Inessentials

Spoiler-filled discussion of the Toy Story and Bourne franchises

I watched the satisfying Toy Story 3 yesterday, which is not only setting box office records (Pixar’s highest grossing opening weekend) but critical ones (one of the highest rated films on Metacritic, for instance). The story follows the further adventures of the beloved Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the gang, as their owner Andy prepares to leave for college. There are some stunning action sequences (the film’s opening is a highlight) and some emotionally moving moments (a moment when the characters hold hands is especially poignant). But what stands out to me the next day is the rich political messages the film offers.

Firstly, there is throughout the Toy Story franchise an emphasis on the emotional rather than commercial value of toys, most clearly exemplified by the evil collector in Toy Story 2. That gets extended in Toy Story 3 by the film’s final sequence which shows 17-year-old Andy passing on his toys to young Bonnie. In addition to being yet another Pixar paean to imagination it’s a reminder that there is a joy to reusing old toys and passing on those old toys to others when they have more use for them which cuts to the heart of a consumerist aquisition of whatever is newest. Caring for old toys is a recurring theme throughout the Toy Story films, which goes beyond mere nostalgia. In the Toy Story films, imagination plus an old box, a paper plate, and some old toys make a perfectly workable spaceship game that are superior to any video game. (Computer games make a brief appearance in TS3, but the suggestion is that these are best enjoyed as a shared experience rather than a solitary one.) Re-using, sharing, and donating wisely are virtues at the heart of the Toy Story films. Disney may make a billion dollars from TS3 merchandise, but the Pixar folks would rather have you playing with your original Toy Story Buzz Lightyear than replace it with every sequel.

Secondly, and more remarkably, the middle third of TS3 showcases a fascist dystopia from which the toys must escape, The Great Escape-style. The Sunnyside Day Care is run by Lotsa Huggins, who smells like strawberries but rules the toys with an iron fist. In the midst of a Disney-financed blockbuster that will earn hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters, and more than that in merchandising and tie-ins, there is a surprisingly seamless tribute to Animal Farm. Orwell’s novel chronicles how easily totalitarianism can arise within democratic societies and how socialist ideals are easily corrupted. Toy Story 3 runs Animal Farm in reverse, beginning with a totalitarian regime (complete with brainwashing, violence, surveillance, torture) and ends with a benign ruler who encourages everyone to contribute what they can to promote the greater good. Like all Hollywood films, we’re required to have a trauma in Lotsa Huggins’ life that leads him to be such a cold, calloused teddy bear. And it’s not as though Toy Story 3 is running a political allegory of the sort that Orwell offered. My point is simply this: Toy Story 3 is a rich, complex story, and (like all rich, complex stories) it is an imagining of how the world works; such imaginings are inherently political.

It’s become commonplace for film critics to encourage viewers to see a film because it is “apolitical.” This happened a great deal with The Hurt Locker, a film that was praised for being “apolitical.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a truly apolitical film, but it would be awfully dull. Every film is political because every film says, in some limited way, “This is how the world is or could be.” So, sure, The Hurt Locker was not political in some narrow, crude sense of saying you should vote for a particular political party. But it was a highly political film in saying, this is one narrow glimpse of what war is like. In understanding what war is like for a bomb diffuser, we are better able to make political decisions like whether we should go to war. Now, critics say The Hurt Locker was apolitical in part because they wanted people to see a very good film and didn’t want them to avoid it for fear of getting Michael Moore’d by it. And some films suffer for trying a bit too hard to make a political point, such as Paul Greengrass’ The Green Zone. But every film, from romantic comedies to big war spectacles, contains depictions of human beings interacting with one another that can shape the way we understand the world. And your politics grows out of your understanding of people and how the world works.

Discussion of Jennifer’s Body (no spoilers beyond the trailer), Whip It (extremely mild spoiler), and The Hurt Locker (no spoilers)

The early numbers show that Whip It, the roller derby film directed by Drew Barrymore, bombed with $4.9 million in its opening weekend. Jennifer’s Body opened three weeks ago to a disappointing $6.9 million, and has earned less than $15 million in three weeks. That’s a very low number for a horror film that had received a lot of attention. (Compare to Zombieland, which grossed $25 million in its opening this weekend.) I’m a little surprised by how low both of those receipts were, but I think the Whip It numbers were especially surprising. (The people who have seen it have given it very high marks, so at least one person is hopeful that it will have staying power.)

One thing that stands out about these two films is that they are both written by, directed by, and starring women. Jennifer’s Body was penned by Oscar-winner Diablo Cody (Juno); Whip It is Drew Barrymore’s first film as a director; both feature some of the most-talked about young actresses in Hollywood (Ellen Page, Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried). So what happened? Why did so few people go to see this films?

I’m not completely sure why these two films didn’t fare so well, but they both clearly have one thing in common. Not only are women prominently featured on camera and behind the camera, both of these films represent gender reversals of traditionally male genres. Whip It is in large part a traditional sports film in which the hero(ine) must overcome familial obstacles to do what (s)he really loves and take the team to a championship. But this isn’t an all-male basketball or football film in which the female parts are the always-saying-no mother and the always-has-your-back girlfriend, it’s about the bruises-as-power feminism of Drew Barrymore, who has also produced the girl-power Charlie’s Angels films and Never Been Kissed. Jennifer’s Body (which I haven’t seen yet) is supposed to invert the horror genre by positioning the pretty, seemingly defenseless high school girl as the killer, which has a couple predecessors but is still atypical.

It is tempting to say that women will go see “guy films” (sports and horror films), but that guys won’t go see films about women. And perhaps that is the case here. But these two cases don’t seem enough to judge that. (It would be interesting to see the gender breakdown of the audiences for these two films, which might help show who was coming.) What’s sad is that at a time when over 90% of Hollywood films are directed by men, the failure to bring out crowds to these films directed by women can only make it more difficult to see that imbalance corrected. Two of this year’s best reviewed films are directed by women (Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Jane Campion’s Bright Star), but neither of them will shatter any box office records.

But more than just being about larger trends, it’s a shame that people aren’t going to see these films. The Hurt Locker is easily one of the best films of 2009, and it is absolutely thrilling. It’s wonderfully acted, and has more tension and excitement than any film I can remember seeing recently. Whip It isn’t a great film, but it is a good one. It is incredibly likable (an underrated quality) and very well acted. Ellen Page’s performance simply blew me away. I enjoyed her in Juno and Smart People, but I had never before appreciated the subtlety, range, and power she brings to a role that most young screen actors would play for charm and melodrama. You expect the great performances that Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern give, but Barrymore brought something wonderful out of Page, Alia Shawkat, and Kristen Wiig. The film respects its actors, and subsumes all other aspects of filmmaking to draw us into these performances, which are worth it. It’s an incredibly good film, and one worth seeing.