Pixar/Disney
There are many mundane descriptions which might be applied to Monsters, Inc. (2001), such as perfect timing, engaging music, well-drawn characters, a plot of twists and surprises, the tremendous attention to detail in the artwork, and I’m sure they’ve been applied many times before. So let me point out that this is an environmentalist’s movie.
How? On entry, this movie opens on those who are alien to the audience – the monsters in Monster City. And, in this respect, this is also a fine example of the anti-xenophobe movie, perhaps a theme for another time. As it goes, we soon discover how humans figure into this story.
They, or more precisely human children, and their fear and terror at the sight of monsters, are a natural resource harvested by Monsters, Inc, for conversion into energy usable in the city. To go along with that, the children who are the easiest extraction source are also considered toxic. Just the rumor of a child loose in Monster City can cause chaos.
And it’s through the chaos caused by just such an intrusion that our two protagonists, Sully and Mike, begin their own journey from xenophobes to lovers of diversity, thus reinforcing the theme that I’m ignoring. That same transition, though, also applies to the status of the children which they have been deliberately terrifying – beginning the journey from toxic sheep, as it were, to the status of reasoning beings whose dignity they are trampling.
This leads to the scene in which the necessary changes to the moral systems Sully and Mike use to get through life become apparent, and the storytellers helpfully bring out the high points by contrasting Sully’s improving morality with Mike’s stubborn clinging to his old morality. We already Mike to be a materialist, who now clings desperately to the old morality which had brought him so many tangible benefits, from a speedy sports car to a girlfriend. When we see Sully grimly push forward to follow what his new morality tells him is right – saving a human child from torture and likely death at the hands of the antagonists – we also see Mike, still trapped in his old morality which valued things more than the Other – even though he knows the child is more like a Monster than he ever imagined – separating from his best friend, Sully. Mike is headed for a friendless, bitter existence, while Sully may be heading for destruction, and the audience can see that. Sully’s death is only aborted when Mike adopts the new morality and fortunately comes on Sully’s death scene and rescues him.
But lurking in the background is our subject, barely touched on, that the abuse of a natural resource can lead to its cessation. To scare a child is to wear out the fear reflex. This is most vividly exemplified by a fast subscene in which a monster stumbles out of the human domain, terrified itself by the children he had been dispatched to frighten. But it’s also a lingering descant in the continual grousing of the owner of the factory, as he exclaims over the problems of meeting the quotas, and how children just don’t scare as before. In the minds of the antagonists, this developing problem needs to be met by continuing to do the same thing that lead to the problem in the first place, but to the nth degree: children will be captured and the very essence of their fear will be forcibly extracted by machine. With little thought given to the consequences of kidnapping children and quite possibly destroying them, there’s an insistent parallel between them and, well, the parts of modern Western civilization that many environmentalists find offensive – or terrifying.
From here, it’s easy to see the harvesting of laughter from the children, a far more sustainable resource, rather than fear, as a metaphor for striving to find a better solution, no matter the inconvenience, or how it might upset existing power structures. And so we see the story the environmentalist wants told, where we discard that which is harmful, whether physically or morally, for solutions which will hold up for the long-term.
Or, if that was all too silly for you, then just watch this because it’s fun. And pay attention, the detail work is amazing.
Strongly Recommended.
