Theorizing the Adorable: Some Film Reviews

SO, I’m not sure if it’s the fact that there appear to be consistently more and more cartoons released every year and great quantities always ensure lower quality, or I am simply more skeptical of them, or if studios simply can’t afford to hire writers who can put together a family movie that appeals to both children and adults, but I don’t seem to be quite up on the cartoon wave lately.

The last cartoon I paid money to see in a theater was Toy Story 3. And it was totally worth it. Those Toy Story people know what they’re doing; they really do. But do I even need to see a mess like Kung Fu Panda or Mars Needs Moms to know they suck? Probably not.

Lately, however, I have been on something of a cartoon kick. In keeping with my promise to write about films, I have put together some mini-reviews of the most recent cartoons I’ve watched. Each review is, of course, themed, since, as we all know, ideology is at its most coherent in children’s entertainment. Just ask Jerry Seinfeld (*&^%!ing B Movie)...

Puss in Boots (Dreamworks)
Theme: Postcolonial Studies
Not bothering to disguise its blatantly reductionist view of Mexicans, this film delights with colonized cuteness. Its hero, a sexist cat named Puss, engages in various adventures in order to clear his name of a crime he is framed for by an evil, effeminate egg (a triple redundancy, of course).  The films’ human villains, played by the excellent voice talents of Billie Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, are fat, ugly hicks from the American South. Thus the film perpetuates not only nostalgia-ridden images of a recent yet un-colonized Mexican past that never existed, but it also portrays women (aka eggs) and American Southerners in a derogatory light, privileging the ideal feline race. Despite these rankling issues, cuteness, whether colonized or not, does have its delights.
Grade: B+

Colonized by cuteness.

Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Dreamworks)

Theme: Marxist Theory
Primarily done through stop-motion animation, this film naturally seeks to overturn the ideologies of mainstream CGI animation. It is a searing study of traditional British class struggles. Wallace makes money by taking care of his fellow citizens’ garden pests as they prepare for the town vegetable contest, which is run by the landed aristocracy, epitomized by Lady Tottington and her trigger-happy suitor, Victor Quartermaine. Although Quartermaine is obviously coded negatively, Lady T.’s character functions to dissociate aristocracy from power even while re-inscribing power within her domain. Though what many British might call “off her head,” the character of Lady T., with her obsession of saving rabbits instead of hunting them, ironically declares the power of life still in the hands of the owners of production rather than the hands of the proletariat, as epitomized by Wallace. His latent anger at being left out of the means of production means he is relegated to the service industry (as exterminator), and that his anger eventually manifests as the ravaging power of the were-rabbit that devours the bloated vegetables of bourgeois contentment. The film’s irresistible appeal functions as a warning that we ourselves may be complicit in the powers that occupy us.
Grade: A

Wallace's exclusion from the means of production through his relegation to the service industry.

Gnomeo & Juliet (Disney)
Theme: Radical feminism
A modern-day, garden-gnome themed revision of the Shakespearean classic, Gnomeo and Juliet, while distractingly adorable, is unable to break from its misogynistic roots. Juliet, a “Red,” sneaks into a neighboring greenhouse in disguise, where she meets Gnomeo, a “Blue,” who is also in disguise. Like the Bard’s originals, they fall instantly in love without knowing their true colors. In the hot house of desire, they tussle over a flower, an overt reference for Gnomeo’s patriarchal privilege and his ability to snatch Juliet’s “flower” at will. The cartoon Juliet is constantly associated with flowers, and even her ninja disguise only serves to accentuate her feminine curves, dissociating her from the realm of the mind and intellect and firmly rooting her in her body--a motif that is literalized at the end of the film, when her father glues her feet to the garden castle that she usually adorns voluntarily. Classic songs by Elton John suggest a possible undercurrent of campy rebellion that is sidelined by a final emphasis on happy endings that reinforces the hetero-marriage plot of canonical fiction.
Grade: A-

Gnomeo and Julie struggling over Juliet's flower.

-UK.