Pixar is back with an adorable new short. It just may not play well with kids.
On Monday, the Disney animation studio debuted its first short film under its independent spinoff program SparkShorts. The program is aimed at spinning fresh stories following a year of public controversies at Pixar, per Entertainment Weekly, and Purl definitely fits that bill.
Beyond the departure of Disney animation head John Lasseter amid sexual harassment allegations, Pixar also dealt with a firestorm after an ex-employee called out its "sexist boys club" in a blog post last June. That same topic is featured in Purl, which follows a feminine ball of yarn who's hired at the white-male-dominated B.R.O. Capital. Purl is at first ignored and scoffed at by her colleagues, but quite literally knits herself to fit their masculine mold.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
As writer and director Kristen Lester explains in a meet the filmmakers video, that's exactly what Lester experienced at her first animation job. "I was like the only woman in the room, and so in order to do the thing that I loved, I sort of became one of the guys," she says. Producer Gillian Libbert-Duncan says she dealt with the same thing. Eventually, working alongside women at Pixar helped Lester "realize how much of the female aspect of myself I had sort of buried and left behind," she adds. See what happens to Purl in a similar situation below. Kathryn Krawczyk
-
The rise in unregulated pregnancy scansUnder The Radar Industry body says some private scan clinics offer dangerously misleading advice
-
Democrats seek 2026 inspiration from special election routsIN THE SPOTLIGHT High-profile wins are helping a party demoralized by Trump’s reelection regain momentum
-
Film reviews: ‘Bugonia,’ ‘The Mastermind,’ and ‘Nouvelle Vague’feature A kidnapped CEO might only appear to be human, an amateurish art heist goes sideways, and Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ gets a lively homage
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
