&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/76074?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Readers%27+reviews%3A+Studio+Ghibli%2C+the+Great+British+Album+and+The+Inbetwe%3AArticle%3A1609954&amp;ch=Culture&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Culture%2CFilm%2CMusic%2CPixar%2CAnimation+%28Film+genre%29%2CThe+Inbetweeners%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29%2CComedy+%28TV+genre%29%2CComedy+%28culture%29&amp;c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CComedy%2CTelevision+Media%2CFilm+Reviews%2CTV&amp;c6=Michael+Hann&amp;c7=11-Jul-21&amp;c8=1609954&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Feature&amp;c11=Culture&amp;c13=Readers+reviews+%28F+and+M+series%29&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FCulture%2FPixar&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;The best of your comments on the latest film and music&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;How come the big US animators don&#039;t see the need for heroines to lead their films, when Japan&#039;s &lt;strong&gt;Studio Ghibli&lt;/strong&gt; has shown you don&#039;t need a male protagonist to make a film that&#039;s both commercially and artistically successful? That was the question posed last week by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/14/studio-ghibli-arrietty-heroines&quot; title=&quot;Steve Rose&quot;&gt;Steve Rose&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That Hollywood is aware of the issue was a point made by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11579145&quot; title=&quot;andyos&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;andyos&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;I&amp;nbsp;interviewed Pete Docter (director of Monsters Inc and Up) for a magazine article, and brought up the gender issue. Docter had no hesitation in agreeing it was an issue: &#039;We&#039;ve tried at times to write more female characters, but it&#039;s very difficult. We&#039;re not as familiar with them, and you feel as though they&#039;re under intense scrutiny (from the audience). It&#039;s very easy for us to make male characters have foibles, but with females, it&#039;s sometimes more delicate. Hopefully that will change.&#039;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#039;s worth looking at the people who make the films for Disney/Pixar and the other big animators for an explanation, suggested &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11579407&quot; title=&quot;greenwichlee&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;greenwichlee&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;People who make animations are mostly 30-50something men. So rather than making films about pubescent girls or boys, Pixar makes films that are emotionally honest, dealing with characters and situations which clearly draw upon the writer&#039;s own lives and feelings. Finding Nemo was inspired by the director&#039;s anxiety about letting his kid out of his sight, for example. I&amp;nbsp;do like Ghibli&#039;s work, but Pixar at their best catch at something deeper and truer. They are allegories rather than &ndash;&amp;nbsp;admittedly glorious &ndash; fantasies.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lending even more support to the US cause was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11579966&quot; title=&quot;happytourist&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;happytourist&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, one of several posters to the article thread to point out the number of strong female characters in Hollywood animation: &quot;I love Studio Ghibli &hellip; but can&#039;t get on board with the Disney-bashing. Gender issues aside, the output of Disney in the 90s and Pixar in the last decade has been pretty superlative &ndash; and as for strong heroines, what about Mulan, Lilo, Belle, Esmerelda, Megara, Elastigirl, Tiana &hellip; Disney has plenty of great female characters who could hold their own with Chihiro, Mononoke, Kiki et al.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere, Tom Ewing pondered the nature of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/jul/14/british-rock-album-the-horrors&quot; title=&quot;Great British Album&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Great British Album&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in the wake of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/horrors&quot; title=&quot;Horrors&quot;&gt;Horrors&#039;&lt;/a&gt; new release. He was pinpointing albums whose greatness is predicated not on quality so much as ubiquity &ndash; those epic, windswept ones that have provided breakthroughs for indie bands over the last couple of decades. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11583635&quot; title=&quot;MarcBurrows&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MarcBurrows&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; provided a useful practical example: &quot;In&amp;nbsp;the 90s I remember watching an episode of Grange Hill, where a character put on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Must_Go_(Manic_Street_Preachers_album)&quot; title=&quot;Everything Must Go&quot;&gt;Everything Must Go&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54L_ZU2QIpc&quot; title=&quot;track one&quot;&gt;track one&lt;/a&gt;, and was shown five minutes later listening to the final track &ndash; the audience all understood that an hour had passed because pretty much everyone watching had the album and knew the tracklist. That&#039;s a &#039;Great British Rock Record&#039;. Completely universal, solid and utterly&amp;nbsp;everyman.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The progression towards the &#039;arena sound&#039; is pretty much defined for me by Simple Minds,&quot; said &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11586414&quot; title=&quot;TokenGesture&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TokenGesture&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;who I got into at a tender age with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIQo1OHkTI&quot; title=&quot;Alive and Kicking&quot;&gt;Alive and Kicking&lt;/a&gt;, only much later to discover their earlier, more experimental side. For it to work I think it requires a band to genuinely wish to communicate with a mass audience &ndash; the breadth of the sound follows that desire. I can&#039;t see the Horrors matching this on current form &ndash; they seem too insulated.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jim Shelley&#039;s piece about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/14/inbetweeners-movie-crete-final-instalment&quot; title=&quot;The Inbetweeners movie&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Inbetweeners movie&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; provoked fierce arguments about whether the original TV show was a) truthful and hilarious or b) puerile rubbish. So we&#039;ll content ourselves with a gag from the show, posted by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11580805&quot; title=&quot;CousinBebop&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CousinBebop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simon: &quot;No one brings a bag of shit to a pub.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jay: &quot;Your dad does.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simon: &quot;Does he?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jay: &quot;Yeah, your mum.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Puerile? That?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/pixar&quot;&gt;Pixar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/animation&quot;&gt;Animation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/the-inbetweeners&quot;&gt;The Inbetweeners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television&quot;&gt;Television&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/comedy&quot;&gt;Comedy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/comedy&quot;&gt;Comedy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaelhann&quot;&gt;Michael Hann&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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