I have no argument with you about Pixar -- I noted long ago that they are a bunch of men making movies about how to become a man. What redeems them, at least a little bit for our purposes is that

A) they generally define How To Become A Man in ways beyond the usual stupid movie way but instead focus on things like becoming a nurturing father and pursuing excellence in achievement and

B) you have to learn to become a man in ways that don't involve diminishing the women around you. The solution to the Incredibles' marriage problems does not turn out to be having the Mrs. stay home more and give up her power.

No, you can't switch genders in a Pixar film, but then, you can't switch genders in a Cameron film, either. I think both are trying to work with what is different about men and women without diminishing either.

I'll suggest that being able to switch the genders isn't a metric. The metric that I'm more likely to use is, if the genders were switched, would it be insulting. For instance, if Mulan were gender-switched and we made a movie in which the hero was always right and all the women in the world were stupid, ill-spirited, ridiculous or ugly, would you be insulted. Oh, no, wait-- that movie has been made a zillion times and yes, you were.

I don't think it's coincidental that Cameron and many Pixar guys are from my generation. When we grew up, the conventional progressive wisdom was that men and women were exactly the same and just raised to be different-- nurture accounted for all gender differences. Then we got old enough to see children and almost immediately the PCW said, "Um, no, that can't be right." And my generation has been working on the mystery of what the "real" gender differences are ever since.

Charlie's Angels is not a movie I want to fight for, other than I think it makes an interesting test case because it's a pair of cheesy crappy films. Yes, the women are not real characters except for quirks, but that's standard for action stars-- can you name a single action hero character who is a well-developed character? I don't think I can. It's taken us decades of movie-making to figure out that if we at least cast an actor with chops like Edward Norton or Robert Downey Jr in an action role, they may create at least the appearance of characterization where the writers have failed to do so, but still.

I've lost the thread of where I was going, but I remember thinking that there are two narrative issues here.

One is that a movie can only really have one main character, so until someone makes a movie out of Middlesex, the movie will be either a man or a woman's story.

Second is that movie characterization so often depends on barely-there characterization, removing much of what is authentic about a character, including the parts that make them authentically male or female.

I'm not sure where I was going with either of those thoughts, but I had them, and now I've written them down.

I suppose I will have no choice but to watch Avatar eventually, but I find that basic story arc unappealing, and have done so the six gazzillion other times I've viewed or read it. But yes-- Cameron's interest in telling women's stories is oft-noted. That would be why I told you to watch Aliens.