Impromptu Pixar essay:
Pete Docter saying "We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy" is so fucking stupid.
Certain people have been complaining for some time now about Pixar's recent films, as well as modern western cartoons in general, being "the director's therapy." What's wrong with that? Everyone knows that the best art draws from real life, and that a lot of characters are based on real people, including the creators themselves.
So when George Lucas makes Luke Skywalker as his self insert, it's okay. When isekai light novel authors make a generic overpowered MC-kun with a slave harem for the readers to project onto, it's okay. But when a Chinese-Canadian woman, an Italian man, a Korean man, or a gay Mexican man draw from their personal experiences for their stories, suddenly it's wrong?
The original director of Elio, Adrian Molina, wanted the movie to be autobiographical. It was about his experience growing up on a military base and finding his people at CalArts. Elio was going to be gay, have a crush on another boy, wear pink, and be environmentalist, but Molina was soon kicked off the project and Elio's queerness was removed. The movie was sanded down to appeal to everyone, and it still bombed. If you try to appeal to everyone you end up appealing to no one.
Now I don't definitively think Docter is an out-and-out bigot. But saying "oh, gay people are inappropriate for kids" is just a stock homophobic phrase. If kids ask a question about gay characters in a movie, all their parents have to say is "some boys love other boys, and that's okay." And then they'll move on. Gay people are your neighbors, friends, family, teachers. You can't shield kids from reality.
The irony of Docter saying this is also palpable. The guy directed Up:
He developed the fantasy of a flying house based on the idea of escaping from life when it becomes too irritating, which stemmed from his difficulty with social situations growing up. Docter noted the film reflects his friendships with Disney veterans Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Joe Grant (who all died before the film's release and thus the film was dedicated to them).
As well as Inside Out:
Development on Inside Out was green-lit in October 2009, after director Pete Docter noticed his daughter Elie becoming "more quiet and reserved", and began to wonder what was happening internally. Docter invited Ronnie del Carmen, who had worked as story supervisor on Finding Nemo (2003) and Up (2009), to join the project as co-director, a role del Carmen accepted. They sought inspiration from their own personal histories and experiences, and conferred with psychologists and specialists such as psychologist Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, for accuracy.
Speaking of Inside Out, Pixar thought Riley could be interpreted as gay in Inside Out 2 so they tried to tone down her queerness; this backfired because everyone thought Riley had a crush on Val anyway.
Then there's Finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton:
The inspiration for Finding Nemo sprang from multiple experiences, going back to director Andrew Stanton's childhood, when he loved going to the dentist to see the fish tank, assuming that the fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home. In 1992, shortly after his son was born, he and his family took a trip to Marine World. There, after seeing the shark tube and various exhibits, he felt that the underwater world could be done beautifully in computer animation. Later, in 1997, he took his son for a walk in the park but realized that he was overprotecting him and lost an opportunity to have a father-son experience that day.
All these movies are the directors processing their emotions through storytelling. They are effectively therapy. But apparently, it's okay when cishet white American men do it and not anyone else.
Everyone is zeroing in on the Elio queer stuff, but make no mistake, this is all highly misogynistic and xenophobic/racist as well. Elemental was a story that was a metaphor for immigration and interracial relationships, based on Peter Sohn's experience. Luca is about two Italian boys and their ambiguously queer friendship; Giulia was going to be lesbian but Pixar said no. Turning Red is blatantly a metaphor for puberty, and it got some of the worst hatred because it dared to show teenage girls being "cringe" and having fun, as well as discuss periods. I bet people wouldn't react like this if it was about a white American boy having wet dreams.
I still love almost all the Pixar movies and I wanna see Hoppers soon. Whether Docter was parroting what an executive thinks or if this is what he actually believes, we need to hold them accountable so the studio can continue to foster creative, diverse voices without the fear of being silenced.
