Toy Story 3

I never, ever thought that it would be at all possible to find significant meaning in a children's movie like Toy Story 3. However, this movie somehow managed to have me on the edge of my seat and nervous for the fate of these plastic toys. If you have seen the first two, you know the background on th movies. These toys belong to Andy, a young boy who LOVES his toys. In this third film, he is going away to college and is forced to choose which toys will go and which will stay. After choosing his favorite toy Woody, the rest of the toys are misplaced in the garbage pile outside. The toys end up in a daycare center, which turns out to be a horrible place for toys. In the midst of this surprisingly funny movie, there is the presence of cultural invisibility. For the most part, it is simply a fun loving film; but if you look close enough, there are some elements that we can relate to our society.

Since all of my blogs seem to take on this doom and gloom of the government spin, I will continue with that trend here. When the toys end up in the daycare, they are so lovingly greeted by Lotsa, short for Lotsa Hugs of course. While he seems all cuddly and sweet in the beginning, we soon discover that he is actually this tyrannical figure in the daycare. He has brainwashed the other toys into believing that their owners abandoned them on purpose and convinced them to treat the new toys badly. When Buzz catches on to what is happening, he resets him to his original settings so that he will forget who his friends are and be loyal only to Lotsa. Now, most children watching this are NOT thinking that this could possibly symbolize our government and how they have somehow brainwashed us into loyalty, but if you can look past the fact that we are dealing with a fuzzy pink bear, there is some pretty obvious symbolism.

One of the parts of this movie that actually had me on the edge of my seat is when the toys are faced with being sent into a furnace at the trash dump. This, of course, is very very bad news for plastic. When the toys realize their ultimate fate, they all link hands and resolve themselves to what is about to happen. They were actually facing the reality of death and showing their loyalty to one another. With this being a kid-friendly film, the miniature alien toys rescue them with the "claaaaw", but in that moment, there was really a deeper significance of what those toys were facing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. The visual and technical aspects were excellent. It was amazing to see how realistic the features of the characters and settings were. I also loved how they really changed everything to match the times: the cars, houses, etc. . . I would recommend this movie for anyone, children or adults.

Families in Media

In class recently, we have discussed how movies speak to the culture of their times. One thing about our culture that is always portrayed in TV and movies is the idea of families. The families that we see in movies today is very different from those of the past. This is not simply because writers and directors thought it would be fun to mix it up, they are writing for the culture we live in. The days of seeing the perfect Leave it to Beaver family on TV are long gone. It is difficult for me to think of a movie that has what would be considered a typical nuclear family as the main characters. Most of these movies are not even trying to make a point about families, but they do tell a lot about the world we live in. E.T. and A Christmas Story don't really have any specific lessons on family, but they do both portray seemingly common families.

I cannot imagine that movies like Knocked Up would have been well received in the 1950s. I recently wrote a paper on the changing demography of American families. There are almost as many children living in single parent or divorced homes than ever before. The movies and TV shows we watch are only portraying reality. Even movies directed at children, like Night at the Museum center around a divorced, single father. While this does not make the movie bad, it is interesting to see how different movies and TV are. It is obvious that writers and directors have changed the topics of the films and the lives of the characters to better relate to the audience.