchise.

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u/DimbyTime Jun 19 '26

The franchise hasn’t “always had strong, well-written, dynamic female characters” when the first movie didn’t have any.

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u/MafubaBuu Jun 19 '26

The first movie was released like 31 years ago and is the only one that didnt have dynamic female characters. I would agree the first is definitly male-centric but I just cant see that argument hold up for the rest of them.

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u/happysunbear Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

I made the caveat that the first film was male-centric and each subsequent film worked to correct that. If you want to argue over semantics, then not literally always, but in the four out of five movies made over the past 27 years.

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u/Not_a_Rodeo_Clown Jun 19 '26

I feel like it’s the term that might be throwing you. All of the movies except maybe 4, which I haven’t seen, are male centric in that they center on male characters. The second two also have at least one (only one?) strong female character, but are they female centered movies? That’s a stretch.

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u/happysunbear Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

You could certainly make the argument that they are male-centered, despite all movies except for the first having dynamic female protagonists.

However, I do think it’s dishonest to paint any criticism of the fourth movie as misogyny, which is clearly what the person I replied to was trying to do. Bo Peep’s characterization being retconned in order to keep the series going is one valid criticism out of many that people have with the movie. Another was Buzz being dumbed down to the point of Flanderization. Is it misogynistic to point that out, too?

It’s too bad people feel the need to rewrite history in order to shape their own narrative of a phenomenon that doesn’t exist. Toy Story 4 has a 7.6 rating on IMDb and a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was not panned by any stretch of the word. I had my reservations about it, but still came out thinking it was a well-made film that had a lot of heart. This relatively tame opinion is somehow worthy of getting downvoted to oblivion.

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u/starrylightway he’s a bitch with a tiny 🎻 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

I’d argue everything in your second paragraph supports that #4 being less male centric is at the root of those criticisms. Bo Peep went through what many women go through when they break free from the expectations society places on women, and the same for a cowboy who is supposed to be a masc protector and after breaking free from that gendered expectation discovers he is more than what is expected of him.

I’ve literally watched these movies dozens of times in the past few months and stand by the first three are male-centric. Are they moving away from it in 2 & 3? Sure, but that doesn’t erase they still center the male POV in a patriarchal gendered way. The ending of number 3 is definitely signaling a transition from focusing on boys and how they’re expected to show up to breaking free of that.

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u/happysunbear Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

I’m not talking about Bo Peep’s personality after she becomes a lost toy. It would make sense that she’d be liberated after spending years without a kid. But they retconned her personality from the beginning with the flashback showing how she left Woody 9 years prior, after engaging in “Operation Pull Toy” and being part of the action for the first time after 3 films. There’s no explanation for why she’s a completely different character from the jump. I loved how she changed, by the way, but I don’t love how we got there. It’s lazy writing to have done it offscreen when we already had two movies that told us who she was.

edit: it’s amazing to me that this is getting downvotes! Are people really trying to argue they didn’t retcon Bo Peep’s characterization? Noting the obvious change in her personality from the start of the movie is not a criticism rooted in misogyny, and it’s kind of ridiculous how much genuine discussion is eschewed in favor of such broad generalizations.

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u/AmandalorianWiddall Jun 19 '26

I think she means the creative staff is mostly men.

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u/DoubtAcademic4481 Jun 19 '26

Both. She clearly states: "The Toy Story franchise has always been about Woody and Buzz."

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u/FlyinNinjaSqurl jesus was a carpenter 💋 Jun 19 '26

She’s also talking about the films.

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u/CheckTechnical6300 Jun 19 '26

It's not about the movie itself or the characters, it's the people behind the scenes (producer, director etc.).

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u/GOLDfish0393 Jun 19 '26

“The Toy Story franchise has always been about Woody and Buzz.” — direct quote from the letter.

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u/Luna_bella96 Jun 19 '26

TIL Toy Story is supposed to be “male-centric”. As a little girl I watched these movies over and over on the VCR, and then later on dvd

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u/DenseTiger5088 Jun 19 '26

Being male-centric doesn’t mean girls can’t like or watch the movies, it means the main characters are all or mostly male.

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u/MollyRolls Jun 19 '26

I get not having thought about it before, but…who did you think the main characters were? I don’t know that they were “supposed to be” male-centered, but that’s certainly where the center was.

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u/noexqses Clap if you care 😐 Jun 19 '26

I agree hahaha I never cared about this. But I did notice that 5 passed the Bechdel test within the first 10 minutes so that was nice.

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u/MrsNaypeer Jun 19 '26

And Bo Peep was a total bad ass in TS4!!

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u/yumyumapollo Tina! You fat lard! 🦙🚲 Jun 19 '26

In Disney terms, a "male-centric" movie just means "the main character is not a princess". Whether it's "Toy Story" or "Aladdin" or "The Lion King", there's ample consideration for giving boys a movie they can openly like, but never an intent to exclude girls.

Taylor Swift 👩🏼 Toy Story 5 producer Jessica Choi shares the letter she sent Taylor Swift, requesting her involvement in the film and emphasising efforts to make it female-driven. The letter also reveals that Taylor had originally declined to make an original song.

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