Rock Ness Mess part 20
I’ve been meaning to give the Queen a quest for a while. My friend and I joked about how many old men action figures there were, especially for the new Star Wars movies. So many chancellors and senators and yawn. Imagine the poor kid who opens his birthday present, expecting a cool action figure, and ending up with a white haired carrot-head shaped Jedi or super old Palpatine giant Pez dispenser. Boo.
But there are some cool, wise, old men toys for little boys to look up to, like Obi Wan Kenobi or Gandalf. I couldn’t think of any female toys that were old though. Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, Smurfs, She-Ra, Strawberry Shortcake, Jem… if they had old ladies they were villains or comic relief, not heroes. Young heroic girls didn’t apprentice to any wise, powerful old women. Barbie’s probably the worst, because she doesn’t have a mentor. She IS the mentor to younger Skipper. At least the Dragon Age video game has a wise, old, female wizard. I thought I needed to give Queen Chrysanthemum her own chance to shine. The problem is, she’s so smart she knows better than to get wrapped up in stupid adventures. This seemed like the best opportunity to go for it. I hope you enjoy this epilogue to Roger’s quest, as she tries to clean up his mess.
If you can think of any cartoons or toy lines that have wise old women as key figures, please remind/illuminate me!
October 23rd, 2011 at 1:16 am
There was Yan Lin from the W.I.T.C.H. comics and cartoons. She served as the mentor for the main characters, even to a greater extent than the first Oracle did. Other than that, a lot of cartoons and games seem to be very youth-centric.
October 23rd, 2011 at 2:00 am
You got close with mentioning She-Ra; He-Man has The Sorceress in approximately that role. (As cartoon and toy!) Though the oldness is pretty much just implied by the role, she doesn’t really look old.
October 23rd, 2011 at 9:58 am
Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies TV show. Tough old gal that don’t take no sass! A fine role-model for Ellie-May. 😀
Yeah, I know, I know… not a cartoon or toy line, but that’s what immediately came to mind, so there ya go.
October 23rd, 2011 at 12:19 pm
MacDiver – I’ll have to check out W.I.T.C.H., thanks for the tip!
RavenBlack – The Sorceress does not look old at all to me. She is fit. They use the same body for her as for Teela, the warrior. Yes, Prince Adam’s Mom is there, but she doesn’t do much. Sort of like Christi’s mom… so far!
Hoppy – Ha! Good one!
October 23rd, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Does Princess Celestia from My Little Pony count? She’s at least a thousand years old, but doesn’t really look like it.
October 23rd, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Loved the poor guy’s predicament. Think’s he’s laid off, not the inspiration of a novel way to fix the problem. So, which villain created the big bang that made him deaf?
October 23rd, 2011 at 2:31 pm
wow I can’t think of any old lady action figures either.. aside from “CRAZY CAT LADY ACTION FIGURE” which doesn’t count..
But I can think of who I’d want.. and most of them are from Gargoyles.
October 23rd, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Nemryn – I think it counts against showing old people, if she’s old but don’t show it. Especially if she’s still a pony and not even a mare.
Golux – He told me but I didn’t understand him.
October 23rd, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Mom from Futurama?
Perhaps cartoons aren’t the best places to find old women as role models, given the usual target audience. Hallmark channel, different story.
October 24th, 2011 at 3:54 am
Hmmmmm I know of Grandmother Sophie from Howell’s Moving Castle, the Queen grandmother in The Princess Diaries, (I’m trying to stick to examples in which the role models actually look their age, but if I weren’t I’d say Galadriel from LOTR, and various mages from webcomics, etc.) Agatha Chrstie??! Um, Nanny McPhee, one of the grandmothers in W.I.T.C.H. and a headmaster from a similar series, W.I.N.X., Professor McGonnogle from Harry Potter…
October 24th, 2011 at 8:26 am
Okay two things…
Maybe it’s a coincidence but I thought it rather funny that there’s a little subtle ‘word pun’ on the flags, pine-tree, pine-cone, ice cream cone. I don’t know if you did it on purpose but i’m weird so it made me laugh.
The other thing – I was really impressed with the point you brought up about a lack of positive older female role models. It’s an excellent point that I hadn’t ever thought of before. There truly IS
October 24th, 2011 at 8:29 am
a lack of older female role models for younger women to look up to. With society constantly pushing beauty, sexuality and youth on young woman it’s no surprise really. Maybe it’s time for that to change.
Go Queen Chrysanthemum!
Also sorry for the 2 part post. I accidentally hit the enter key too early 🙂
October 24th, 2011 at 9:20 am
Devil Hunter Yohho had her grandmother Madoka, maybe?
October 24th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Ribuprissin – I haven’t seen the more recent seasons of Futurama but I remember her as a villain. Also, I think cartoons and toy lines is exactly where I should be looking for good female role models for young girls. Hallmark is for older females. No, I don’t expect GI Joe or Batman to have a respectable old female. But all of the cartoons I mentioned were aimed at girls. I have to admit I don’t know what little girls are watching these days, but I have a hard time imagining that they don’t have cartoons geared towards them.
Panda – I haven’t seen several of the stories on your list, so thanks for pointing them out. McGonnogle is good. Agatha Christie isn’t what I’d call kids entertainment yet… but Disney is doing a film with Jennifer Garner as the young version of Miss Marple. Maybe that will be a gateway into the older sleuth?
KimmQuinn – I did indeed mean that as a icecreampinecone! Good eye.
Lawnmower Elf – I don’t know too much about anime, but I did recently learn about Year 24 group. They were a group of females born in the year Showa 24 who grew up reading manga almost entirely by men. They broke into the scene and made shojo for girls, by girls. Maybe that’s why we’re more likely to see older women in manga/anime? Or maybe they just have a better grandmother culture?
October 24th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
The one that comes to mind is Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld series. That’s not a cartoon (most of the time) but she certainly fits the role perfectly. She serves both as mentor and protagonist across her many appearances in the series.
October 27th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Pratchett cartoonified always comes out strange-looking…how about, aah, whatshername, Noggin the Nog’s mother? I remember her as being mighty, but my memory for re-runs watched at six in the morning as a very small child is distinctly hazy…