Growing Up with Pixar
The most recent Pixar film, Onward (Dan Scanlon, 2020), tells the story of two brothers, Ian and Barley, who set out on a magical quest in a bid to spend one final day with their late father. On Ian’s sixteenth birthday he is presented with a gift left to him by his father, whom he has never met, with the instructions that he and his older brother could only open it when they were both at least sixteen. Onward is therefore a story strongly embedded in loss. Ian is a teenager, unsure of himself and anxious about transitioning into adulthood. Barley, on the other hand, is self-assured but finds solace in the mystical game Quests of Yore and his van, Guinevere. Released in early March 2020, Onward is the first time Pixar have created an explicitly magical realm as the backdrop for the main narrative (unlike previous releases, which have typically been set in a recognisably ‘real’ world but with magical or fantastical intrusions). The film’s primary location, New Mushroomton, is the home to several mythical creatures including elves, trolls, centaurs, dragons and unicorns. It is also a place where magic once existed, but has slowly fallen out of practice with the rise of modern technology. This dimension makes New Mushroomton an interesting parallel to real life societies and technocultures, as we are certainly living in a more connected and automated world. This shift by Pixar into more overtly magical and fantastical settings for its feature films could, in turn, be in response to recent trends in high fantasy stories, which are increasingly popular in mainstream media culture. Each series of Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-2019), for example, gained more and more fans and followers, and it was estimated that 19.3 million people tuned in to watch the finale across HBO viewing platforms and 13.6 million tuning in to watch live on TV. If Pixar was going to attempt to create a fantastical world full of magic and dragons with Onward, then now seemed to be the perfect time. This blog post will argue that there is comfort in the way Pixar presents tragedy through their shift towards more directly fantastical elements. I will also explore the increasingly darker themes of Pixar productions, specifically their treatment of death, loss and grief, but will also discuss – despite their heightened levels of fantasy in films such as Onward – what it is that makes Pixar features indisputably human.
Fig. 1 - Onward’s New Mushroomton.
Onward’s New Mushroomton is the quintessential modern city – tall buildings with suburban neighbourhoods on the outskirts, alongside schools, shops, restaurants, highways and stop signs (or halt signs, in a nod to Dungeons and Dragons). The construction of New Mushroomton in Onward parallels the real world, making it a believable world despite its marvellous undertones (Fig. 1). However, the city is also draped in purple hues. Now, purple is often interpreted as a signifier of magic, change and ideas of threat. If you think just of Disney Villains alone, they are quite often depicted wearing purple clothes, having purple hair/make up or being in purple lit spaces that make the colour synonymous with the representations of evil, magic and danger (Fig. 2). What is interesting about Onward, however, is that the use of purple is not necessarily to signify evil but to identify fantasy (that isn’t without its own risks, because what’s a Pixar movie without mild peril?). Purple becomes an increasingly prominent colour as the film progresses, aesthetically showing the increase in the use of magic (pixies suddenly flying instead of riding motorbikes or Ian realising his magical abilities are all coded in purple). Even blue elves Ian and Barley seem a little more purple by the end of their quest.
Fig. 2 - Disney villains and the colour purple.
Onward also gives us the classical journey narrative familiar from other Pixar films, as well as computer-animated films more broadly (Holliday 2018). This narrative structure, however, is explicitly framed as a quest to enhance the magical elements of the story. Ian is finding the prospect of being an adult daunting. His brother, albeit older than him, is still child-like - he is relaxed and enjoys playing games about magic and fantastical quests. Ian doesn’t respond well to this lifestyle choice and finds it frustrating and somewhat embarrassing – in other words, Ian think Barley needs to grow up. However, it is ultimately his brother who helps him to succeed in his quest by using his extensive knowledge of magic to guide them through. To succeed and grow, they must do so together. Barley teaches Ian to trust himself, to take chances and to not always follow the obvious path. By the film’s ending, we know that the real quest was learning to grow up together, and that they had everything they needed already. Onward teaches us is that growth and growing up is nothing to be afraid of – it is universal. Loss, death, mistakes and fears are all human qualities and as we grow up, we encounter these more and more.
Despite its development through the high fantasy imagery of Onward, these themes are actually threaded throughout Pixar’s computer-animated back catalogue. The Toy Story franchise (1995-2019) – and in particular Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010) and Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019) - show that it is okay to grow up, to move on, to change and to look back fondly on the past. As Paige Burnett comments, “Andy looks back at his beloved toy the same way he did as a boy; nothing has changed except his age. Thus, the timelessness of childhood is revealed. Adults may move on, but they can also remember. They are encouraged to gaze upon their fondest memories and allow those thoughts to be part of their core being. To grow up, they do not have to let go” (2014: 10). When Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) was first released, I was two years old. I don’t remember when I first saw Toy Story, but I do remember it being a huge influence in my childhood, often pretending to leave my bedroom only to then jump out from behind the door in a bid to catch my toys moving. This is something I am not alone in, as Burnett claims: “Children everywhere have tried it at least once” (2014: 2). The VHS wore thin and I got older. What surprised me, however, was that Andy had grown up as well (Fig. 3). In Toy Story, Andy is turning six whereas I would have only been two. However, by the time we meet again in Toy Story 3 Andy and I were the same age – seventeen years old and both preparing to leave home and go to college/university. I am what David Forgacs calls a ‘Disney baby’ (1992: 361) – someone born any date after 1925, whom has grown up with Disney (and now Pixar) films, merchandise, memorabilia, attending theme parks – and who would ultimately turn into Disney Adults, which I most definitely have (I am even writing this wearing a Mickey Mouse watch).
Fig. 3 - The grown-up Andy in Toy Story 3.
One of the notable ways that Pixar has presented the challenges of growing up is that spectators are subjected to journeys through difficult and traumatic life events that are often shown from the point of view of inanimate objects, non-human characters or abstract ideas. We do not see Andy’s transition from child to teen through Andy’s eyes, but we see the challenges, anxieties and emotions related to this through the eyes of Woody predominantly. We see this again in Pixar’s plethora of films - in Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003) we have Nemo’s same journey of growing up but largely from the perspective of his over-protective father Marlin as he swims the ocean trying to find his son. In Inside Out (Peter Docter, 2015) we meet Riley, an eleven-year-old trying to navigate through moving to a new city as a pre-teen, but we embark on this journey not with Riley at the forefront, but her five core emotions Fear, Anger, Joy, Disgust and Sadness. The fact that we are not forced to see ourselves in the film as human subjects makes it somewhat easier to swallow the darker themes we navigate through. A talking cowboy doll or anxious clown fish that doesn’t know any jokes are absurd and marvellous compared to everyday reality, yet they drive the plots as well as the pleasures of Pixar films. That said, in Onward, the central character’s journey is not told through the eyes of another character or inanimate object, but completely through the eyes of Ian. We occasionally have the point of view switch to that of Barley or their mother, but predominantly our perspective of their experiences remains with Ian. This is one of the first times in Pixar features that we are aligned with the subjects of the narrative through a particular kind of high fantasy imaginary– we might not be elves, but we have all been insecure sixteen-year olds.
Beyond Onward, Pixar’s use of fantastical animation styles stays with audiences long after the first viewing, with the most memorable moments often ones dealing with darker themes. You could almost go as far to say that these darker themes are audiences’ favourite elements of Pixar films. The studio certainly do not shy away from the reality of death and loss, but they perhaps use their animation to make such themes easier to digest. In a recent article for Buzzfeed, Spencer Althouse asked the Buzzfeed community to submit unexpectedly dark moments in Disney movies. The final article included fifteen films, of which, almost half were Disney/Pixar productions. Of the total fifteen, eight were chosen explicitly due to the navigation of death and loss whilst another three had themes related to death or loss. A notoriously emotional moment in a Pixar film is the opening montage of Up (Peter Docter, 2009). Running for less than five minutes in length, this montage not only gives the viewer context to the journey we are about to take with our protagonist Carl, but it also deals with an immense amount of difficult subjects – love, marriage, money, miscarriages, illness, ageing, death, loss and grief (to name a few). This montage plays out like a silent film with no dialogue between protagonists Ellie and Carl, leaving the animation to tell the story. This approach can be traced back to the Pixar shorts. Luxo Jr (John Lasseter, 1986) demonstrates the possibilities of digital technology. Luxo Jr is about a child who wants to play with a ball with their parent – they just happen to be a pair of desk lamps. The short demonstrates realistic shading and movement alongside a strong 3D effect. However, the real triumph in this short film is the anthropomorphic elements to Luxo Sr and Luxo Jr. The audience understand the bond between the two lamps, as well as the conversation they are having. Nothing is said but the movements of both lamps embody emotions and reactions in a realistic way. The shock felt by Luxo Sr when Luxo Jr finds a bigger ball to play with is hilarious and understandable, with a small look to camera and a shake of the ‘head’ conveys something along the lines of “kids, what’re they like?”.
Fig. 4 - Pixar’s short film Bao.
We see these parent/child relations again in the recent short film Bao (Domee Shi, 2018) released almost 20 years after Luxo Jr. Bao is written and directed by Domee Shi, and shows a Chinese-Canadian mother dealing with empty nest syndrome. That is, until one of her hand made dumplings sprouts legs and arms and starts to cry, giving her another chance at motherhood (Fig. 4). Shi noted in an interview that “I wanted to make the story as universally understood as possible. By removing language as a barrier, everyone around the world can experience the short in the same way. […] Animation is such a visual medium, and I wanted to take advantage of that and push the acting, the set design, the colors, and the lighting to really tell the story and evoke the emotions and characters without having to rely on words”. The same can be said for the opening montage of Up. When Ellie is on screen, there are warm colours present whereas when it is just Carl, the colours are often duller or muted. This is paralleled with dark and intense tones when tragedy happens. If it’s a small tragedy (like needing to spend the holiday fund to fix the roof) the dark tones are present but subtle. When a life changing tragedy takes place, these tones are much more intense. When Ellie miscarries, the hallway and room she and Carl are in are all different tones of grey with some areas of the scene looking almost black. The darkness of this scene is particularly jarring compared to the previous one, where they are painting the nursery a bright yellow with a colourful mural on the wall – which if anything makes it even more heart-breaking. Like Shi’s Bao, this montage from Up is coded in a way that can be universally understood. Grief evades language barriers and is something everyone can relate to, but these films also showcase the reactions to grief. Kelly E. Tenzek and Bonnie M. Nickels in a study of Disney and Pixar films claim that “Characters expressing grief due to death may provide young viewers, who may lack experience with death, with a model of acceptable and normal behaviors” suggesting that these animations not only place tragedy central in the narrative but also teach viewers how to react and process these tragedies in the real world (2019: 61). The central discussion of grief and loss in Onward is no less positive and mature. As in many other Pixar films, Onward does not attempt to wash over the hardship you must endure when faced with adversities and one of life’s biggest challenges is growing up. Through its high fantasy images, we understand that Ian and Barley lost their father some time ago, with Ian never actually having the chance to meet him but this is not a bone of contention between the brothers. It poses the questions: if you had the chance to speak to a lost loved one for one more day – what would you say? How do you grow up whilst mourning the loss of a parent or guardian – someone you have never actually met? However, it also centralises a broader discussion of grief, loss and death. These are often taboo subjects and we shy away from having these discussions until tragedy strikes when actually, it can be beneficial to navigate these topics and teach people how to deal with grief. With Onward being released as COVID-19 was being declared a world pandemic, you can’t help but think this film arrived just when we needed it.
**Article published: August 7, 2020**
References
Burnett, Paige. “To Infinity and Beyond: How the Evocation of Childhood Nostalgia in Toy Story 3 Facilitates the Journey Into Adulthood,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research 6, 1 (2014), available at: https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=jiur.
Forgacs, David. “Disney Animation and the Business of Childhood,” Screen 33, 4 (1992): 361–74.
Holliday, Christopher. The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
Tenzek, Kelly E., and Bonnie M. Nickels. “End-of-Life in Disney and Pixar Films: An Opportunity for Engaging in Difficult Conversation,” OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying 80, 1 (2017): 49–68.
Biography
Hannah Newman-Smart is a writer and avid cinema goer who specialises in Fantasy & Reality theory and spectatorship. She received her BA(Hons) from King's College London in Film Studies in 2014. Although currently working full time, Hannah is currently reading around Queer Theory and Feminist Theory in her spare time whilst continuing her interest in the above. Originally from Teesside she lives in London with her partner and pet cat Bmo. Her twitter is @hnewmansmart in case you also like animation, cats, cinema or Harry Potter.