You’ve seen the memes. You’ve cracked hella jokes. The sick(er) puppies out there with zero qualms about exploiting Rule 34 may have even taken it a little further. But none of this explains why Pixar mums – and animated mother figures in general – consistently be draggin’ that wagon.
Believe it or not, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and it all comes down to common animation practices. Specifically a principle known as Hartman’s Hips, named after Nickelodeon veteran Butch Hartman; although it’s worth noting he didn’t establish this trope.
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In fact, other key offenders artists arguably better associated with all this include Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars) and Stephen Silver (Kim Possible, The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom).
The hourglass-like proportions we’ve all become so familiar with – modest bustline, narrow shoulders, narrow waist, major junk in the trunk – are intended to differentiate the mature females characters from their younger counterparts. Hence why it’s always the mums and the mum adjacent.
Between the choices of accentuating either the top half or the bottom half to convey said biological maturity, one is obviously considered more family-friendly than the other. Especially when you consider the television codes of yesteryear and current audience ratings. Because for some reason, we collectively decided a phat ass is inherently less sexual than big breasts.
And that’s really all there is to it.
In case you needed to hear everything outlined above once more, check out fullcomma’s one-minute explanation of why Pixar mums are, more often than not, thiccer than refrigerated peanut butter in the video below.
