This past weekend was the Fourth of July, and we were lucky enough to go down to my parents' condo at the beach. We were even luckier to have my mom go with us -- and babysit Cricket Bug while we had "Date Night." And, like the mature, adult couple that we are, we went to go see Finding Dory.
Photo via TeaserTrailer.com
Truth Talk: I know a lot of people were super excited for this movie but we...weren't. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I prefer Disney Animation Studios movies to Pixar ones -- even though I acknowledge that Pixar films have traditionally been superior in terms of originality, message, and stye. (I really do believe that recent films like Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia are challenging that. Especially since I didn't think that The Good Dinosaur was very good. At all.)
Maybe it was because Finding Nemo was released during my "Disney meh" phase and while I enjoy it, it's not a film I have a deep emotional connection with.
Maybe it's because I thought Dory was a great supporting character, but I didn't feel a strong need for a stand-alone movie devoted to her.
Maybe it was because the trailer seemed like it was basically Finding Nemo all over again. (It wasn't--I think maybe that was a deliberate choice to capitalize on the nostalgia for Finding Nemo.)
But, we see every Disney movie that comes out, so this was a no brainer.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but when I see a Disney movie, it's very hard for me to turn my "academic" brain off. Even when we went to go see Frozen, there was the part of me that was excited to see a Disney Princess movie, and then there was the part of me that was evaluating the film as part of the Disney Princess franchise.
Same goes with Finding Dory. Finding Nemo is popular with my students, and I've had several students write about the characters and their various differences? Handicaps? I don't want to call them "disabilities," because the great thing about the film is that the characters aren't limited. So I was curious to see if and how Finding Dory would approach the same issue.
Going in, I didn't know much about the plot. I really only knew what I had read from two posts/articles. One, was a Facebook post that a friend of mine shared about the film being a trigger for adopted children. I'm not an adopted child, so I can't pretend to understand or predict what reaction a child would have--so I won't comment on that. The other, though, was an article from The Huffington Post, titled "The One Glaring Problem With Finding Dory." (I later read a similar piece, "Finding Dory Is Perfect, Except When It Isn't.")
The basic gist of the articles is that, in a movie that celebrates and promotes acceptance of differences, there are two characters, Gerald and Becky, who significantly undermine the message.
Okay but real talk why do Becky and Gerald from finding dory look cracked tf out pic.twitter.com/CD2JHkRawO— Dan Kats (@DanKats23) June 22, 2016
When I mentioned it to my husband on the way home, he agreed, saying, "With all the talented people working at Pixar, how did this get past them? Did no one say, 'Hey! This might not be a great portrayal, maybe we should revisit it." This guy gets it:
Having seen the movie now, I understand the criticism -- and I do think it's valid. I think. Here's my thought process:i just saw Finding Dory. honestly the shit the writers pulled with 'Gerald' the sea lion was irresponsible and unacceptable— leaf puppy (@n_vermind) June 18, 2016
- To me, the crucial difference between Dory and Nemo is the type of "differences" that are portrayed. In Nemo, the differences were innate -- Nemo's fin, Dory's memory loss, Marlin's anxiety -- things that can't necessarily be "fixed." In Dory, as Sigourney Weaver* repeatedly tells us, the goal is to "rescue, rehabilitate, and release." To me, this is a crucial and fundamental difference: the animals in the Marine Life Institute can be fixed or, at least, helped in some way. The sea lion Fluke had a nasal parasite and Rudder had anemia. Destiny can (apparently) learn to overcome her nearsightedness -- particularly with the help of Bailey and his echolocation (a.k.a. the world's most powerful pair of glasses--get it?). Bailey's issue seems to be one of focus and/or confidence, as his echolocation works cheesily well when he needs it to. Hank the septopus has some undiagnosed condition -- perhaps anxiety? -- in addition to the loss of his 8th limb, which is never really addressed.
- I'm not entirely sure how this connects to Becky and Gerald -- just that portrayal of difference is different -- that characters are serving different narrative purposes.
- With regards to Becky, because I'm not sure I fully agree with the criticism here. As Melissa Wardy points out in her article, "Her appearance is meant to be jarring, and we see characters react strongly to her with little tact or respect. Becky doesn’t talk but she does make strange noises, another punchline. In a movie with only two of the six main characters cast as female, and two of the five side characters as female, it would have been nice to have Becky portrayed differently."
- Again, I'm not sure I agree with the "little tact or respect" comment. Sure, Becky may look a little different -- a little eccentric, even -- but she's shown to be more than competent. Fluke and Rudder tell Marlin and Nemo that Becky is the key to getting into Quarantine -- and she is. Becky has to imprint on Marlin--an act of trust. One she does, she picks up Marlin and Nemo, and carries them to the Institute: yes, she gets distracted on the way, but it's Marlin who diverts their course. He's the one who convinces Nemo to get out of the bucket--and after she's eaten her popcorn, Becky does take the bucket to Quarantine. She fulfills her task. Same at the end of the film -- Becky returns to "save the day," answering Marlin's call and showing up when she's needed. If, as Wardy claims, Marlin is "hostile" to her -- and I think "hostile" is a bit strong -- well, he's "hostile" to everyone he has no patience with. Crush and Dory certainly don't escape his exasperation -- indeed, the action of the movie largely stems from Marlin losing his temper, causing Dory to swim off -- and it takes Nemo, the moral compass of the movie, to point out his mistakes in judgement.
- I struggle more with the portrayal of Gerald...I openly cringed during some of the scenes where he's bullied by Fluke and Rudder, namely because of his appearance. He reminded me a lot of Ed, from The Lion King, who is different from the other animal characters, and not in a good way.
- But, unlike Ed, I think Gerald has a moment of redemption...I think. (Maybe this is just my husband and I trying to understand why the Pixar team would depict Gerald in that way.) So, at the end of the movie, when the climactic rescue scene is about to go down, Fluke and Rudder slide off of their coveted rock, claiming that they don't want to miss the action. Instantly, Gerald appears and becomes "king of the rock." Fluke and Rudder insist that it's just temporary, but we never see them back on the rock. Instead, when the animals are "liberated" from the truck, there's a comic sequence that essentially ends with Fluke and Rudder getting "sucker punched" in the stomach by a giant fish, knocking them backwards and into the water.
- While this isn't an explicit denunciation of bullying and the way that Fluke and Rudder bully Gerald, it is something -- I think. But again, that might just be my attempt to understand how Gerald made it past so many people -- I want to believe that he served some purpose, had some narrative arc, that he wasn't just the butt of a tasteless joke.
- Apparently, Gerald's doing pretty well for himself online -- he's got quite the following. :) Maybe the point about Gerald and Becky is that different people aren't always accepted by people (like everyone in Nemo seems to be).
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