Author: Minna W

This was one of my favorite animated movies since Tangled, which was released in 2010. The characters and themes were very relatable. The movie started with Ralph and Vanellope talking about what they wanted out of life. The conversation involved topics like monotony regarding one’s job, wanting variety and excitement, following one’s dreams, and wanting stability and how that can mean having to sacrifice certain things. I thought this struggle with stability versus variety is very applicable to people’s lives nowadays.

There were other elements in the movie that resonated with me: Vanellope’s glitching was analogous to anxiety which I thought was helpful and educational in terms of explaining mental health to children. Ralph started out being really clingy but eventually learned that he needed to give Vanellope space in order for them to have a healthy friendship. The big take-home message at the end of the movie was that healthy friendships don’t end even with physical distance.

I also liked the fact that the movie taught people that your biggest enemy is yourself and your insecurities. Vanellope’s insecurities temporarily broke the game Slaughter Race. Ralph’s insecurities created a horrifying monster which broke the internet.

Above all, I loved that other Disney characters showed up in the movie: all the princesses, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, Stormtroopers from Star Wars, etc. The scene when Vanellope met all the princesses and got interrogated was one of my favorites. To figure out if Vanellope is a true princess, the other princesses asked her if she had been cursed, kidnapped, poisoned, or if she had any magical animal companions— which all the traditional princesses had.

The movie parodied the Disney princess trope and even pointed out elements that I have never noticed. For example, I never realized that most of the princesses stare at some body of water while singing about their hopes and dreams: Moana stares at the ocean, Mulan stares at a water trough, Cinderella stares into a well, etc. In a later scene, Vanellope stared into a puddle created from a spilled beverage while deciding what she wanted out of her life. And since each Disney princess had their own song, Vanellope had to sing a song too: A Place Called Slaughter Race. Her dream of living in the game Slaughter Race was very unconventional for a princess. The place had a high crime rate, and it was dirty and terrifying. But it was everything Vanellope wanted because of her desire to race and to have a sense of variety in her life.

There was another scene with the princesses that I enjoyed. At one point, they all get into more comfortable and modern clothes. Each of their outfits and the quote on their t-shirts reflected their characteristics which I thought was super clever. I really enjoyed seeing each of the princesses in a unique context but still maintained their personalities.

And since I can’t resist sharing, my favorite character was Knowsmore, who is the personification of a search engine. His mannerisms were simply hilarious.

My favorite scene (technically not in the movie, but included in the ending credits): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQUxkCeoVM

There were things I really enjoyed about the movie: the breathtaking animation, over-the-top costumes, creative makeup, beautiful soundtrack, and elegant ballet scenes.

I also appreciated that there were people of color starring leading roles: Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer, and Jayden Fowora-Knight as Phillip.

Furthermore, I liked that there were a lot of leading female roles. But I was distracted by and struggled with the movie’s usage of the female form and identity. Once it was revealed that Sugar Plum was the true antagonist, she immediately began making sexual comments about her (male) soldiers, and making weird sexual faces and noises. I felt that this was completely unnecessary. By sexualizing her immediately after it is revealed that she’s evil, the movie relates female sexuality to being ‘bad.’ I think this as a rhetorical strategy ‘makes sense’ because women are generally expected to be ‘asexual,’ unless it is to please her male partner. In this context, a woman who is sexual without a partner is seen as deviant and therefore unacceptable or ‘bad.’

Unfortunately, the sexualized female villain is a common character trope. Think of Rita Repulsa from the movie Power Rangers (2017), Ahmanet from the movie The Mummy (2017), mystique from the X-Men movies (~2003-2017), and the list goes on.

I was also somewhat disturbed by Mother Ginger’s robot, which was a three-story tall woman in an enormous hoop skirt. In one of the final battle scenes, Sugar Plum’s male soldiers crawled up and all over Mother Ginger’s robot. The assault on the female body (especially by numerous male bodies) was very disturbing to me. I did not understand why Mother Ginger’s robot needed to be in the form of a woman.

As I was looking up images of Mother Ginger, I realized that she is traditionally shown in a giant hoop skirt, from which eight Polichinelle children emerge. For this reason, I think it is fitting that she is referred to as “mother.” I could not find any explanations of Mother Ginger’s traditional attire or characterization which I think would be helpful to understand her character in the movie.

Aside from troublesome representations of the female form, I was also disappointed by some cliche moments in the movie. Clara was given the task of saving the Four Realms. When she opened a gift from her mother, she found a note that said, “Everything you need is inside.” Initially thought that ‘inside’ referred to the egg-shaped music box her mother gave her. But later on, she realized that ‘inside’ referred to herself: her inner courage, persistence, resilience, etc.

I would have thought this was clever lesson on building self-confidence, except for the fact that as soon as Clara read the note I knew the plot twist would essentially be the same as in Kung Fu Panda. In the movie, the main character, Po, received a sacred scroll that would supposedly give him the superpower to defeat the ultimate villain. But, plot twist, the scroll only showed Po’s reflection. He was devastated (just like Clara). But then, plot twist, he realized (like Clara), all that he needed in order to defeat the villain could be found within himself.

I was disappointed by the cliche; especially since I enjoyed so many other elements of the movie. If the plot twist was more original and if some of the characters’ motivations and development was more fully realized, the movie would have been, in my opinion, near perfection.

When I see a biography, I always wonder, why did producers choose this story to tell? There is never just one story. There are multiple perspectives and events a producer could focus on. A 2 hour 13 minute movie can only cover so much of an artist and a band’s legacy. So I wonder about the rhetorical choices made in the production of this movie.

I appreciate that there are a lot of layers to the movie: Freddie Mercury’s (Queen’s lead singer’s) sexuality, AIDS diagnosis, how he passed as white, his flamboyant persona, and his struggle with loneliness, identity, and belonging. Even though the movie covered a lot of ground, it missed an opportunity to explore difficult subject topics like the AIDS epidemic and gay culture and relationships. Mercury is one of the most famous people to ever die from an AIDS related complication. Yet, the movie sensationalizes his battle with AIDS. There’s a brief scene in which he coughs up blood, but other than that, he is not shown to be significantly affected by the disease. In reality, AIDS is an absolutely horrifying and ugly disease that demolishes your immune system.

For these reasons, there’s been a lot of controversy about Bohemian Rhapsody. It sounds like producers tried and succeeded in interview the surviving members of Queen and some important people in Mercury’s life. But the movie, as most movies are not, perfectly historically accurate.

The movie has also been accused of straight-washing. Mary Austin was his lover before he fully realized he was gay. When he came out, he and Mary remained close friends. The film did not dive deeply into his relationships with other men, and instead, foregrounds his relationship with Austin. The movie does however, depict Mercury as being sexually liberated: having a lot of different sexual partners and hosting promiscuous parties. Eventually, he met Jim Hutton who was his romantic partner until he passed away in 1945.

I think it is worth noting that in real life, Mercury was partners with Austin and Hutton for roughly six years each. Thus, I would argue, his connection with Hutton and Austin, are equally important. So it feels a little lopsided that Hutton was not a fully realized character in the movie and that he only showed up in two scenes.

Austin’s character, on the other hand, was much more fully realized and important in the movie. I thought it was very powerful to have her support Mercury when he came out. But I felt her character was eventually used to demonstrate how much of a jerk Mercury could be and how lonely he was. For example, when Austin started dating someone else and eventually became pregnant, Mercury became jealous. This scene showed a selfish and possessive side of him. Even though they could not be together romantically or sexually, he was not willing to fully give her up and have her pursue other relationships.

Overall, I thought it was an entertaining movie that gave the audience a taste of Queen’s rise to fame and Mercury’s personal struggles, but it missed a great opportunity to explore the AIDS epidemic and gay culture in America.  

The new adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas left me thinking about what the modifications of a classic story says about our society and its expectations. From the depictions of the Grinch himself, his backstory, and song adaptations, The Grinch offered a more relatable villain deserving of the audience’s sympathy.

In the book published in 1957 and the cartoon produced in 1966, the Grinch was absolutely despicable. He was awful to his dog, Max, and the illustrations of him made him creepy, monstrous, and inhuman. He slithered across the floor, his head rotated 360 degrees like a creature out of a horror movie, and his red eyes and dark wrinkles made him outright scary.

In the latest version, he was fluffier, cuter, more like a 53-year-old, lonely recluse with a potbelly. One of the movie posters even showed him as a child, which evoked sympathy associated with the innocence and vulnerability of children.

The original story did not explain why he was mean. Whereas, The Grinch offered a sad backstory of how he grew up in an orphanage and never had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas.

Another obvious difference was the placement of the iconic song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” In the old cartoon, the song was played during the movie to describe his wicked personality and behavior (with lyrics like “Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing/with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable/rubbish imaginable.”). It was also more ominous because of the singer’s (Thurl Ravenscroft’s) deep, masculine voice. In the newer version, the song was played during the closing credits. This diminished the depiction of the Grinch’s wickedness. The mood of the song was also less ominous. Tyler, the Creator’s voice isn’t as deep as Ravenscroft’s, and the kids singing in the background made the newer version of the song more playful and light-hearted.

Other elements of the movie also helped to create a Grinch deserving of the audience’s sympathy. One of the first scenes in the movie was the Grinch heading to the grocery store in Whoville because he ran out of food. This scene showed that even though being in Whoville triggered traumatic childhood memories for the Grinch, he was still helplessly dependent on the town for his survival.

There were other more subtle moments that evoked sympathy as well. For example, one of the characters pointed out the bottle of green hair dye the Grinch bought (implying he was getting old and needed to dye his greying hair). The act of hiding the physical effects of aging elicits sorrow and grief which shows a more human side of him.

The Grinch invited me to examine why the producers thought these modifications to the story was more palatable for a modern audience. Why do we need the Grinch’s gloomy backstory? Why do we need a friendlier Grinch who’s nicer to Max? I see this trend of humanizing the villain in other movies as well.

Producers seem to be moving away from the ‘bad guys’ versus the ‘good guys.’ Now, there are more and more villains who aren’t ‘purely’ bad. Think of the 1937 version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; the queen was depicted as ‘pure evil’ with basically no backstory. She dies and the audience is supposed to think that she got what she deserved. In the 1999 version of Tarzan, Clayton is driven by greed. He accidentally hung himself in the end, and the audience is meant to feel that justice is served. The list of movies with ‘purely evil’ villains goes on.

Now we have more and more movies that humanizes the villain: Maleficent, Te Kā in Moana, and Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Maleficent is cruelly betrayed by Aurora’s father. Te Kā was once the benevolent island goddess Te Fiti, but after her heart was stolen by the demi-god Maui she became a destructive lava demon. Thanos is a complicated character who killed half of the creatures in the galaxy to prevent overpopulation and the destruction of entire planets. There was a degree of selflessness and sacrifice in his actions; whether or not he is ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ is a controversial topic.

It seems like now, it is not enough to have characters who are ‘purely evil.’ Is it because movie-goers demand more complex villains, or that producers are more inclined to delve deeper into a character’s psyche? I’m not sure. But the humanization of classic villains, including the Grinch, is definitely part of a larger societal trend—perhaps one that strives to understand different perspectives, and to bridge the gap between communities that antagonize, silence, and dismiss one another.

Six years after Wreck It Ralph, the sequel is finally out now. For those intellectuals out there, the movie grapples with themes like sibling-hood, family, nurturance, loyalty, and gender norms. Vanellope and Ralph meet Shank (voiced and based off of Gal Gadot, the actress who played the most recent version of Wonder Woman), who becomes an older sister figure for Vanellope. Ralph becomes jealous because he can’t always look out for Vanellope or give her needed advice as a clumsy older brother.

But don’t worry, that’s not the main plot. This is: “The Sugar Rush arcade cabinet has broken, forcing Ralph and Vanellope to travel to the Internet via the newly-installed Wi-Fi router in Litwak’s Arcade to retrieve the piece capable of saving the game.”

Sounds like a sequel I want to see. Also, all the Disney princesses are in it (!?)

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T73h5bmD8Dc