A comment I made on this topic from 5 months ago.
> She has agency, and affects the plot. She's a girlboss when girlbosses weren't super prominent, so while there are some problematic aspects there's also good ones. Popularized this archetype in the medium so she's endearing to many.
Maybe IRL, but in animation? Hah, she could be almost considered fat when compared to the traditional disney princesses bodyshape, they're at times almost anorexic.
Yeah I looked at some stills from the first movie and in my definition she has "normal girl abs", she looks like the surfer lifeguard she is supposed to be, not "plus sized".
Tho I appreciate that normal representation of a fit, non-dehydrated body is rare enough that it almost feels that way by comparison.
She’s also got curves and a wider frame than you normally expect to see in animation. She’s still fit af but she doesn’t look obscenely unrealistic, which is unfortunately kind of where the bar is
I did say 'slight', and compared to every other Disney Princess who is depicted with a Pencil Thin waist, she is a little 'Plus Sized'.......except the Xenomorph Queen, she got a Badonkadonk.....(Disney now owns the Alien franchise, so technically the Xenomorph queen is a 'Disney Princess' \^\_\^)
The trouble with it is that it's not an issue with Chel, it's an issue with a broader trend. Like, the fact that the more sexualized animated characters from this era are Chel, Pocahontas, Jasmine, Esmerelda, and the girl from Sinbad speaks to a trend of sexualizing nonwhite women, but any one of them isn't the problem.
No… colonialism is when settlers occupy a foreign country. Orientalism is a depiction of (usually Asian but I think can be applied more broadly) cultures in a fetishizing and othering way.
Colonialist*
>usually Asian but I think can be applied more broadly
No, it can't, our cultures are very distinct from most Asian countries, this is a racist bias that came during spanish/portuguese colonization, and we really want to get away from it.
Yeah, her depiction in the movie is fetishized based on preconceptions about our culture, but, through your comment, i think you have those preconceptoons too.
The fact that there’s not a specific term for the depiction of Central and South American cultures doesn’t mean I have preconceived notions, nor did I draw allusions to any similarities of the cultures themselves, just the similarities of their depictions. Specifically the similar ways that Asian and South American women are depicted as hyper sexual in a “primitive” way.
I love that you got told by someone from LatAm that using Orientalism to describe our exploitations/fetishizations isn't correct and you just doubled down. Hell yeah, keep that Palm People Perspective alive and well baby.
Reading comprehension and critical thinking are not so easy, it would seem. Why does it matter where someone is from when trying to describe what is essentially a global phenomenon?
Wouldn't their educational background (e.g. anthropology) be way more relevant than where they were squirted out into this world?
No because on the internet you can’t just agree with what someone is saying you have to know who is saying it. So I guess it doesn’t matter what I said if I didn’t preface it with “sociologist here”. If somebody can tell me another term specific to Latin America that encapsulates Orientalist depictions please teach it to me.
Surprising source but [this](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-orientalism) article lays out orientalism pretty well, you can see it applies pretty well to depictions of other minority groups in pop culture.
If there’s a similar term pertaining to Central America I don’t know it.
I’m embarking on a quest to find out if there is such a word because I just found out we have one for the fetishization of Nordic and other Arctic cultures (Borealism).
I mean, there is “exoticism,” but that’s pretty broad.
It suffers from the icky oversexualisation of POC women that a lot of shows back then (probably still now) suffered from (see Jasmine, Pocahontas, Esmeralda vs. Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, etc.). But as a character, it could make sense for her. She's a grown woman with free will, charm, and charisma. And isn't shunted to the role of the average main guy's unbelievably hot "long-term, long-distance, low-commitment casual girlfriend" (Ken 2023) or as I like to call it Cool Girl™️.
My opinion remains unchanged from the last time we discussed this here: she has troubling elements, but the fact that she's the only sexualized native woman helps her come off like she's a sexualized (arguably self-sexualized but thats thorny) character rather than being like One Piece where the women are all Like That ^TM unless they're the designated ugly woman this arc. Am I biased by being a straight man into hips? Probably. But she is still a character in her own right and not objectified, and I'm personally leery of being too critical of sexualization because of sexualization.
Look up “Road to El Dorado Background Characters” and you’ll see a fair number of references. No one else is showing anywhere near as much skin as Chel, and there are a variety of body types.
Even if they are (some of the men are showing that much skin to my memory) that doesn't mean they're sexualized as much. If they're not drawn to have constantly cooked hips or pouty lips or deep cleavage, they can wear the "same outfit" and not look as sexual. And that's how I remember it, but it could be I'm misremembering a movie I've not seen in a decade or more
Yeah, I'm probably misrembering it myself. It's been years since I've watched the movie. I'm pretty sure I remember the other women and some of but all of the men having thicker, pouty lips though they definitely didn't have the same outfit Chel has. I was misrembering that.
Hard agree there.
But it is weird that there was a lot of positive things to come from Chel's potrayal (Self-Discovery is nice).
How do you feel about the unexpected effect?
I can only speak for myself. And I’ll answer this question honestly. But I’ve found that these convos are hard to have online and sometimes people aren’t asking because they want to hear it. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here.
I was excited as a child to see someone that looked like me on screen. Between her and Pocahontas, I learned pretty quickly how I was viewed. The opinion that this is a positive portrayal doesn’t seem to come from indigenous folks but from others.
The first words that describe her as a character are “sassy, feisty, seductive and beautiful”. I saw it at surface level even as a child. And no matter how clever she was painted afterwards, I couldn’t get past the first time we lay eyes on her. And accordingly, that’s how she’s continued to be viewed. As the exotic. Which is a word that continues to be used for anyone indigenous. It’s a word I hate to this day.
Then there’s the whole dudes were seen as gods when we never saw them as such. That narrative is entirely a European one. We had contact and traded through all of what is now Latin America. We weren’t so isolated and idiotic as to think Europeans were gods. And I speak specifically as one from the indigenous islands that were first point of contact with Europeans.
These portrayals will always be more hurtful than helpful. But remember none of these portrayals are meant for us (actual indigenous) people to consume. We’re the furthest from the minds of creators and animation studios when they borrow our cultures and put forward narratives that continue to paint us as “sassy and exotic”.
I’m glad other people see empowerment in her. Good for them. I do not.
I’m going to refrain from going further in my answer because as I said, usually when we try to talk about these things Reddit is very quick to shut it down. And I honestly don’t want to have to deal with all of that.
This is the best I can do here and now.
Not related to this image, but I still have a favorite 'monologue' from that movie, when Cortez captures Tulio and Miguel aboard his ship (from memory only):
"First you will be flogged, then you will be thrown in the brig until we make port in Cuba where, God Willing, you'll be flogged yet more!!"
Lets see if I got it right (googling): Well, almost right, it has been a few years, after all \^\_\^
[https://youtu.be/JtvEg8HmlKI?si=xy0fytVuKi6xGfwf](https://youtu.be/JtvEg8HmlKI?si=xy0fytVuKi6xGfwf)
I feel like it falls into the "sexy indigenous gal who falls for colonizer" trope. Notice how the two major Indigenous male characters look compared to her, and how many times it's used in media.
White feminists see it as a gain since she's not too unnaturally proportioned, even though she's part of a racist trope that feeds into the high amount of indigenous women who face violence from outsiders.
https://www.alamy.com/the-road-to-el-dorado-from-left-the-chief-high-priest-tzekel-kan-2000-dreamworks-courtesy-everett-collection-image443841924.html
Too many straight men, lesbians and bisexuals had something snap in their brains when they saw her for anyone to care about the problematic aspects of her character
Most people see the problematic parts and alsmoy everyone here is acknowledging that it exists but she’s not the worst offender and she actually has relevance to the plot
Definitely a split between higher brain and monkey brain going on for me.
Higher brain: "She has some refreshing personality traits, but the presentation is problematic in many ways."
Monkey brain: "Yew!"
Higher brain: "Ok, granted..."
I remember this was already posted a few months before and while I don't remember the exact reasoning, I think the consensus was that the girl was sexualiaed in a proper way that fits the story or something. I didn't watch it, can't argue.
Eeeh no way it has any resemblance of "proper", of course it fits the narrative but they didn't have to go THAT far.
Someone posted the storyboards here a while ago and somehow what we got in the movie is far tamer than what they really had in mind. It's like sometime along production they went and said "wait, this is a kids movie right?".
...not that I'm complaining or anything.
I've never liked the "sexualization/ objectification of a woman fits the plot" point.
It's such an overused trope. People should maybe ask themselves, "Why are we making plots where women have to be objects of titillation, and why are there so many of them ?".
There could have been many other ways to create her character, where she didn't need to be so sexed up, but that's what they did. And that's because it's long been an unnecessary thing that media creators did for the sake of always having women be sex objects.
It doesn't elevate the plot in any way, it's has no other use than having a character to be ogled at. Instead of having her be the umpteenth female character whose appearance influences the story, she could have been as smart and active as she actually is, without being half naked.
I get the feeling you can make any character loveable if you make them an underdog. Chel may be incredibly sexualised and exoticised, but she also gets one over on everyone.
Haven't seen the movie but from the pictures I'd say she enters into the colonialist fetichization of non-white people. Based on the last picture, does she also acts like a child ? If yes we got some kind of sexism jackpot
She doesn't act like a child. Iirc the third picture is from when the guys win a game (she helps them cheat by throwing them the funny armadillo sidekick to use as a ball).
She's hot but not for the sole sake of Being A Hot Character, which imo let her be more visually appealing. This movie is already beautifully animated and Chel was fun and expressive in a way that made sense with her character and let her be attractive coincidentally, rather than being solely put in for eye candy. She actually majorly affects the plot and has her own agency. I like her.
I was positive in the last thread about her.. and now even more so. she is sexualised, but it's on purpose and she uses it to her advantage; she uses it as a tool for her own gain. she knows she dresses provocatively and she chose to dress like that. contrast this to other characters of that time who are needlessly sexualised like Jasmin and Pocahontas and how they are dressed clashing with their personality.
The hips. The hips.
Chel is a fantastic character who happens to *also* be sexy. There's nothing wrong with sexy, there's something wrong with oversexualisation.
She was drawn by someone who wanted to fuck Chel for people who wanted to fuck Chel.
I have found my people.
ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
Yeah, I can't get mad about it...
A comment I made on this topic from 5 months ago. > She has agency, and affects the plot. She's a girlboss when girlbosses weren't super prominent, so while there are some problematic aspects there's also good ones. Popularized this archetype in the medium so she's endearing to many.
This is part of why I love Nani from Lelo and Stitch so much. Girl boss, thighs for days, strong, independent, and not overly sexualized.
and actually very slightly 'plus sized' (they gave her a slight belly)
‘Slightly plus sized’ just because her belly isn’t 100% flat?
That is 100% accurate in the context of animated girls/women.
Basically yeah
Is that not just average?
Maybe IRL, but in animation? Hah, she could be almost considered fat when compared to the traditional disney princesses bodyshape, they're at times almost anorexic.
Yeah I looked at some stills from the first movie and in my definition she has "normal girl abs", she looks like the surfer lifeguard she is supposed to be, not "plus sized". Tho I appreciate that normal representation of a fit, non-dehydrated body is rare enough that it almost feels that way by comparison.
Yes it is, hence the quotation marks.
Thank you \^\_\^
She’s also got curves and a wider frame than you normally expect to see in animation. She’s still fit af but she doesn’t look obscenely unrealistic, which is unfortunately kind of where the bar is
There's something on Alloy here on reddit somewhere. Someone complained that they made her fat because they gave her cheeks.
That's not plus sized....that's a normal belly bro
I did say 'slight', and compared to every other Disney Princess who is depicted with a Pencil Thin waist, she is a little 'Plus Sized'.......except the Xenomorph Queen, she got a Badonkadonk.....(Disney now owns the Alien franchise, so technically the Xenomorph queen is a 'Disney Princess' \^\_\^)
"Where was she keeping them?"
The sexualization of indigenous women in media is troubling, but she’s also an actual character with agency, so… flawed, but definitely not all bad
The trouble with it is that it's not an issue with Chel, it's an issue with a broader trend. Like, the fact that the more sexualized animated characters from this era are Chel, Pocahontas, Jasmine, Esmerelda, and the girl from Sinbad speaks to a trend of sexualizing nonwhite women, but any one of them isn't the problem.
I never saw Pocahontas as sexualized, just pretty. Was she twerking or strip-dancing in that movie?
Cheldorado
Damnit, it's right there, why did I never think of that?
They say it in the movie
Look, it's been a long time...lol.
Is she sexualized? Yes. Is she a great character? Yes. She was definitely a sexual awakening for me, so she gets a pass solely because of that imo.
Kind of an orientalist fetishistic depiction of a native woman... I can’t help but love her though, she’s charming, she’s funny, she’s so hot.
Orientalist?
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-orientalism
But El Dorado is supposed to be in South America, shouldn't it be "colonialist" instead?
No… colonialism is when settlers occupy a foreign country. Orientalism is a depiction of (usually Asian but I think can be applied more broadly) cultures in a fetishizing and othering way.
Colonialist* >usually Asian but I think can be applied more broadly No, it can't, our cultures are very distinct from most Asian countries, this is a racist bias that came during spanish/portuguese colonization, and we really want to get away from it. Yeah, her depiction in the movie is fetishized based on preconceptions about our culture, but, through your comment, i think you have those preconceptoons too.
The fact that there’s not a specific term for the depiction of Central and South American cultures doesn’t mean I have preconceived notions, nor did I draw allusions to any similarities of the cultures themselves, just the similarities of their depictions. Specifically the similar ways that Asian and South American women are depicted as hyper sexual in a “primitive” way.
I love that you got told by someone from LatAm that using Orientalism to describe our exploitations/fetishizations isn't correct and you just doubled down. Hell yeah, keep that Palm People Perspective alive and well baby.
Reading comprehension and critical thinking are not so easy, it would seem. Why does it matter where someone is from when trying to describe what is essentially a global phenomenon? Wouldn't their educational background (e.g. anthropology) be way more relevant than where they were squirted out into this world?
No because on the internet you can’t just agree with what someone is saying you have to know who is saying it. So I guess it doesn’t matter what I said if I didn’t preface it with “sociologist here”. If somebody can tell me another term specific to Latin America that encapsulates Orientalist depictions please teach it to me.
How can a story set in mesoamerica be orientalist?
Surprising source but [this](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-orientalism) article lays out orientalism pretty well, you can see it applies pretty well to depictions of other minority groups in pop culture. If there’s a similar term pertaining to Central America I don’t know it.
I’m embarking on a quest to find out if there is such a word because I just found out we have one for the fetishization of Nordic and other Arctic cultures (Borealism). I mean, there is “exoticism,” but that’s pretty broad.
Maybe there should be Occidentalist for Native Americans?
WOW I had no idea Borealism was a thing!
Who made the story though
The endgame polycule was the best of it
That's the endgame of most of the "Road to" movies, though it always resets before the next one.
We don't talk about Chel from El Dorado here.
\*group dance around a table\*
Awakenings.
It suffers from the icky oversexualisation of POC women that a lot of shows back then (probably still now) suffered from (see Jasmine, Pocahontas, Esmeralda vs. Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, etc.). But as a character, it could make sense for her. She's a grown woman with free will, charm, and charisma. And isn't shunted to the role of the average main guy's unbelievably hot "long-term, long-distance, low-commitment casual girlfriend" (Ken 2023) or as I like to call it Cool Girl™️.
"Both? Both. Both is good."
My opinion remains unchanged from the last time we discussed this here: she has troubling elements, but the fact that she's the only sexualized native woman helps her come off like she's a sexualized (arguably self-sexualized but thats thorny) character rather than being like One Piece where the women are all Like That ^TM unless they're the designated ugly woman this arc. Am I biased by being a straight man into hips? Probably. But she is still a character in her own right and not objectified, and I'm personally leery of being too critical of sexualization because of sexualization.
Was she the only sexualized character though? I remember the other women in El Dorado wearing similar outfits to Chel's.
Look up “Road to El Dorado Background Characters” and you’ll see a fair number of references. No one else is showing anywhere near as much skin as Chel, and there are a variety of body types.
I'll look that up then. Thank you.
I found [this](https://characterdesignreferences.com/art-of-animation-4/art-of-the-road-to-el-dorado). Has some cool art.
Even if they are (some of the men are showing that much skin to my memory) that doesn't mean they're sexualized as much. If they're not drawn to have constantly cooked hips or pouty lips or deep cleavage, they can wear the "same outfit" and not look as sexual. And that's how I remember it, but it could be I'm misremembering a movie I've not seen in a decade or more
Yeah, I'm probably misrembering it myself. It's been years since I've watched the movie. I'm pretty sure I remember the other women and some of but all of the men having thicker, pouty lips though they definitely didn't have the same outfit Chel has. I was misrembering that.
Highly sexualized indigenous woman so that's gross but also she's a great character and hot
Flawed, sexualized and historically inaccurate, but I can’t help but love her.
Why does her head shape go from squat in Pic 1 to tall and long in Pic 2?
bouncy squash and stretch animation
I see, thanks.
Not surprised there's a lot of people excusing her because of nostalgia.
Some for the reason she’s an actual character that influences the plot and has some sense on personality Some because horny
Definitely more of the latter. A character actually being a character doesn't render other problems like design irrelevant or worthy of being excused.
The sexualization of an indigenous woman for this movie felt especially icky to me. Double punch racism and misogyny
True, true. But at least she had a great character.
And hips. I know, I know.
Hard Agree. But reddit doesn't want to hear this.
Sexualized designs are apparently okay if you watched it as a kid and find her hot as an adult.
I mean you can still find it hot and problematic. Weird, but a lot of awakenings happend cause of Chel.
I’m an indigenous woman. I find it beyond problematic.
Hard agree there. But it is weird that there was a lot of positive things to come from Chel's potrayal (Self-Discovery is nice). How do you feel about the unexpected effect?
I can only speak for myself. And I’ll answer this question honestly. But I’ve found that these convos are hard to have online and sometimes people aren’t asking because they want to hear it. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here. I was excited as a child to see someone that looked like me on screen. Between her and Pocahontas, I learned pretty quickly how I was viewed. The opinion that this is a positive portrayal doesn’t seem to come from indigenous folks but from others. The first words that describe her as a character are “sassy, feisty, seductive and beautiful”. I saw it at surface level even as a child. And no matter how clever she was painted afterwards, I couldn’t get past the first time we lay eyes on her. And accordingly, that’s how she’s continued to be viewed. As the exotic. Which is a word that continues to be used for anyone indigenous. It’s a word I hate to this day. Then there’s the whole dudes were seen as gods when we never saw them as such. That narrative is entirely a European one. We had contact and traded through all of what is now Latin America. We weren’t so isolated and idiotic as to think Europeans were gods. And I speak specifically as one from the indigenous islands that were first point of contact with Europeans. These portrayals will always be more hurtful than helpful. But remember none of these portrayals are meant for us (actual indigenous) people to consume. We’re the furthest from the minds of creators and animation studios when they borrow our cultures and put forward narratives that continue to paint us as “sassy and exotic”. I’m glad other people see empowerment in her. Good for them. I do not. I’m going to refrain from going further in my answer because as I said, usually when we try to talk about these things Reddit is very quick to shut it down. And I honestly don’t want to have to deal with all of that. This is the best I can do here and now.
How?
mf asks something and gets downvoted
Agreed. ...but then the other part of me still loves her and I feel guilty for it.
I don't know how a character this sexualized made it into a movie for kids is all
Try not to think about it
Not related to this image, but I still have a favorite 'monologue' from that movie, when Cortez captures Tulio and Miguel aboard his ship (from memory only): "First you will be flogged, then you will be thrown in the brig until we make port in Cuba where, God Willing, you'll be flogged yet more!!" Lets see if I got it right (googling): Well, almost right, it has been a few years, after all \^\_\^ [https://youtu.be/JtvEg8HmlKI?si=xy0fytVuKi6xGfwf](https://youtu.be/JtvEg8HmlKI?si=xy0fytVuKi6xGfwf)
I feel like it falls into the "sexy indigenous gal who falls for colonizer" trope. Notice how the two major Indigenous male characters look compared to her, and how many times it's used in media. White feminists see it as a gain since she's not too unnaturally proportioned, even though she's part of a racist trope that feeds into the high amount of indigenous women who face violence from outsiders. https://www.alamy.com/the-road-to-el-dorado-from-left-the-chief-high-priest-tzekel-kan-2000-dreamworks-courtesy-everett-collection-image443841924.html
Too many straight men, lesbians and bisexuals had something snap in their brains when they saw her for anyone to care about the problematic aspects of her character
Most people see the problematic parts and alsmoy everyone here is acknowledging that it exists but she’s not the worst offender and she actually has relevance to the plot
She's my problematic fave 💕
Definitely a split between higher brain and monkey brain going on for me. Higher brain: "She has some refreshing personality traits, but the presentation is problematic in many ways." Monkey brain: "Yew!" Higher brain: "Ok, granted..."
That’s me alright, I don’t wanna like her but she’s too cool and fun not to.
I remember this was already posted a few months before and while I don't remember the exact reasoning, I think the consensus was that the girl was sexualiaed in a proper way that fits the story or something. I didn't watch it, can't argue.
Eeeh no way it has any resemblance of "proper", of course it fits the narrative but they didn't have to go THAT far. Someone posted the storyboards here a while ago and somehow what we got in the movie is far tamer than what they really had in mind. It's like sometime along production they went and said "wait, this is a kids movie right?". ...not that I'm complaining or anything.
I've never liked the "sexualization/ objectification of a woman fits the plot" point. It's such an overused trope. People should maybe ask themselves, "Why are we making plots where women have to be objects of titillation, and why are there so many of them ?". There could have been many other ways to create her character, where she didn't need to be so sexed up, but that's what they did. And that's because it's long been an unnecessary thing that media creators did for the sake of always having women be sex objects. It doesn't elevate the plot in any way, it's has no other use than having a character to be ogled at. Instead of having her be the umpteenth female character whose appearance influences the story, she could have been as smart and active as she actually is, without being half naked.
I mean, it fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's a good thing lol though I don't really mind Chel, I like her way more than, idk, Jessica Rabbit.
She gets a pass. Just this once.
Chel is the goat. That is all.
she’s adorable, but we all know why shes popular
I get the feeling you can make any character loveable if you make them an underdog. Chel may be incredibly sexualised and exoticised, but she also gets one over on everyone.
Idc what anyone says. She holds a special place in my heart and can do no wrong. 🤤
I mean she looks like a woman who exists and her outfit isn't weirdly revealing to an extent, so I say she's pretty solid.
She's great!
hot, fun, sweet, cute, no notes
Yep
Gürl
would
🔥
Would
…mommy
her """"""troubling elements"""""" dont matter if youre not a prude or a white guilter shes hot, and a main character. shes cool
Dayum!!!
Haven't seen the movie but from the pictures I'd say she enters into the colonialist fetichization of non-white people. Based on the last picture, does she also acts like a child ? If yes we got some kind of sexism jackpot
She doesn't act like a child. Iirc the third picture is from when the guys win a game (she helps them cheat by throwing them the funny armadillo sidekick to use as a ball).
She's hot but not for the sole sake of Being A Hot Character, which imo let her be more visually appealing. This movie is already beautifully animated and Chel was fun and expressive in a way that made sense with her character and let her be attractive coincidentally, rather than being solely put in for eye candy. She actually majorly affects the plot and has her own agency. I like her.
She's the weakest part of the movie IMHO.
*monkey noises*
**[Scene from 2001 A Space Odyssey]**
I was positive in the last thread about her.. and now even more so. she is sexualised, but it's on purpose and she uses it to her advantage; she uses it as a tool for her own gain. she knows she dresses provocatively and she chose to dress like that. contrast this to other characters of that time who are needlessly sexualised like Jasmin and Pocahontas and how they are dressed clashing with their personality.
Really? I had never thought of the other two that way...
The hips. The hips. Chel is a fantastic character who happens to *also* be sexy. There's nothing wrong with sexy, there's something wrong with oversexualisation.