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Blogger bullish on basic anatomy

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published August 4, 2006

No one expects cartoon animals to be realistic.

Mice don't wear pants. Roadrunners don't go "beep beep." Sharks don't make friends with cute little clownfish.

But the new children's animated movie Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, opening today, may play a little too fast and loose with biology.

Written and directed by Steve Oedekerk Bruce Almighty, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the film is about cows. Well, they're sort of cows.

As confused or snickering movie fans have been noting online since stills from the movie began leaking out, there's something bizarre about these cattle, and it's not that they talk and walk on their hind legs and ride motorcycles.

Most of the "cows" are voiced by male actors, including Kevin James and Sam Elliott. Yet they all have visually prominent, bubble-gum pink udders.

Udders, as in the bovine breast.

This is not an example of the time-honored cartoon tradition of simply omitting animals'; sexual characteristics to spare the tender sensibilities of children. It's wrong. It's as if some animator pasted Jessica Rabbit's rack on Roger. It is, to use a word found repeatedly in online discussions of Barnyard, "disturbing."

Oedekerk's comment on the question to USA Today in April, "Dogs are male and female, and so are cows," seemed to miss the point.

But blogger Belinda Arkansas isn't going to give him a pass. Arkansas blogs at Ninjapoodles.blogspot.com and is also a community blogger for Arkansas Times Online. In real life, she's Belinda Hankins Miller, 39, and the mom of a preschool-age daughter, Isabella.

Hankins Miller comes by her animal biology cred honestly: She and her family raise and show champion miniature poodles and keep Arabian horses and Shetland ponies at their farm in central Arkansas.

Here's her beef about Barnyard, posted last week.

- COLETTE BANCROFT, Times staff writer;

Nickelodeon Movies And Steve Oedekerk: Are You Stupid?

Or just tragically ignorant of simple biology? This Barnyard movie isn't even OUT yet, and it's already making me crazy, just from the commercials. You don't understand why? Well, first, let me just say that I went to the film's own Web site, to do a little research and make sure I didn't have you all wrong, before I wrote this. My suspicions were, unfortunately for the soon-to-be-confused children of America, not unfounded. Let's take a look at Barnyard's synopsis:

"Barnyard is a lighthearted tale centering around Otis (voiced by Kevin James), a carefree party cow, who enjoys singing, dancing and playing tricks on humans. Unlike his father Ben (voiced by Sam Elliott), the respected patriarch of the farm, and Miles, the wise old mule (voiced by Danny Glover), Otis is unconcerned about keeping the animals' humanlike talents a secret. But when suddenly put in the position of responsibility, the "udderly" irresponsible cow finds the courage to be a leader."

OK. Right off the bat we have a small problem with terminology. But I get that not everyone is from cattle country, or, in fact, any kind of "country," so let me explain one quick thing, City Boys. This story is, in your words, about a young male "cow," Otis, and his father, Ben. What's the problem? Well, it would be the same if you said that the movie was about a "hen" named Otis and his father. You see, the term "cow," by definition, indicates a female of the Bovidae family. Otis and his father would not be "cows," they would be "bulls," or, if involved in an unfortunate auger accident and castrated, "steers."

But hey, I'm not a hard case. Something like that, you not knowing the correct terminology for common domesticated animals, that's not a terribly big deal. I mean, lots of people probably don't realize that the word "cow" is gender-specific . . .

But here's where we have a HUGE problem, Nickelodeon Movies and Steve Oedekerk (on the Blog appeared two stills from the movie, including Otis, the main character voiced by Kevin James). These are obviously depictions of a cow. With udders. You took the trouble of having them drawn onto all the "cow" characters (all but one of whom, from what I've been able to gather without seeing the film, are MALE), so you must know what they are. Right? I mean, you know that's where milk comes from, right? . . .

Bulls and steers - in your world, "boy cows" - do not have (udders). Napoleon Dynamite knew it. Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, would know this. Heck, his idiot friends Carl and Sheen would know it. Why don't you?

Oh, and so help me, if Miles the Mule has children* in this new movie, I will hunt you down, beat you with an agricultural encyclopedia, and force you to attend an FFA fair at the point of a pitchfork.

*Bonus educational note to Nickelodeon Movies and Steve Oedekerk: Mules are sterile.

Colette Bancroft can be reached at (727) 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com. Word for Word is an occasional feature excerpting passages of interest from books, magazines, Web sites and other sources. The text may be edited for space but the original spelling, grammar and punctuation are unchanged.

[Last modified August 3, 2006, 15:26:23]