Woman of the Month: Jessie

Jessie from Toy Story 

I've worked my way through the Toy Story franchise this year (I'm settling down to watch the fourth film tonight), and throughout it all I kept a particularly close eye on the character of Jessie.

For a long time she was the most recognizable female character in the entire Pixar canon, a studio which has never been hugely interested in stories about women and to date has only featured three female protagonists across twenty-one movies.

Now I love Pixar films as much as the next person, but there's certainly room for improvement on that front, especially in the wake of the John Lasseter debacle. But for what it's worth, the likes of Dory, Helen Parr, Merida and Atta ensure that there's at least quality over quantity when it comes to the array of female characters Pixar has provided.

As a child watching Toy Story 2, I can't say I was overly fond of Jessie: she was so brash and boisterous - everything I wasn't, and therefore couldn't relate to. As an adult, I find her so much more endearing precisely because of the manic energy infused in her by the animators and Joan Cusack's vocal performance.

As Tom Hanks once put it: “no small amount of enthusiasm comes out of her,” and it's still a rare thing to see a female character who allowed to be so loud. Like, EXTREMELY loud.

She makes up a crucial part of Toy Story 2 considering the montage of her life with Emily ends up being the most emotional sequence of the entire film, and she provides further insight into the harrowing risks of being a toy when we learn the reason for her panic attacks. Imagine being a sentient toy that's stuck in storage for years... after being abandoned by the one person you love the most.

Sadly, Toy Story 3 relegates her to more of a supporting player. She gets a few good lines, as when she stands up to Lotso, yet she's reduced to a distressed damsel at one point for the sake of a gag (Spanish-mode Buzz rescues her dramatically).

It's not until Toy Story: Tale of Terror, the 2014 Halloween Special, that she finally gets some focus, in a story that tackles her traumatic history and crippling claustrophobia. After Bonnie and her mother stop at a roadside motel for the night, Jessie and the other toys take the opportunity to explore. But there's a strange creature at loose in the building, and when Woody is captured, sold on-line and packaged for delivery, it's only Jessie that can rescue him in a nice bit of role reversal from Toy Story 2.

That her usual confidence co-exists with a terror of abandonment and enclosed spaces is a great basis for a character, and here she's given the chance to face her fears by allowing herself to be shut in a box so that she might get to Woody, before using her wits and agility to expose the criminal scheming of the motel manager. As becomes her mantra in this episode: "Jessie never gives up, Jessie finds a way."

Is it a little frustrating that she had to wait until a twenty minute holiday special before getting a story that centred on her? Sure. But tonight I'll find out what Toy Story 4 has in store for her...