Revisiting Disney: Home is What You Make It

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Home is What You Make It

I'm a little unclear on what the intention of "Home is Where the Heart Is: Pixar's Up" by Dennis Tyler is trying to communicate. On one hand it seemed to be saying that it was a white-centric movie putting excessive emphasis on the needs of Carl, the white, male protagonist. On the other it seemed to be saying that Up stresses the importance of family, even non-traditional family. I really agree much more with the latter than the former understanding of the movie. To me, Up is a case study on how family can effect and change your life for the better or for the worse. For example, Ellie brings out the best in Carl in that she makes him brave, she is strong and happy and wonderful. She is a powerful, feminist figure who really could exist without Carl yet she chooses to marry him (example, jumping on him at their wedding, obviously her choosing him, not becoming his property). Because of this I don't see their relationship as glorifying the patriarchy. If anything it shows what a healthy relationship filled with mutual respect looks like. The two decide mutually that they want to have a child. They decide mutually they want to fill their lives with adventure when they cannot have a child. They support one another through the highs and lows of their relationship, help one another, and love one another. Marriage in this context is an example of a constructive familial relationship the two people involved chose.

Russell is another great example. Even according to Tyler's examination of the movie, it seems like Russell comes from some kind of broken home. He does not have the same kind of support in his life that Ellie and Carl do, and so he went out of his home, I'd even stretch it to day that's why he's a boy scout to find a support system outside his family. Carl becomes basically a father figure to Russell over the course of their travels, even so far that Carl was Russell's "father" at his boy scout ceremony and presents Russell with his last badge. Kevin and Dug, in the same way as Russell, are attracted to the secure, warm, fatherly figure that Carl tries to conceal behind a grouchy, old-man exterior. Even as a viewer, you can tell Carl's a softee behind that tough exterior and obviously the characters in the movie could too. Dug is an innocent dog from a very repressive "family" that doesn't accept him because he isn't the right kind of attack dog that his owner wanted him to be. Kevin is a single mother with children to take care of and no other familial support. As a unit, the foursome become each others' family and take care of one another. If anything this is one of Disney's most beautiful messages.

It doesn't matter in my opinion, or apparently the opinion of the Disney animators, who is a part of this family. The family is about as non-traditional as it can be. Kevin is a bird, and a tropical bird at that, and the only female. Dug is a dog, a talking, sweet-hearted dog. Russell is an overweight, possibly-Asian-American-possibly-White-boy. Finally, Carl is an elderly white man and acts as patriarch of this make-shift family. They don't all look the same. They aren't even necessarily the same species. However, each of these characters offers something to the rest of the group that they need to feel secure and that's all that family needs. Not everybody has the best biological family situation, so in some instances people seek solace in their relationships with pets, friends, teachers, or other mentors and Up's message tells children that this is ok, in fact it's sometimes just what you need.

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Disney's as a Boys' Toy Too

I rarely remember that little boys, as well as little girls, watch Disney movies and look up to some of the characters. In many of the earlier films, the men/princes aren't really a significant piece of the story, but more recently males are playing a greater and greater role in Disney and Pixar movies. Males like Chang, Sebastian, and Wasabi serve as role models for young boys just as the princesses do for little girls. Because of this, it's just as important that little boys of all appearances and personality types appear in animated films. The Feminist community has been more outspoken about female representation than the male community, perhaps because women tended to be placed in a subservient position to the men of the stories in earlier Disney movies. However, if you try to closely examine the character of the men or male characters in the early Disney movies, they tend to just be place holders that allow the princess to achieve their happily ever after. In later films they are hyper masculine and tough, even sometimes emotionless, if they want to be attractive to the females in the story. The non-human characters like Sebastion, Timone, and the like can be more sensitive because they aren't the male protagonist trying to win the girl and save the world. If we're going to work to build up strong, independent girls, we should work equally hard to help develop sensitive, thoughtful boys. This begins with providing more complex characters for them to look up to and more representation in the male characters in Disney films.

Identity and Disney

Disney Characters' Race Breakdown

Although Disney is often criticized for its lack of diversity in the characters in its animated and live action films, the statistics are fairly close to those of the US census. Although in Disney, about 75% of the characters are White, and so minorities are somewhat underrepresented, the statistics are fairly close to the true proportions. In America, about 62% of the population identifies as White, while 17% of the population is Hispanic, 13.2% is Black, 5% is Asian, and 3.8% of the population identify as multiracial, Native American, or Native Hawaiian. While more diversity would be nice, especially regarding Latinos considering they are 17% of the US population and only one single Disney character is identified as Latino, the statistic is less drastic that I would have anticipated.