According to Nielson EDI, an animated children’s movie called Barnyard has earned almost $55 million since it opened a few weeks ago. Generally, this would not be particularly newsworthy, except that that the main character is a boy cow named Otis. I’ve seen several commercials for this movie, and Otis’s udders are very prominently featured. Hmmmm…. I thought to myself. Is transgenderism becoming mainstream, or did the creators of this film fail biology when they were in grade school? In the name of social science, I probed into the phenomenon that is Barnyard.

My first destination was the movie’s official website. Here I learned that the movie’s tagline is “What happens in the barn, stays in the barn.� This motto creeps me out, but that is another story.

Moving on to the synopsis, I discovered that the film is from “Steve Oedekerk and Nickelodeon Movies, two of the co-creators of “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius…� Interesting. Steve Oedekerk (also the brains behind Ace Ventura) is probably not taking on gender stereotypes with this film. Bravely facing the evil repetitive song that blasted during my time visiting the site, I continued reading the synopsis:

[the movie is a] hilarious look at what really happens in a barnyard when the farmer’s back is turned. “Barnyard� is a lighthearted tale centering around Otis (voiced by Kevin James), a carefree party cow, who enjoys singing, dancing and playing tricks on humans. Unlike his father Ben (voiced by Sam Elliott), the respected patriarch of the farm, and Miles, the wise old mule (voiced by Danny Glover), Otis is unconcerned about (voiced by Sam Elliott), the respected patriarch of the farm, and Miles, the wise old mule (voiced by Danny Glover), Otis is unconcerned about keeping the animals’ humanlike talents a secret. But when suddenly put in the position of responsibility, the “udderly� irresponsible cow finds the courage to be a leader.

Further site exploration revealed that Otis’s dad Ben is also a cow who gives Otis advice about responsible masculinity: “Otis, a strong man stands up for himself; a stronger man stand up for others.� (Very manly advice, isn't it?) Also, Otis attracts Daisy, a female cow, during a party in the barn. So, the plot thickens, although nothing officially discusses transgenderism. However, I think that Rick Santorum, the cretin senator from Pennsylvania who compared homosexual marriage to bestiality, is not going to like this movie anyway.

I am not the only one speculating about the underlying messages in Barnyard. There is much buzz on the internet, and disappointingly, not one supportive voice can be found for bovine transgender issues. The best commentary I found on the matter came from MaryAnn Johanson at FlickFilosopher wrote in a razor-sharp commentary on gender roles in the film:

That’s what we have here: a barnyard full of CGI cows with udders who are nevertheless somehow male. Even though “male cow� is like saying “girls who are guys.� If there was a point that writer/director Steve Oedekerk was trying to make with his strange transsexual bovines, it’s lost on me. Perhaps there was no intended point, and it’s merely that Oedekerk (who wrote such idiocies as Bruce Almighty and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps) holds females of whatever species in general contempt. After all, he could have made a story about barnyard animals that took a fantastical spin off the reality of the barnyard, in which there could well be no steers or bulls at all. But then he couldn’t have a barnyard ruled by males. And then he couldn’t shoehorn in a line in which the animal who rules the barnyard -- a male cow -- insults his son -- a male cow -- by mistaking him for a girl cow, or, in other words, a cow.

Reading further at her site is a must.

From there, the comments degenerate into the type of nervous titters that one might expect from sixth graders watching a skin flick on late night cable while their parents are out. A Movie Every Day wrote,

All I needed was one look at a father and son cow sporting their udders to sh-udder. ‘What? Male cows do not have udders!…� I have no clue what writer/director Steve Oedekerk, was thinking. I have to imagine this was done on purpose. The amount of extra time needed to animate all of these udders on the male cows would certainly not have made it worth it to do unless someone thought the male cows should really have udders. Was there some discussion, and somebody said, "They don't look like cows? They all need udders."?

From the LA Time review, excerpted by Kyra at Kyra’s Web Log, who really HATED the idea of males cows:

I understand that realism is not the main goal in an animated movie about anthropomorphized farm animals, but, seriously, what's with the male cows in Barnyard? Did the bovine gender confusion at the heart of the story give no one pause at Paramount or Nickelodeon? Did the drawbacks of featuring a female lead so outweigh the benefits of cow protagonism that a mass species sex-change was required in order for the project to go forward? Are hornless, uddered boy-cows the next big thing in aggressively marketed, reality-displacing fallacies, like Snackwells and intelligent design?

I don't pretend to know all the answers; all I can say for sure is that in writer-director Steve Oedekerk's bizarre computer-animated universe, "female cows" are required to wear hair accessories in order to differentiate themselves from "male cows," with whom they unaccountably share secondary sex characteristics. Otis the cow (voiced by Kevin James), his alpha cow dad, Ben (Sam Elliott), and the thuggish band of Jersey cows Otis teams up with toward the end of the movie are all in unfortunate possession of protuberant udders that look like rubber toilet plungers with four wobbly cocktail weenies attached. The image would be plenty disturbing enough if the characters didn't compound the shock by going about on hind legs and engaging in lots of bouncy physical activity. Reader, there were times when I felt compelled to avert my eyes and pray for pants.

Ouch. Although to be fair, those CGI udders are seriously freakish.

On the far right side of the commentary spectrum, movieguide (“a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles�) reviewed the movie and found that:

…cows have prominent, goofy-looking udders, and cows not accurately depicted as obnoxious udders occur even on the male cows (in reality there is no such thing as a male cow, a male cow is a bull so movie has created a new trans-gendered bovine, though the word "transgender" is not used and without today's perverted, feminist homosexual movement and other politically correct, Christophobic Neo-Marxists, the word "transgender" would be considered a wrong, irrational use of the English language)

Did Santorum write this review? I must admit that it inclines me to like the movie. Who knew that Neo-Marxists were and angry feminists out to subvert the world were behind it? I am all about sharing the barnyard labor and profits equally!

At any rate, I think what is interesting about discussion generated by the transsexual cows is how willing people are to accept that animals in cartoons can talk, but how much resistance there is to the notion that sex and gender may not match. The revulsion expressed at the idea of male cows violating the laws of nature and having udders may be extrapolated in to every day life and our notions of sex and gender. Further, the need to distinguish animals (humans?) by sex characteristic seems very important to people writing about this movie.

On the other hand, maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill. There is an educational inaccuracy in the movie in the sense that male bovines really do not have udders, and it is true that this may confuse children. Personally, I doubt that animals are as affected by sex and gender roles as people are. Can comments about cows be interpreted to apply to the human race as well? I'm not sure. If this movie were about people, perhaps there be more openness to the idea that males can take on traditionally female roles.

Ultimately, Barnyard is probably not the best forum for provoking quality conversation, given the film’s insistence on using gender stereotypes despite the beasts’ transgenderism.

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants