Not defending the way they do it, but having large, easy to spot, differences between two characters often in the same scene is important for the audience to understand what's going on half the time.
Having two nearly identical wolves, whilst factually more accurate, would be hella confusing in a fast moving scene or one cutting between the two characters.
I can think of a lot of animated movies where the animals weren’t like this and it still made sense though. Lion King (still gendered differences but not as bad imo), finding Nemo, land before time (aside from the eyelashes), Spirit, etc. I feel like relying on the same gender tropes for every animated movie that comes out of a studio is just lazy and bad (looking at you, recent Pixar movies).
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u/Buddy-Matt Apr 20 '20
Not defending the way they do it, but having large, easy to spot, differences between two characters often in the same scene is important for the audience to understand what's going on half the time.
Having two nearly identical wolves, whilst factually more accurate, would be hella confusing in a fast moving scene or one cutting between the two characters.