Emily Ridge: Despicable Me 2

There is a lot of talk circulating around the “children’s movie,” Despicable Me 2. The basic message I have gotten after doing some research is that its not actually a kid friendly movie because it has sexist and racist content that could influence young children and their beliefs about minorities and women.

Despicable Me 2 is about a super-villain, Gru, who turns into a "good guy" after adopting three little girls. As a retired villain, he is asked to help the Anti-Villain League find the creator of an evil serum.  He is assigned a female partner, Lucy, an experienced member of the anti-villain league. She helps him find the Villain, "El Macho," who then captures her. Gru discovers she has been captured and saves her. Throughout the movie Gru is encouraged by a friend and neighbor to find a mother for his three daughters. He is introduced to several women, but in the end falls in love with his partner Lucy.

• Racism in Despicable Me 2

• The suspected creators of the serum are both minority characters. One suspect is an Asian hair solon owner while the other is a Mexican man who owns a Mexican Restaurant. 
• The lead  supervillian is Eduardo, the Mexican man. He is also known as "El Macho." He and his son, Antonio, fit many negative stereotypes that have developed about Hispanics here in the United States because of an increase in immigration into the United States from Latin America
• "All Hispanics are wife stealers": At one point Eduardo grabs a white woman from a different man (presumably her husband or boyfriend). Eduardo dances with her to Latin music and woes her. He tosses her back to her husband blushed and googley eyed. This has sexual conotations and refers to a common argument that has been made against immigration reform that "they (Hispanics) are coming to our country and stealing all of our (American) women and jobs."
• "All Hispanics are involved in drugs and the drug trade":  Eduardo portrays a drug lord. Like many famous drug lords he has a special nickname: "El Macho." He administers a drug to Gru's minions (little yellow helpers to Gru) in order to get them to follow him, very similar to how some drug dealers bribe members of their cartels with drugs in order to get them to work for him. He also owns a large manchion which is also very common for drug lords. Many of them own large houses that are paid for by their drug trade. Eduardo is a small business owner there is no way he could afford such a house with just the money he makes from his small family restaurant.  The most noticeable comparison to a drug lord to me was the fact that Eduardo faked his death in order to continue is illegal activity without anyone looking for him or realizing who he was.  There are many rumors floating around about different famous drug cartel leaders faking their deaths in order to avoid imprisonment or someone trying to stop their drug business.
• "All Hispanics cheat on their wives" Eduardo's son, Antonio fits this stereotype when he impresses Margo, Gru's oldest daughter. Margo is completely in awe of Antonio until she sees him dancing with another girl at a party.

• The color of the minions determines their personality.
• the litte yellow minion characters start out as sweet and funny. After being drugged they turn dark purple. The darker colored ones are evil and the lighter colored ones are good. The message this sends is that you can see just by someones coloring whether they are bad or good. Viewers and characters in the movie knew that if there was a purple minion, he was bad and if there was a yellow minion, that he was good. That teaches viewers that you can look at someone and just by the color of their skin  it can be determined who they are and decide from that whether they should be avoided or embraced.
• this is not as specific as all of the stereotypes expressed about Hispanics, but it does send a bigger message that the color of your skin is important in determining who you are as a person.

• Sexism
• Women throughout the movie are supporting characters to the male characters in the movie. Present only to modify male characters.
• For example, take a look at Gru's daughters, three sweet little girls who love Gru. They make him look like a great person because they need him and he is there for them, but thats their only role in the movie: to be there making Gru look like a good person.
• Another example is when Lucy, Gru's love interest, is captured by Super Villain "El Macho" and Gru becomes the hero when he saves her. There are three major issues with this:
• First of all, Lucy is rescued by Gru to enhance Gru's character. By saving her, he looked like  a better person. Similar to how Gru's daughters also enhanced his character.
• Second of all, Lucy is dependent on Gru. She was unable to save herself so Gru has to come and rescue her.  A kid watching this movie, especially a young girl, could very clearly see that women are not portrayed as strong and empowered, but dependent on men. 
• Last of all, Lucy herself is supposed to be an accomplished secret agent, but she has to be rescued by a recently hired, under trained, ex-villain. This sends a message that no matter how successful a woman is and how hard she works, she will never live up to the capabilities of men, even men who have not worked near as hard as her.

• Unrealistic standards are set for women in the movie. These standards include being young, skinny, and pretty. In Despicable Me 2, Gru is encouraged by a neighbor to begin dating so that his daughters will have a mother.  His neighbor attempts to set him up with several women.
• The first woman, Natalie, is a slightly overweight middle aged woman. Gru scoffs at the sight of her. It is clear that Gru has no interest in attempting to get to know such an unattractive woman. This says to viewers that a woman's appearance is more important than who she is as a person. However, Gru is interested in two other  younger, skinnier, and prettier (by our societies standards) women. The first is Shannon who is dressed in a raunchy animal print dress. After seeing her, he does not quickly reject the idea of dating her as he did with Natalie. On the date, he finds that he does not like her personality and moves on, but  he only considered being involved with her because she was attractive. He later moves on to being interested in his partner in the investigation, Lucy. She also conforms well to today's standards of an attractive woman as she is skinny and pretty. Here are the three women. 



Shannon (left)



Natalie



Lucy



• There is also a scene of major violence against women Gru has a really awkward date with Shannon and Lucy happens to see a little of whats going on when she stops by the restaurant for take-out. She ends up shooting Shannon with a moose tranquilizer in order to keep her from embarrassing Gru further. Shannon passes out then Lucy and Gru drag her out to the car, along the way pretending that she is conscious while passing a police officer, and eventually leave her unconscious on her doorstep. This activity resembles pretty well an instance of date rape. It is clear that date rape was used as comic relief for older audience members because of the fact that they had to pretend she was conscious in order to get her into the car and past bystanders.
You might be thinking now: Why does it all matter? A child is never going to watch this movie and realize that there is negative stereotyping, racism, and sexism in the movie. It does matter because the movies is putting ideas in a children minds that the things that go on in this movie are normal and acceptable.

Its not just this movie either it is the accumulation of children's movies that include things like racism and sexism. By the constant presence of racism and sexism children begin to believe that it is okay and funny to stereotype women and minorities. Kids start to believe that all hispanics are dangerous and creepy or that a skin color can decide whether someone is good or bad. Young girls begin to believe that they will never accomplish anything unless a man helps her. Young viewers might think its funny and totally normal to have a passed out woman being dragged out of restaurant. 

Such things set a basis for how children think for the rest of their lives. Just think if you have ever had a scarring experience as a child and how it effected you and the way you think now. Now think how effective many experiences and many instances of racism and sexism in movies can work together to create closed minded human beings for our future.