Toy Story 3.

[starlady]

So I really, really liked the first two Toy Story movies, and I really like Pixar movies. This is not the post in which I compare and contrast Ghibli and Pixar and talk about the problematic aspects of both; but that's coming! And I'm not going to give this movie a free pass by any means, but upfront, I have to say, I loved this movie.

So, yes. Toy owner Andy is all grown up and heading off to college, and his toys are faced with a dilemma: should they be hoping to go to Sunnyside Daycare, or to be put up in a box in the attic? The issue is forced when they are nearly accidentally thrown out and then are donated to Sunnyside anyway, despite Andy wanting to put them up into the attic. At the daycare, not everything is as it seems, and the fact that Woody, who was on the "going to college" pile of stuff, decides to leave his friends behind in favor of Andy doesn't put the toys in any better position. But when Woody does find out the awful truth of Sunnyside, thanks to an imaginative girl named Bonny and her toys, he does the right thing, and goes back to help them. What happens next pushes the toys to their limits.

I loved this movie. Why can't the Hollywood studios make movies like Ghilbi and Pixar do, that are so effortlessly thrilling and involving? There's nothing like being in a packed theater full of people wearing the same 3D glasses and all having the same thrilled, terrified, and excited reactions to what's happening up on the big screen--and for a change the 3D in this movie was well done and tastefully integrated into the movie itself, which is always great. Too, what the toys go through is a real rollercoaster ride, with a lot of homages to great movies past along the way, and I really liked what the movie did with the characters.

Pixar doesn't really know what to do with girls and women, though now that computer animation has advanced enough to animate humans we pretty much have definitive confirmation that Andy's mom is a single mom, which is awesome, and some of the female characters really shine here, particularly Barbie and Bonnie. Barbie in particular is great; she chooses her friends when it matters and declaims about the rights of the governed not to be terrorized (I may or may not have shouted "Barbie I love you!" at that point) and in general is just awesome. If Barbie had been that awesome as an actual toy I would have loved Barbie. Also, Ken is great too, eventually. (All of his outfits in the movie have at one point actually been sold by Mattel, FYI.) And Bonnie is great as well, in a non-stereotypically gendered way; she doesn't have a bedroom coated in pink like Andy's sister and acts out stories that don't conform to clichés about what girls like and do. So yay!

That said, and this could very well be just the first Pixar film in which I noticed it consciously, but I was incredibly disappointed to realize that in Toy Story 3 the studio follows its parent company Disney into its well-worn paths of vocal stereotyping. In other words, I'm talking about Lotso, who is (spoilers!) the villain of the piece and who is voiced by Ned Beatty with a noticeable Southern accent.

Disney has a long history of stigmatizing all non-mainstream U.S. Englishes (MUSE) in its movies, going all the way back to Snow White; characters with non-U.S. "accents" and non-MUSE "accents" are far more likely to be villainous, buffoons, or simply lightweights--I'm drawing here on Chapter 5, "Teaching Children How to Discriminate", of Rosina Lippi-Green's excellent and accessible book English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States, which I recommend to anyone with an interest in the subject; Lippi-Green writes clearly and succinctly, with lots of helpful charts and figures. To quote the conclusion of her Disney study,

Characters with strongly positive actions and motivations are overwhelmingly speakers of socially mainstream varieties of English. Conversely, characters with strongly negative actions and motivations often speak varieties of ENglish linked to specific geographical regions and marginalized social groups. Perhaps even more importantly, those characters who have the widest variety of life choices and possibilities availabe to them are male, and they are speakers of MUSE or a non-stigmatized variety of British English.

I'm sure the thought in casting Beatty as Lotso was "oo, contrast between Southern hospitality implicit in accent with Lotso's villainy and strawberry scent is so ironic!", but there's a lot of stereotypes that ought not be perpetuated right there, and the way Lotso's arc plays out only digs the hole deeper. Especially given Pixar's outsize influence, they ought to think more carefully about what their stories are saying below the level of text.

And finally, on a more meditative level, I think in a lot of ways Pixar here, or more precisely its male auteurs, are showing their age in an interesting way. I wondered as Andy's mom gave him a box and said, "Everything in your room has to go in the attic or out, either trash or donations, before you go to college!" how many young people actually have that experience these days, particularly given the state of the economy. I'm at the high edge of the so-called "Toy Story generation", and I moved back in with my parents a year after I graduated undergrad, and I never really packed up my stuff while I was in undergrad; people simply don't live like that in Andy's apparent socioeconomic bracket. Also, as I watched Bonnie with her toys, I had to wonder, How many kids really play like this nowadays? The Toy Story movies certainly acknowledge the presence of video games and the like--Rex and Trixie surfing the Internet and playing PS2 together is gold--but they don't really seem to grapple with the fact that the kids I know don't seem to make up stories and narratives the way Bonnie does with her toys, or the way I did with my Legos 15-20 years ago (oh, Legos, I ♥ you). Do I just know atypical kids? ETA: Evidently I do. /eta I sort of doubt it, but tell me if I'm wrong.

These reservations aside, awesome movie. If all movies were this good I would be broke from going to see them.

P.S. All the scenes with the octopus made the fandom part of my brain go some strange, wrong places. Where is the off switch for my fandom brain? Oh wait there is none.

Comments

[recessional]

the kids I know don't seem to make up stories and narratives the way Bonnie does with her toys

All the kids I know do; on the flipside, many of the kids I grew up with didn't, and I was the weird one.

My instinct is, this is a "different kids do different things" thing.

Edit: I do, however, agree about the "pack all this stuff up or sell it" part - I've been out of my parents' house for 7 years and I still have significant amounts of stuff there, simply because THEY have a basement, and I don't.

So unless it's played as a specific quirk of the mother's personality to hate clutter, yeah.

[starlady]

Yeah, when I leave next month a significant portion of my books are staying behind in boxes in my dad's garage, because he has the space.

I am glad to hear that I'm probably wrong about play, though; I really don't know many kids, when I think about it. ETA: Though, okay, the LEGO mention is doubly on point here--I remember when LEGOs got the Harry Potter license there was a lot, or at least some, discussion of whether introducing a preformed narrative into LEGOs would hinder kids from making up their own stories. Given that that was the central feature of my experience with LEGOs, I did feel some of that concern, and I still do. But the kids I know aren't in the LEGO age range yet.

[recessional]

discussion of whether introducing a preformed narrative into LEGOs would hinder kids from making up their own stories.

*eyebrowquirk* No more than writing fanfic does.

More elaborately: the kids who were going to make up their own stories will just do it with their Harry figurines. The kids who weren't, either didn't make up stories in the first place, or decided their lego-dudes were [insert favourite character here] and acted out the performed/given narrative anyway.

I sincerely believe that what makes kids make up stories or not make up stories with their toys is a) a function of their personalities, individually, and b) a function of whether or not this is encouraged by the role models in their life. Not whether or not the box says that a toy's name is Hermione or Barbie.

[starlady]

Well, yes. *g* But I was not a fanfic writer at the time...12 years ago now? I think.

[starlady]

I agree with you, which might sound odd.

I guess, to clarify my worry in the initial post, it's really whether the toys and forms of play that have become common encourage or discourage that tendency--but the worry itself is probably taking away kids' agency in a way that isn't true.

[recessional]

I think that if the performed storylines are enforced (like, if someone of influence over the child is going "no, that's not what happened to Harry"), then definitely - but my anecdata experience is that what influences how kids play (other than their own personalities and needs) is how they're played with by other people, not what the shape of their toy is, if that makes sense.

Star, who I was nannying for this past year, didn't tend to like to play with dolls at all: she wanted to play with people (specifically grownup people), she craved the social interaction. But when she did play with her Disney Princess figurines, they were all over the map, and doing what she wanted them to do, with little to no interest in what their "real" stories were. (For instance, she liked Jasmine but didn't like Rajah, because he was a tiger and tigers eat people, so Jasmine got one of Aurora's birds instead, when they all went for a picnic).

[starlady]

*nods* That makes sense.

One of my standout memories of narrative play is the New Year's Eve on which my sister forced me to help her perform a Barbie wedding. But since we had both Aladdin and Ken, they had to fight about Barbie first (because Ken was unreasonably jealous or something?), and Ken lost--he still had the scar from Aladdin's hair paint when we gave them all away.

[torachan]

I think it's not so much about the figures but the fact that most Legos these days are specific stuctures, etc. with highly-specialised pieces as opposed to the more freeform ones they used to have. But that has been the case for quite some time and is nothing new with Harry Potter.

[starlady]

Yeah, around the time I was aging out of LEGOs (so like 12 years ago), someone I knew who'd been a kid in the 70s saw some of mine and was amazed that there were window pieces, which bowled me over.

[torachan]

Well, there were definitely window pieces in the '60s and '70s (both with panes and with shutters), so that person must just not have had any sets with them.

But the sets they had then were mostly for making various buildings, so it was all square/rectangle pieces, whereas now they're for making all sorts of really intricate vehicles and non-traditional buildings, so everything seems to have a special piece just for that purpose.

[eumelia]

I just got back from the film myself and very much relate to what you say about kids playing.

As an aunt, I see the younger generation in my family live a very split existence, on the one hand, they are very fond of computer games, but the younger ones (Bonnie's age, 4-5) are very much into narrative play.
I was into narrative play well into me tweens, at which point I began to RPG with some friends, I missed my stuffed animals and My Little Pony's and blanket tent, but oh well.

Narrative play still works in the under 6's very much and in groups, unless there's a high end consul for multiple players, most older kids will also do narrative play in my experience.

Me? I only play Plants Vs Zombies and Rock Band :)

[starlady]

Rock Band and Settlers of Catan, personally.

Ah, blanket tents; my sister and I made several great ones. And I'm glad to hear that narrative play is still common; I see the proliferation of DVD players in cars here in the States and wonder what that means: probably nothing more than that people watch movies en route, it seems.

[melannen]

I think part of it might be how you know the kids?

I know that I, as a kid, was far less likely to do real narrative play if there were adults (esp. non-trusted) adults around; partly because it's not for performance, and partly because it is best when there are no distractions - if I was in a room with adults who might pay any sort of attention to me, or expect attention from me, and who weren't friends-on-my-own-level already, I would find something to do that wasn't narrative play, that didn't require me to invest as much.

(and also, don't discount online narrative play - a lot of games, especially for younger children, allow for a certain amount of freeform play within the story world; and it's certainly possible (if you're that sort of kid) to do narrative play with more structured games - our generation all remembers just how easy it was to invest too much in your Oregon Trail family, right? And I know I am not the only person who has spent considerable amount of brainpower dreaming up universes in which my Tetris skill saves the world, because several of my friends have admitted they've done the same thing. It's different than the sort of thing I used to do with all the legos, all the lincoln logs, all the star wars figurines, the tonka trucks and three dozen stuffed animals in doll clothes spread over three rooms of the house for an entire week, but it's still narrative play. Kids take the tools they're given but they play their own games.)

[starlady]

Those are good points too! Definitely thinking back when I, or my friend(s) and I or my sister and I, did narrative play, we were usually alone or functionally alone.

Kids take the tools they're given but they play their own games.

At one point I was going to say that kids are anarchists, but I think you put what I was trying to get at better here.

[snarp]

and it's certainly possible (if you're that sort of kid) to do narrative play with more structured games - our generation all remembers just how easy it was to invest too much in your Oregon Trail family, right?

This is true! My sisters and I played Super Mario World "wrong" by clearing the levels of bad guys and then enacting little dramas on them. elongated_tito would tell thegeekgene stories about what was going on while actually playing through the level - like, if there was a particularly hard enemy, she would name him and come up with a storyline wherein this was Mario's rival, and that was why Mario had to be defeated over and over before finally triumphing. She would also name a weak enemy and do a goofy voice for him. (I wasn't coordinated enough to do two things at once like that, so I always had to clear the level first.)

It was also helpful to our narratives if the game was in two-player mode, so that when Mario died, we could switch over to Luigi and have him swear to avenge Mario's death - or else turn out to be evil. And I would declare certain sheltered parts of levels that I thought were pretty to be Mario's "house," and move shells into certain places to decorate.

When we got Mario Paint a couple years later, I obviously used the tile-stamps to design hellish new levels, in which Mario would suffer ever greater trials. I think they both did the same, though this was a more private enterprise.

- I was about to say, "I can't even imagine what sort of hideous things I would have done had I had access to games with actual level editors back then," except that I just remembered the notebook with the sketches for maps for a game about a little witch girl, with physics and art based heavily on Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. I was very mean to this little witch girl.

[torachan]

That is awesome! XD

[spaiku.livejournal.com]

I dunno, as far as kids playing that way these days I think it does still happen, but depends a lot on what kind of toy is being played with. Like little boys seem to be more likely to be playing with video games, which don't lend themselves to independently making things up. But dollhouses and legos and individual stuffed animals/beanie babies or what have you still do, I think. I dunno, something I noticed at the tail end of my childhood that I found worrisome is the tendency for toy branding... like even if a kid has a lot of legos, they are harry potter legos, so she will just be acting out the harry potter storylines instead of making up new stuff. I dunno, we probably don't have a large enough sample population to make any definite statements, and I am inclined to think that this sort of thing directly depends on the intelligence of the child, but maybe I am just biased.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

You are saying similar things to my commenters at DW, hah. The consensus seems to be that I am wrong/my concerns are overblown.

I dunno, we probably don't have a large enough sample population to make any definite statements,

You're such a scientist. :)

Like little boys seem to be more likely to be playing with video games, which don't lend themselves to independently making things up.

Yeah, I was thinking of E & C when I wrote that part, I admit.

[ariadnechan.livejournal.com]

I cry when Andy left the toys in the care of Bonnie!!!
he was so sad and me too!!!

i really love it i didn't see it in 3d too expensive here for 4 people (hubby, children and me) but it really was great and i concur with you about barby and bonnie i play like that when i was a kid i always try nu stories that came in my mind
my little sister always take the barbies with kens to the party, but i never did that the only barbie i had was a pilot, a surviver, an explorer, a mermaid, never had a ken around and i play with my toys until i was 12 and happy to learn more things that i can write.

Awesome!!!

[marian-lyra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the same as you: I love this movie. I consider this the best of the three.
When I came home after seeing it, I wanted to go back to see again. I love it!!! Literally. It's funny, emocional, entertainting and I also fell the excitement when I heard all the people in the cinema laughing and applauding at the same time that I did. I prefer to go to the cinema on my own, but this time it was a pleasure to find it full. This made the movie much better!!!
Thank for some awesome article!
Kisses
PQ'

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