Gonzalo Lira: The Acid-Laced Satire of Pixar’s Movies
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Gonzalo Lira
Strolling along the shores of the mainstream . . .
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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2010
The Acid-Laced Satire of Pixar’s
Movies
Cartoons & Doodads
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ABOUT ME:
Gonzalo Lira
Since the release of its first movie, Toy Story, in
Tweet 18
1995, Pixar animation studios has had one of the
most remarkable winning streaks in motion picture history.
As of this year, they have released
eleven movies—all of them
international blockbusters.
Combined, these pictures have
grossed $6.63 billion (unadjusted)
worldwide—just at the box office.
God Alone knows how much Pixar
has grossed through video and DVD
sales; an additional $10 billion is a
reasonable guess.
But if Pixar’s movies had been
merely successful, they wouldn’t be
noteworthy. There are lots of film
studios that have released extraordinarily successful pictures that
no one remembers—or which no one wants to remember.
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What sets Pixar apart is the quality of its movies: They’ve all been
good.
Some were merely very good, like A Bug’s Life (1998) and Cars
(2006). Several have been excellent, like Monsters,
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Inc. (2001), the three Toy Storys (1995, 1999, 2010), Finding
Nemo (2003), Ratatouille (2007)
A few have transcended the medium of film altogether, and
become art. I would argue (very good-naturedly) that The
Incredibles (2004), Wall-E (2008), and Up (2009) all fit into the
category of art. (As an aside—again, very subjectively—I would
say that the most beautiful of all the Pixar movies was probably
The Incredibles; it was certainly the best lit, with a painterly eye
for composition and color that would have pleased Néstor
Almendros or Gordon Willis.)
But even the Pixar movies that have been (relatively) so-so have
had their transcendental moments. For instance, in Toy Story 2,
there is the “When Somebody Loved Me” sequence, where Jesse
the cowgirl doll tells the story of how her owner, Emily, outgrew
her:
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It is a remarkable sequence—remarkable in its simplicity,
remarkable in its perfect execution, remarkable in its
overwhelming power. I have watched this sequence many times,
with small children as well as hardened adults: I have never seen
anyone not be moved by this sequence, which captures something
indescribable, yet universally human. Even small children who do
not speak or understand English know exactly what the sequence
is about—and are moved in exactly the same way.
If that isn’t a definition of art, then I don’t know what is.
There are several other such transcendental moments, in Pixar’s
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films: The opening ten minutes of Up, describing Carl and Ellie’s
meeting, their 30-year marriage, and Ellie’s eventual death, in
one effortless, heartbreaking miniature; the final few seconds of
Monsters, Inc. when Sully goes to visit Boo; the routine of
Wall-E’s average day on earth, now that all the people have left
the planet.
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These are just three sequences that I recall off the top of my
head—there are literally dozens of other such moments, in these
children’s films.
Because they are children’s films: Children are Pixar’s main
audience. Yet adults love Pixar’s films just as much as children
do, because—unlike other animated films—Pixar’s movies are
never patronizing, never condescending, never too-coolfor-school.
This is important to recognize, and ought to be highlighted:
Unlike, say, DreamWorks Animation studio’s films, Pixar never
tries to be “edgy”. It never makes movies that are putatively for
children, yet filled with constant winks at the adults over the
heads of the kids.
In DreamWorks’ Shrek franchise (I use that salesman’s word
deliberately), there is a constant stream of references to other
movies and cultural touchstones—many of them R-rated, and
therefore unknown by the children the Shrek movies are aimed
at—that are placed there for no other reason than to pander to the
adults in the audience.
I personally can’t stand DreamWorks Animation films precisely
for that constant wink-wink,-aren’t-we-clever references in their
movies. That constant winking—that constant breaking of the
suspension of disbelief—gives DWA films the feel of tawdry,
brassy shiny trinkets that are being hawked by a shifty salesman.
Pixar doesn’t have that because, at bottom—and unlike the
filmmakers at DreamWorks Animation—the filmmakers at Pixar
believe in the story they’re telling. They’re not trying to
sell anything—they’re trying to tell a good story,
an honest story, and they never for a second think that the story
they are telling is beneath them. And unlike DreamWorks, Pixar
has the self-confidence to know that a good story appeals to every
age, every demographic, and so there is no need to pander, or
wink, or patronize.
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TIP JAR:
That’s why Pixar’s movies are consistently successful at the
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box-office, whereas DreamWorks’ films are hit-or-miss. Snide
twenty-somethings with no children are just as enthralled by
Pixar’s movies as small children with their parents, or the
middle-aged, or the elderly.
However—maybe precisely because Pixar films are so generous in
spirit—few people seem to have noticed the incredible social
satire going on, in Pixar’s movies.
What these pictures are offering is not “gentle satire”—Pixar
movies offer the harshest social commentary of contemporary
American society of anyone working today, in any medium that I
can think of. It’s satire laced with acid, and it is incredibly
powerful precisely because it is packed into something so
seemingly gentle and sweet: Children’s movies.
At first, you don’t notice the acid-laced satire in Pixar’s movies,
because all of them are swathed in such an immersive storytelling. The satire would be far more noticeable in a chintzy,
“ironic” DreamWorks Animation production, precisely because of
DreamWorks’ films’ constant wink-wink at the adult audience
over the heads of the kids.
Pixar, on the other hand, never distracts its audience—child or
adult—with anything extraneous to the story. That relentless
engagement paradoxically renders the audience slightly myopic:
You don’t really notice the satire Pixar is getting away with unless
you take a step back.
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I first started to notice this—both the acid-satire, and the slight
myopia you get in a Pixar film that makes you blind to the
satire—in 2005 with The Incredibles.
The film is about a family of
superheroes—all of them with
superpowers—who are forced by
the government to deny their true
super-natures, and conform. They
pretend to be “normal” by hiding
their extraordinary powers, often
at the cost of their personal
satisfaction and happiness.
FOLLOWERS:
Thus the film very accurately
captures the mistaken notion—so
prevalent in the United
States—that to be
against elitism is the same as the denigration of excellence. It is a
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contemporary American attitude that not only foments the
mediocre and the second-rate, but in fact celebrates the mediocre
and the second rate.
For instance, early in the film, Dash, one of the Incredible’s
children, complains that everyone at school is getting a medal.
This promiscuous award-giving is quite common, in American
schools. When Dash complains about this indiscriminate
“celebration” of everyone’s “achievement”, he’s told that it’s
because everyone is special—to which he replies, “If everyone is
special, then no one is.”
That’s pretty much the essence of The Incredibles: The movie is
really a defense of elitism, pointing out how the celebration of
everyone’s achievements, equally, denigrates and denies true
excellence, and that the denial of true excellence is the denial of
the self in favor of the collective.
At the end of the picture, after the Incredibles family has had to
use all their super-powers to stop the evil villain Syndrome (who
has no innate superpowers, but who uses technology to
essentially cheat his way to excellence and fool people into
believing that he is super), the family of super-heroes goes back
to living their conformist suburban existence—only now, their
conformism is a self-conscious disguise, rather than a denial of
their true selves, as it was at the start of the story.
The Syndrome character puts paid to any notion that this social
satire is accidental, or unconscious: At one point near the end of
the movie, Syndrome makes it clear that he will mass produce his
super-power gadgets, so that everyone can have super-powers:
“When everyone is super, no one will be.”
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Truer words never spoken.
Cars in 2006 came close to a
serious critique of America’s
perverse urge towards corporate
sponsorship and yen for life in the
commercial, corporatist fast-lane.
It was the antithesis of, say, Iron
Man and its sequel, which
deliberately, gleefully revelled in
the fact that its hero was a
corporatist scion, owner and
embodiment of a vast corporation
that manufactured weapons used
to kill people. Talk about
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Gonzalo Lira: The Acid-Laced Satire of Pixar’s Movies
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decadence!—but anyway:
The main character of Cars, Lightning McQueen, an up-andcoming race car, is hell-bent on getting a sponsorship deal with a
big company, presumably for more money. His pursuit is derailed
when he lands in a small forgotten town, Radiator Springs, and is
taught a lesson in humility and small-town, neighborly values.
The two key figures of Radiator Springs—and the two key figures
in Lightning McQueen’s growth—are Doc Hudson, a former
racing champion, and Sally Carrera, a former big-city lawyer. The
one becomes Lightning’s mentor, the other his love interest.
What’s interesting is, both of these characters deliberately turned
their backs on big-city corporatism—precisely what Lightning
McQueen was chasing—and retreated to Radiator Springs in
order to lead a simpler, more honest life. Both characters took a
good long hard look at American corporate achievement—and
rejected it, even though it was within their grasp.
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Under the influence of these two characters, Lightning McQueen
learns the value of living in Radiator Springs, and comes to
recognize the empty values of the corporate, money-grubbing
world he was pursuing, and which his nemesis, Chick Hicks,
cannot get enough of, and is still blindly pursuing.
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There was an error in this gadget
At the end of the movie, Lightning McQueen goes back to the big
race, supported by his new-found small-town friends rather than
corporate sponsors, and through an act of self-sacrifice done to
save another car, deliberately loses the race to Chick Hicks
(whose victory thus becomes hollow and meaningless, though he
is too enthralled in his empty ambitions to realize this). Along the
way, Lightning McQueen gains self-respect, and a sense of what is
valuable, and what is not.
But Cars squandered its message. Much like Jerry Maguire,
which in the end tried to eat its cake and have it too, Cars was
clearly aiming for a denial of corporate capitalism and the empty
perks of that life, in favor of the less ambitious but more fulfilling
life of Radiator Springs—but in the end lost its nerve.
The film ends with Lightning McQueen both embracing corporate
capitalism and small-town, individualistic values. Cars didn’t
quite have the nerve to carry its message to the end, which would
have been for Lightning McQueen to have followed the lessons of
Doc Hudson and Sally Carrera, and completely rejected the glitzy
but empty corporate world and its accoutrements, in favor of a
smaller, more honest life in Radiator Springs.
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Robette Absinthe Poster, by Henri
Privat-Livemont, 1896.
PEOPLE READING ME AROUND THE
WORLD (SHOCKING, YES, I KNOW):
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Gonzalo Lira: The Acid-Laced Satire of Pixar’s Movies
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Wall-E has no such failure of nerve: The most powerful Pixar
critique of contemporary American culture was embodied in the
2008 hit Wall-E. Without question.
The story is simplicity itself: Wall-E
is a garbage robot, left behind on
the earth to compact all the garbage
that has accumulated on the planet,
and rendered it uninhabitable. He
is all alone, as he goes about his
lonely and monotonous routine.
One day, a probe named EVE
comes to see if the earth is once
again habitable, so that human
beings might return. Wall-E and
EVE fall in love. Adventures ensue.
Love conquers all (this of course
being a children’s movie).
But along the way, Wall-E scores some rather stunning points
—satire laced with acid that would make Oscar Wilde blanche.
TODAY'S QUOTE:
Pretty soon, everything is going to be
fake.
Squash players
First off, the reason the earth is uninhabitable is because of all the
human trash that has suffocated the planet, trash that is the
byproduct of a rampant consumerism brought about by a huge
mega corporation called Buy N Large—an obvious dig at
Wal-Mart, SuperValu, and all the other mega-retailers.
In the debris Wall-E is slowly compacting, we see clues to the sort
of life the humans led: Materialistic, acquisitive, superficial,
cheap and tawdry. As the name of the store implies, everything is
super-sized.
Once EVE returns to the humans, Wall-E of course hitches a ride
on her return spaceship and follows her back to the
mothership—this is where all the human beings are living in ease
and corporate comfort. The name of the mothership is actually
the name of the corporation sponsoring the voyage: The Axiom.
On the Axiom, Wall-E discovers what has become of all the
human beings that used to live on the earth:
They have become morbidly fat whales, covered in a layer of
blubber, moving along in personal transportation devices eerily
reminiscent of those electric carts so prevalent in contemporary
American shopping malls, the carts provided by the shopping
malls for free for people too fat and out of shape to walk to the
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stores in the mall.
Aside from being sickeningly fat, the humans on the Axion are
perpetually glued to video monitors inches from their noses,
obsessed with the endless stream of mindless audio-visual
stimulation—while ignoring the reality going on around them.
They are all pleasant—not a single one of the sickeningly fat
humans is mean, the way most villains are in movies. Worse than
being mean, the villains in Wall-E are passive-aggresively bad:
They use pleasantry to disguise their true natures, the idea of
comfort and safety as the disguise to carry out their awful deeds.
Or actually, no, that’s not it: It’s not that the villains in Wall-E are
evil, and disguise their evil behind the pretense of concern about
comfort and safety. Rather, their psychotic concern about
comfort and security leads the morbidly fat humans in Wall-E to
do evil, villainous things.
They’re not evil—their fear makes them do evil.
Does this obsession with both comfort and safety remind anyone
of anybody? To me, it reminds me of mainstream Americans: Of
their willingness to sacrifice any and all rights—including habeas
corpus—for the sake of comfort and safety. Of their willingness to
allow their government to commit torture and murder, for the
sake of security.
As to the morbidly fat people clogging the spaceship Axiom, every
time I have a conversation with a foreigner about Americans, the
issue of the fatness of the people inevitably, invariably comes up:
The only people who aren’t shocked by the number of
unwholesomely fat Americans are Americans.
I have so far discussed in superficial detail only three pictures,
The Incredibles, Cars, and Wall-E. But similar critiques of
American society can be found in most other Pixar films, to a
degree that is completely absent in other animated films. Or even
live-action films, for that matter. And let’s not even bother with
contemporary American literature, which has become a
playground for—at best—mediocre talent.
Pixar is producing the best art in America today—art with an
edge.
Now, if these bits of sly social satire were embedded in only one,
or even only two of their pictures, then it might be easy to dismiss
it as a random thing.
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But all of Pixar’s movies have this acid-laced social satire to one
extent or another, a satire harsh enough—and visible
enough—that it shouldn’t have escaped so many people’s
attention. After all, millions upon millions of people have seen
these pictures. More people—perhaps a majority of people
—should have noticed what was going on. I mean, really, how
many morbidly fat, lazy people obsessed with their Facebook
page went to see Wall-E? And enjoyed the movie? Yet didn’t see
themselves in it? And didn’t leave outraged at having been made
fools of?
Most. If not all.
This goes to something really interesting: People are so
enthralled by Pixar’s story-telling that they fail to see themselves
in those stories. Just like those stupid wink-wink references I was
deploring earlier, references that go over the heads of children, a
lot of the social satire in Pixar’s movies sail on by, over the heads
of its audience.
That’s the way you do satire. That’s the way you poke fun at your
audience: You make a story so engrossing, the audience is never
allowed to lean back, look askance at the screen, and say, “Wait a
minute—are they they talking about me? Are they making fun of
me?”
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Posted at
8:45 PM
37 comments:
Anonymous November 6, 2010 at 9:50 PM
Gonzalo, have you ever wondered how abstract art, the mindless
and worthless paintings some call "modern art" became a
mainstream phenomena in the USA?
How is it that after thousands of years, suddenly a scrawling that
a three-year-old could do (and does) is the high-point in art and
human expression?
Well, according to this:
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-wascia-weapon-1578808.html
CIA had (has?) a program, from 1947, which fostered and
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promoted Abstract Expressionist art (aka mindless smudges)
with around the world for more than 20 years.
This was done as a Cold War "weapon", to convince the Soviets of
the superiority of the Western culture, in a true "the king has no
clothes"-story fashion.
This was the start of a period, from the 1950s and 1960s, when
the great majority of Americans started to dislike and even
despise modern art, culminating in the statement by President
Truman, who summed up the popular view "If that's art, then I'm
a Hottentot."
This is one of the reasons why gifted artists now turn to making
advertisements, movies, and Pixar animations, instead of
paintings.
Reply
Anonymous November 6, 2010 at 10:31 PM
I haven't seen any of these movies but the Incredibles sounds a
lot like Harrison Bergeron, and Wall-E like Brave New World.
Reply
Andy Shand November 7, 2010 at 12:07 AM
The reason Americans fail to realise they are being made fun of is
because they are so ignorant and oblivious to the fact that most of
them are stupid. I am a European living in the USA and
Americans have no grasp of sarcasm, or humor that makes fun of
them.
Americans also fail to grasp simple jokes, how do i know this?
because my wife is American, and so so many times i have had to
explain simple sarcasm as if she were a child, but still it does not
sink in.
I am not bashing Americans, it s just that they have been
brainwashed from an early age into thinking that the USA is the
only country in the World, thus the majority of Americans have
no real perspective of other cultures other than those they see on
television, thus if you start to see overtly obese people in every
aspect of your life, this becomes normal and acceptable.
In US schools kids are all equal, all are special, all are winners,
hell you even get a diploma for leaving high school. But of course,
as is reality, not all are wiiners, not all are special, and never
equal, but this fact is only realised when these kids are released
into the wild after many years of captivity in households that
foster and pander to this ideology, which of course is to late for
may.
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A study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found
that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family
members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name
all five First Amendment freedoms.
As the saying goes: America is the best half-educated country in
the world.
GL: You should write a piece about Americas status anxiety.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 12:23 AM
Wall-E's human hambeasts aren't the villains. They are the
victims. They've been told what to think by the corporation that
sent them out for so long that they are asleep at the wheel.
When they are able to see the truth, they stand up to the (literal)
corporate drone, the autopilot. Even the captain, who in fiction is
usually a conservative reactionary. In Wall-E he goes from petty
timeserver to cunning plotter for freedom.
And the human hambeasts get out of their chairs and become
farmers. It's simplistic, yes. It's also full of messages of freedom,
individualism, and hope. Not bad for a kid movie.
In the end, Wall-E is about revolution among the masses.
Nate
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 2:24 AM
To Andy Shand,
Let's quote you:
"The reason Americans fail to realise they are being made fun of
is because they are so ignorant and oblivious to the fact that most
of them are stupid. I am a European living in the USA and
Americans have no grasp of sarcasm, or humor that makes fun of
them.
Americans also fail to grasp simple jokes, how do i know this?
because my wife is American, and so so many times i have had to
explain simple sarcasm as if she were a child, but still it does not
sink in."
Followed by,
"I am not bashing Americans"
Sorry, but are you an idiot? Europeans are all stupid people who
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don't know to write logical comments on blogs. I'm not bashing
Europeans.
You've based all of this criticism on your silly anecdote about the
woman you live with. How about this: maybe, just maybe, your
jokes carry the taint of cultural relativism that makes them
harder for your wife to understand? Maybe your sarcasm is
cryptic and follows the same poor logic as your comment? I'm not
bashing you, of course.
By the way, you're exhibiting the exact behavior you're criticizing
so harshly in your post. While I do tend to agree with most of
what you're saying, you're a giant hypocrite.
Also, surveys aren't studies.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 2:39 AM
So..... Your saying that in a nut shell Bennie and the Inkjets
would be better of issuing Pixar Dollars instead of FRN'S???
Reply
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brunolem November 7, 2010 at 3:52 AM
I have watched Wall-E, alone and with my 5 year old son,
countless times.
There is so much in it, like the garbage orbiting the Earth, the
spaceship designed like a theme park with its survivors-visitors,
constantly holding soft drinks. The obsession with cleanliness
and the army of robots dedicated to the task of keeping the
premises, reminds of Disney's policy.
'Cars' is also very good and 'Up' really reaches into someone's
heart.
Yet, Pixar, as well as Dreamworks, are threatened by a new virus,
evolved from the greed virus, and called 3D!
To paraphrase a famous US politician, I would say that: 3D is the
greatest hoax ever perpetreted on moviegoers.
The only interest of 3D is that it enables its promoters to collect
more money at the box-office.
My personal policy is to boycott all 3D movies, with the exception
of 'Avatar', which was really designed for 3D from the start.
Click on my name to visit my blog.
Reply
Andy Shand November 7, 2010 at 4:49 AM
Anonymous at 9.24pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7YjwZzNz0
A song by Americans for Americans.
Reply
Friend Of FOFOA November 7, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Gonzalo, I must say, I enjoy your style almost as much as your
insight, ie. a helluva lot.
As a father it has been my good fortune to experience all the Pixar
movies (except The Incredibles; I’ll be on the lookout now
though) multiple times, and I must agree with your analysis
completely. The only thing you missed, IMHO, (perhaps because
it’s not Pixar) was the inclusion of what I consider a comparable
form of modern televisual art, The Simpsons. A recent example
here: http://forafistfulofdollars.blogspot.com/2010/11
/simpsons-banksy-intro.html
The claim by Anonymous, above, that the fatties in Wall-E were
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the victims is patently wrong. They, just like the borrowers in
today’s monetary meltdown, were merely given what they
desired, with no thought for the consequences. Your villians are
simply facilitators, and if they don’t meet the demand with
supply, someone else will.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Sorry, but the clip from toy story, IMO, is not moving, it is
incredibly sentimental (and symptomatic of the main problem
with many Hollywood films). I think the music is one of the main
reasons it doesn't work for me, it telegraphs what is going to
happen.
Reply
ATP November 7, 2010 at 12:02 PM
It's not that people don't see themselves when they're the target
of the satire, it's just that it's too painful to face the truth. Denial,
rationalization or projection hurt less.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 1:10 PM
The underlying difference between Pixar and Dreamworks is the
latter is founded by 3 "Irish" guys (SKG) and for some reason all
those interesting characteristics that GL has pointed out seem to
permeate throughout their films not just their animation films.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 3:58 PM
Anon, I can't imagine why you're taking issue with Andy Shand. I
mean, come on, lots of what he said is spot on. And it annoys me
too that these are my fellow countrymen. Sometimes I think this
slovenliness upsets thinking americans more than europeans.
Something annoying about the Euro-dudes though. Many will
judge all americans to be of the steriotype sort, even if you clearly
demonstrate reasonable edicate, free and creative thought and a
non-absurd body profile. Oh, American? You're That! No
discussion necessary.
So many of them also are working on an early breed sense of
elitism that they're completely unaware of. I didn't see it in
Andy's comment thought.
Reply
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Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 4:41 PM
to Andy Shand;
Mr.Shand;
You generalize from a very small sample.It is like going to
Harlem and coming to conclusion that 99% of the US population
is black.Yes,there are fat, ugly, stupid people.Even if they
constitute the majority of the society (which I doubt)-what does it
matter ? Why do you care about Grazing Multitude at all ? Our
country provided much more than it's fair share of people who
wrote History with a Lightning.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 6:01 PM
"The underlying difference between Pixar and Dreamworks is the
latter is founded by 3 "Irish" guys (SKG)"
"Irish"? What, are you allergic to the word "Jewish"?
Reply
Andy Shand November 7, 2010 at 7:06 PM
To Anonymous at 10:41
According to George Washington, as well as several of the
founding fathers, the "grazing multitude," or the American
public, lack the ability to effectively govern, which is why
Americans need to be, and get, educated in political matters.
In order to be a self-governing people, Americans need to be
knowledgeable of political processes and take place in those
processes. Deference is the beginning of tyranny!
If as you say, I am only taking a very small example of the general
population of the USA, then why is that those elected to govern
your political system and enact policies that enable Americans to
thrive and prosper seem to lack basic common sense, examples
are: Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, and a host of others who
are clearly 3 sandwiches short of a picnic.
If you doubt my reasoning, then Google "dumbest nation in the
world" one has to question why France, Germany, Italy, UK, and
all the other countries in the World are barely mentioned, is the
internet media picking on the USA unfairly?
Your comment "what does it matter" well it does matter how the
World perceives your culture. Educating children matters, the
financial stability of the USA matters, because if it continues to
deteriorate to levels that give credence to the notion that in fact
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the USA is the "Dumbest Nation on Earth" then by definition
your country will sitting in the corner wearing a hat with the "D"
on it.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 8:42 PM
Mr.Shand;
Probably you are right.That is why I am (over)reacting to your
comment like the proverbial Pavlovian dog.I am still stuck in the
good old 50'(all times are good when old).I look around and do
not like what I see.Europe is not much better either.Germanymajority of population are old farts (aka senior citizens) the rest
is frantically breeding human waste from Africa and the Middle
East.Holland-the same picture plus the liberal values pushed to
the limits.Is France much different ? I do not think so.It is the
general decline of Western Civilization.Nevertheless,in the 20
century USA changed mightily the course of human history-for
better or for worse I can't tell.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 8:54 PM
Interesting how Andy brings up the schools. He complains that
the schools really don't push reality, something that conservatives
have been fighting the liberals, who control the school system, for
years. Yet Europeans love the American liberals, conservatives
not so much. Europeans making fun of us is pretty damn
amusing.
Maybe you need to realize that we know your making fun of us
but really don't give a damn. All I know is my ancestors fled
Europe to make a better life for their families. Really, your
making fun of us just comes off as petty jealousy and a litle high
schoolish.
For someone who's throwing around the word "Dumbest" like its
candy on Halloween, tell us what national office was Christine
O'Donnell or Sarah Palin elected to. You know it's better to keep
your mouth shut and be perceived a fool that to open it and prove
it.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 9:07 PM
I know a young Swedish guy living in the dominican republic,
said he's never going back there. Taxes are too high and the
government has pretty much given the country away to Iranian
immigrants who have no intention of assimilating. More
(although minor) unintended consequences of the 'growth at any
cost' mantra (you're country is unlivable).
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Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 9:22 PM
"then why is that those elected to govern your political system
and enact policies that enable Americans to thrive and prosper
seem to lack basic common sense"
Americans thrive and prosper dispite the policies the government
enacts. We do our best work when the governmnet gets the hell
out of the way.
You may live here Andy but you neither know or understand this
place. And you lecture us about our lack of education.
Reply
Anonymous November 7, 2010 at 10:49 PM
In the US 2.3 million people educate their kids at home-look up
Home Schooling Organization.Estimated 14 million completely
ceased to file and pay income tax.About 1/2 does not vote and
much less cares about this crap.Guns are readily available-if you
gonna die you gonna die like Hero and not like slaughtered
European cattle.Life goes on.It is hard but not impossible to
enjoy a modicum of Freedom not found anywhere else.
Reply
brunolem November 8, 2010 at 1:59 AM
@Anonymous 4.49PM
Americans certainly have guns, which they keep at home in a
closet, while watching TV.
In the meantime, Europeans, such as Greeks or French, don't
have guns, but they take the street and go fight the government
and its police forces, with whatever means they can put their
hands on.
If it must end up in slaughter, in Europe, the fight will probably
take place in open air, face to face, while in the US, the forces of
evil will have to search house by house, as they do in Iraq of
Afghanistan!
Reply
Anonymous November 8, 2010 at 2:25 AM
@brunolem
Precisely what Greek and French are fighting for?They want to
keep their good government jobs.US definition of a "good job" is
"the job that pays more than you are worth".Can some province
in France abolish unconstitutional law passed in Paris-no.Even in
theory.In the US a state can nullify federal law.Many of them are
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doing that presently.It is one of the Founding Fathers ideas worth
fighting and even dying for.
Reply
Anonymous November 8, 2010 at 3:57 AM
Gonzalo, I learned of you on a podcast called Two Beers With
Steve. Your theories were called into question. Respond Respond
Respond!
Reply
Anonymous November 8, 2010 at 11:05 AM
One scene in an animated movie resonates in my mind above all
others as the most scathing and yet hopeful depiction of modern
society ever portrayed. In Finding Nemo, after Marlin finds
Nemo towards the end, they swim through a school of tuna. The
tuna are all headed to work and consumed by their own
individual thoughts. Suddenly, a fishing boat scoops up a whole
bunch of the fish and begins to lift them to the deck of the boat.
Nemo, small enough to swim between the holes of the net,
manages to swim around to many tuna and tells everyone that
they have to "swim down" against the pull of the boat. Somehow,
he manages to convince enough tuna to swim down until a
critical mass is reached and they all begin swimming down until
they gain enough momentum and power to break the pull of the
boat and they all survive. Almost as if preparing us to act in
unison in response to some future crisis in which a very small
group of people will try to take advantage of the whole. Either
way, the satire just works to remind us of one critical thing: we
must always remember our strengths, of which we really only
have 1.
Numbers.
Reply
Anonymous November 8, 2010 at 10:10 PM
I went straight to the video store and rented The Incredibles. It
was truly a great movie. Thanks for recommending it. Your
interpretation puzzles me, though. What I experienced was a
critique of technological and bureaucratical superiority to human
judgment and capacity, not a defense of elitism. To say that
"When everyone is special, no one is special" is not necessarily
elitist, but unambiguously contradictional. Just as it would be to
say "When everyone is the same, no one is the same because
there is nothing to conform to". These are examples of the kind of
divergent and creative thinking all of us must handle all the time.
It is also where machines and large scale organizations
consistently fail.
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Alex November 9, 2010 at 1:21 AM
This post is amazing. My brother and i noticed exactly the same
thing with Pixar and we even have them ranked in the same order
as you. We also despise 'shrek'. Also, i saw you on the Keiser
Report and was very impressed with you there. You're doing a
great job. Keep it up!
Reply
Anonymous November 9, 2010 at 8:10 AM
Have to disagree.
Americans understand the points being made:
WALL-E: Yes, we know and are concerned that we are turning
lazy and fat.
INCREDIBLES: Yes, we all disdain the "everybody gets a trophy"
and "we don't keep score" nonsense creeping into our kids' lives.
CARS: Yes, we feel that we have lost something essential with the
growth of our consumer culture
These are very simple themes that I am sure just about everyone
watching these movies perceives, and is well familiar with.
To be uncomfortable with a cultural trend, but not yet to have,
each person individually, begun to turn it around, is not the same
as being ignorant of it.
Reply
Philip Smith November 10, 2010 at 2:47 AM
I think there's a case to be made that commercial animation lost
the plot after "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," at which point
the Id of folkloric authenticity was renounced in favor of an
ever-mounting Ego of mere technical fluency (compare "Snow
White" with "Pinocchio," especially in terms of backgrounds and
atmosphere). The Pixar stuff all comes out of the latter tradition,
which is why no matter how high it may set the bar of
competence in execution, there is always a relative lack of depth
or risk.
Reply
Anonymous November 15, 2010 at 4:57 AM
Dear Mr. Lira:
Thank you for an exceptional post. I have become a semi-regular
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reader of your blog precisely became of posts like these.
However, I must disagree with you (and agree with Anonymous
11/9/2010 2:10 AM). Americans generally understand Pixar's
critiques.
As I understand your argument, we are morbidly fat, lazy boobs
that do nothing but consume unhealthful food and transient,
ephemeral stimuli, while excreting nothing but waste. Assuming
this is correct, the sheer amount of media that Americans
consume makes them more sophisticated and discerning
consumers than most. The latter point is consistent with your
criticism of DreamWorks movies. Their too-cool-for-school
meta-references depend on this sophistication. (For the record,
your analysis of DreamWorks movies is spot-on.) Americans, as
discerning media consumers, flock to Pixar movies because they
are superlative works.
Given Americans' media sophistication, it is logical to assume
that Americans understand Pixar's satire. Indeed, that is your
point ("More people—perhaps a majority of people—should have
noticed what was going on"). But your conclusion--Americans do
not understand they are being satirized because they are
bamboozled by Pixar's storytelling genius and high production
values--does not follow from your premise.
Of course, not all Americans understand Pixar's satire.
Blind-spots are not peculiar to Americans. (I remember fondly a
lecture on American bad taste and cultural hegemony given me
by a French couple in spandex bicycle shorts over Turkish coffee
in Cairo, Egypt.) Yes, Pixar stands out from the tacky, tawdry,
and lowest-common-denominator crowd that constitutes
American popular culture. Nevertheless, I don't look askance
when Pixar satirizes me. Pixar produces the very culture it
satirizes. My nephew's birthday party featured disposable, plastic
Wall-E party supplies. Mr. Incredible costumes featuring built-in
plastic molded muscles are available online, and now everyone
can act like a super hero for Halloween. Cars' biting take on
consumerist, corporate culture rings hollow given that Pixar
licensed that satire to generate nearly $1 billion in toy sales in
2006 alone. Pixar may make art, but its satire is knowingly
disingenuous. Americans, as a whole, are dreadfully ignorant and
insufferable, but they understand that a hypocrite satirist merely
a good storyteller.
Regards, Anonymous
Reply
Anonymous November 17, 2010 at 10:22 AM
Americans have more to worry about than being a little
overweight when our President is a secret Muslim and our
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schools deny the truth of the Bible.
Reply
Anonymous November 19, 2010 at 3:06 AM
Good Story.. you have to check Adult Toy Store..
Reply
download The Truth December 28, 2010 at 5:16 PM
This is my favorite movie and i am waiting for its next part.
Reply
download The Way Back January 12, 2011 at 5:18 PM
i have watched its first part.This was very interesting.
Reply
PianoRacer January 24, 2011 at 12:08 AM
I thought that Pixar's commentary on WALL-E was pretty overt,
whereas the commentary on other films, like Cars, is more subtle.
Mr. Lira failed to mention the one that I found the most
subversive: Monsters, Inc. In that film, the entire society is
taught, and accepts, the idea that children are lethal, a complete
fabrication of the state. All it took was one Monster actually
testing the claims of the government to see it was all nonsense.
This applies to so many areas of our current culture... the one
that leaps immediately to my mind is the war on drugs, but
people can probably apply many meaning to this film.
Reply
Anonymous March 21, 2011 at 10:48 PM
People have wasted their time watching all these movies? And GL
calls them art? And further, some have confessed to watching
them with kids? You know, trash in, trash out. Do you feed your
kids a diet of fast food and call it nourishment? WOW.
Commercial entertainment produced by giant corporations
focused on mass for profit consumption is now called "art" wonderful. Here's a hint: go find some of the great products of
Western or Asian art and expose your children to that. Rent a
video of opera or ballet. Very young and quite average children
will be fascinated by the movement, the emotion, the sound etc.
Expose kids to the richest, and intellectually and emotionally, the
most satisfying art which is the classical art of the great world
cultures. And do it to the point where they come to find almost all
of the rest to be boring. Yes, very boring.
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Here's the specter of people, congratulating themselves for being
"superior" to the mediocrity of the American public schools, and
then being witless to the point of confusing pop entertainment for
art. Oh, and yes, I did this with my own kid, and yes, I am an
elitist.
Reply
Replies
Anonymous August 7, 2012 at 9:04 AM
You people are debating which country is what under
an amazing piece of writing about pixar films? Im 15
and even I can see how stupid that is.
Anyway Gonzalolira, thankyou for writing that, I am a
media student studying satire and that explained how
to recognise satire perfectly.
Reply
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If you have a question or a private comment, do feel free to e-mail me at
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GL
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