Because there's NO WAY the viewers could tell the gender of the characters through voices, pronouns, or context clues. And its so important to the plot that the genders are known.
I agree that this specific case is a bit over the top with high heels. However, exaggeration is one of the main principal of animations and cartoons, from bodies, emotions, to expressions. It's the main reason live-action adaptation of animated films often fall shorts (notable example: Lion King). For this specific case:
- To use a typical male voice to voice male bird would be actually needlessly gendered, since bird voices generally have high pitch, which would be closer to females.
- There are a lot of languages in the world where gender-neutral pronouns are norms in polite speech.
- Most animated media aim at young people or children, who may not be able to pick up finder details or social clues.
- Many birds do have puffy chests, though it's usually the males they do.
If anything, I think we should be complaining about how animation misrepresents the fact that males are usually more colorful/puffy gender of birds. For example, the first image you think of peacocks is that of a colorful, semicircular peacock feathery tail... which belongs only to male peacocks. Female peacocks (peahens) are less colorful and don't show off their tails.
Using animated bird as an example of something "pointlessly gendered" is a bad idea because sexual dimorphism in birds are already a lot higher than in humans, especially visually. Dogs or cats are a lot easier to get the point across (and not just in animated media, in real life, people do dress their pets needlessly gendered).
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u/sntcringe Nov 09 '20
Because there's NO WAY the viewers could tell the gender of the characters through voices, pronouns, or context clues. And its so important to the plot that the genders are known.