Over-analysing 10 Disney and Pixar films

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.

'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.

'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 (2^nd 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.

#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.