It
is Halloween 2011 and today I awoke to a winter wonderland. Snow was flying
around outside, there was a thin layer of white on the ground and the
evergreens looked as though they’d been dusted with powdered sugar. Nonetheless,
this beautiful landscape seemed strangely out of place, what with it being
October and all. I thought, well snow isn’t very scary, is it?
I don’t like being scared, so not
having a scary Halloween isn’t an issue for me. If it were, it would turn out I’d
been wrong: snow can be scary. I was driving down the two-lane, 55 mile per
hour speed limit street that accounts for 20 minutes of my 50 minute commute. Everyone
else was either staying inside or were already at their destination, because
the roads were mostly empty. I drove a little under the speed limit, still
getting re-acquainted with driving in snow. The snow rushed around my windshield,
and I felt for a moment that this is what it must be like to hurtle through
space. The snow didn’t look like it was moving: it seemed to be frozen in
place, with my little car displacing it. All these little white dots reminded
me of stars.
Snow became scary—or rather, eerie—when
it stopped falling from the sky. I’m driving along the Glenn highway, and snowy
clouds snake along the pavement, under cars. The whoosh of air and ice makes
creaky noises under the car. And suddenly, snow is scary. It darts around the
pavement, snakelike and with the appearance of dry-ice, as though it were
alive.
The arrival of snow ironically made
me think of Chicken Little. In many—in
fact, most—Disney films, winter plays a small part, if it’s cast at all. There
are a few cute wintry scenes in Pinocchio
and Bambi, but it seems otherwise to
be a perpetual summer. Chicken Little
falls into the perpetual summer category. It seems to coincide with the orphan-or-only-one-parent
theme.
Chicken
Little always makes me laugh. It made me laugh in theatres and I laughed
over the weekend as I watched it with James. He also laughed a lot, which pleased
me. He’s been watching some of the Disney films with me, but not all of them. I
love underdog stories (as does Disney) and I think it demonstrates well that
parents aren’t always perfect; they don’t always do, say or act the right way.
It doesn’t change the way they feel about their child, but they’re only human. CL demonstrates this well with Mr.
Cluck.
Visually, the film is pleasing. The
details are part of what make it so funny. The dogs at the diner, drinking out of a water
bowl and burying their bone-entre in the front yard when the alarm bell is rung,
the dog chasing his tail in the outfield during the baseball game. These little
details help make this very un-real world more believable. By surrounding us,
the viewers, in this imaginary world, they have to make us want to believe it.
We have to be willing to believe that a rooster (Mr. Cluck) is the parent of a
miniature chicken (Chicken Little), that a Turkey can be a mayor, a fox can be
great at baseball and a bully, and that aliens can hide in giant metal
contraptions.
If there’s one thing Disney succeeds
it, it’s immersing their viewers in another world. It’s why Snow White was so successful when
everyone expected it to flop. We become entranced in this character’s life, in
this world that doesn’t and can’t exist. It’s why we still flock to Disney movies.
Who hasn’t cried when Bambi realizes
his mom isn’t coming back? Who didn’t want Pinocchio to become a real boy?
These stories, rendered in pencil and paint, make an impact. It’s why animation
has evolved instead of died out.
When Walt released Snow White, he didn’t make it just for
children. Adults went and saw it as well. It wasn’t until later the animation
was labeled as a medium for children and since then, studios have been working
to prove that label wrong. Dreamworks’ Shrek
actually took great strides, including humor for the adults watching. Chicken Little also has humor for grown-ups.
But Pixar really changed the game—they didn’t just add humor for the parents
and non-children audiences—they tailored the story to be relatable to every age
group. Don’t believe me? Go watch UP
and then we’ll talk. It’s the only film where I’ve ever cried before the
characters even spoke. That’s the power of animation.
Chicken Little is a cute, funny movie.
It’s a fun twist on a classic story. Unlike Bambi,
I probably won’t think of it often after this project is complete. I’ve now
seen it twice, and for the time being, that’s enough. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t
change me. It didn’t challenge how I thought or felt. It wasn’t a hit, but it
wasn’t a miss either. It was just…enjoyable. And sometimes, that’s just what we
need.
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