Ratatouille: The prototypical capitalist rags-to-riches narrative.
Remy the rat casts off the shackles of the proletariat’s perpetual squalor and
existentially tedious cyclicality. Through hard work and natural talent he
achieves his dream of becoming an enormously successful chef, BUPA member, and Tory voter, despite his
ethically dubious upbringing.
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| 'I don't pay my taxes for you to spend your benefits on disposable income' |
Dumbo: Dumbo is repressed by his mother’s fiercely conservative,
bourgeois values; this is only aggravated by their quasi-oedipal relationship
(see also, Bambi). When timid Dumbo
discovers psychoactive drugs he feels spiritually liberated and self-confident,
believing that he can in fact fly away from his poisonous mother. Tragically,
he moves onto heroine and his life spirals out of control. In a state of
paranoia he believes he’s being chased by eyeless pink elephants, and he owes
serious money to some jive-talking crows.
A Bug’s Life: An allegory for Pixar’s strained relationship with
Disney at the time of release. The ants’ self-sustaining economy and naturally
exuberant Arts culture is undermined by the oppressive, nihilistic
grasshoppers. The ants fight back with wit and creativity, against the
grasshoppers’ bluntforce brutality. The ruthless Machiavellian grasshopper
leader, Hopper, isn’t dissimilar to Disney’s (then) CEO, Michael Eisner.
The Little Mermaid: A heavily sexualised, extremely rapid
progression from childhood, through puberty, and into womanhood, while being homogenised
by a patriarchal society. Ariel rejects the singing sea creatures which
symbolise her childish innocence after her fascination with human (or adult)
culture consumes her. With human legs she becomes more informed and more
adjusted to life’s realities, and the sacrifice of both her tail and voice for a
man represents the final loss of innocence, her virginity and independence
respectively.
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| 'The wedding main course will be Sebastian thermidor' |
Finding Nemo: A scathing indictment of the incompetence of our
judicial system in confronting missing persons cases, particularly missing
children. Marlin’s son, Nemo, vanishes, and literally noone in his mawkish
suburban community cares. There is no police investigation, no widespread publicity,
Marlin (who is clearly still suffering from PTSD after losing his wife and
hundreds of kids) is left to his own
devices; apart from the hindrance of a fish with a life-threatening case of
short-term memory loss.
The Aristocats/Lady and the Tramp: At face value these classics
might appear to convey that love transcends class, race, everything. That the
snobbish, middle-class teacosy can fall for the streetwise, jazz-loving Jack
Kerouacat, because love is wonderfully obdurate, and miraculously inexplicable.
But they aren’t. They’re about how men, of all species, are sadistic
misogynists who steal the hearts of benevolent women with a banterous witticism
and a false promise, before vanishing into the night of inevitability. Watch
them again. There’s nothing behind the eyes of O’Malley (2nd
generation Irish-American, says it all) and Tramp. Nothing.
Monsters University: A startlingly pertinent commentary on British Uni-Lad
culture. The Scare Games represent the implicit competition between these
tribalistic friendship groups (the collective noun for lad is, incidentally, a ‘Cloud’)
in various areas; predominantly drinking and anonymous sex. Interestingly, the
inclusion of a Goth and all-female group suggests that Lad culture isn’t
restricted to narcissistic males, but encompasses all cliques, even Sully and
Mike’s outcast group.
Frozen: A didactic tale of the internet, brimming with astonishing archetypes.
The inherent disconnectedness of the internet allows introvert Elsa the freedom
to be herself, to ‘let it go’, but this culminates in adversity, exposing her
for the emotionally volatile Tumblr girl she is. Olaf’s irrepressible magnanimity
connotes the excessively quirky/bubbly archetype who delight in 37 selfies of
teletubby onesies, while Hans’s sham love for Anna deduces the Catfish, and
there’s even trolls. Anna’s stubborn conviction in absolutely everything evokes
the faux-outraged, permanently opinionated moraliser. She’s also on a horse at
one point, so she can’t even get off her high horse.
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| #Friends #CatchingUp #SnowFilter |
Up: Following the death of his wife Ellie, Carl begins taking
hallucinogenic drugs to fight off his increasingly deep depression. With his
imaginary friends: giant birds: talking dogs: chubby Korean boyscouts, he traverses
jungle in search of the ideal of tranquillity he and Ellie had been searching
for, from the safety of his mouldy sofa. Pixar leave the implications of Carl’s
escapism ambiguous, but the unsettling optimism of the ending suggests he’s
been institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital and is under constant
anaesthetic.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Ugly people aren’t a complete
irrelevance to society, but only just. This isn’t overanalysis, watch it again,
this is actually fairly explicit. Urgh.
