Under Childhood is a monthly column on children’s cinema—movies about and for kids.
Above: Trolls World Tour
In a period otherwise marked by release delays and cancellations, budget cuts and cinema closures, animated children’s films (like Trolls World Tour, Croods: A New Age, and Scoob!) continue to find success on VOD platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic, a trend owed to an increased demand for home entertainment during lockdown and children’s access to screen time. How such titles have responded to and fared during the pandemic has become central to planning out the next months and years of industry-wide trial and error, which we can observe from the ongoing debates surrounding theatrical windows, streaming-first models, and other questions of exclusivity.
In April, as cinemas closed worldwide, Universal canceled its theatrical release of Trolls World Tour, and instead made the film available as a digital rental. Within three weeks, the film (a karaoke party for kids stuffed with autotuned cover songs, fuzzy felt, yarn, and glitter) generated “more revenue for Universal than the original Trolls did during its five-month domestic theatrical run." Its unexpected success fanned the flames of tension between AMC Theatres and Universal, and AMC subsequently banned Universal's movies until the two entities struck an agreement to replace the 70-day theatrical exclusivity model with just three weekends, after which Universal may release its new films on VOD. (Leonardo Goi, for his Current Debate column, has laid out the many takeaways and possible outcomes of the decision.)
The Walt Disney Company stepped into the soon-to-be rocky terrain of 2020 with its new subscription streaming service, Disney+, launched in November of 2019. Containing films from Disney-owned companies like LucasFilms, Pixar, Marvel Studios, and National Geographic, Disney+ has become an enormously profitable asset during the pandemic as the company reported its first annual loss in more than 40 years. Titles once scheduled for theatrical release, like the live-action remake of Mulan, the live stage recording of the musical Hamilton, and Pixar’s Onward (which premiered at the 2020 Berlinale), were shuttled to Disney+ as the Walt Disney Company announced a strategic “reorganization” that would make streaming the company’s primary focus. Behind-the-scenes, the company also laid off thousands of its Disneyland and Disney World employees, leaving its workers “in an awful lot of pain.”
Disney’s annual “Investor Day” this past December reflected that re-organization, pointing to an incoming legion of 52 films, web series, and other Disney+ originals. This roster includes, among other things, individual movies and shows featuring such figures as Buck the weasel from Ice Age, Dug the talking dog from Up, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, and Mater the truck from Cars. With the immediate reach of direct-to-consumer streaming, this strategic slew of sequels and prequels, spinoffs and multiverses renews the Disney iconography of the past and extends its lifespan for younger audiences, or subscribers.
The word “rebrand” appears about fifteen minutes into Pixar’s Soul, co-directed by Pete Docter and playwright/screenwriter Kemp Powers: purgatory, as it turns out, has “rebranded” as a sleek corporate headquarters, where lives are organized into file cabinets. Previously slated for a theatrical release in June and actually released on Disney+ this Christmas, the film presents an outer world that separates the souls of the dead that await their passing (a peaceful, painless evaporation) from the unborn souls that prepare for Earth. The former is called the Great Beyond. The latter was once the Great Before, but is now known as the You Seminar, a training program managed by “soul counselors” (two named Jerry, and one named Terry, whose job is to count the number of souls in the Great Beyond). Complete with clipboards, nametags, and slideshow presentations, the You Seminar merges new age cosmology (like that of Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet novels) and pop psychology, blending the religious concept of predestination with the format of a wellness retreat or a self-improvement program, where individual qualities can be charted and whipped into shape.
On the day of an important gig playing piano with a famous saxophonist, middle school band teacher Joe Gardiner (Pixar’s very first Black lead, voiced by Jamie Foxx) falls into a manhole. He dies instantly, but his soul (a bespectacled blue blob) manages to escape the Great Beyond and slip into the You Seminar. He learns that the Seminar develops the personalities of all souls before they go to Earth. In a scene that parodies the opening of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, infant souls leave various buildings where they’re assigned specific traits and then dryly introduce themselves to the viewer: “I’m an agreeable skeptic,” one says. “I’m a manipulative megalomaniac,” says another. Mistakenly grouped into the Seminar’s mentorship program, Joe is tasked with helping 22 (Tina Fey), a skeptical soul who sees no reason to live on Earth, find the will to do so. In the process, his own cynicism—piled up from years spent struggling to be a musician against his mother’s wishes that he find a stable job—comes undone.
From Joe’s embittered perspective, his existence prior to his fateful fall and arrival at the You Seminar seems sad and pathetic. In a museum exhibit of his life found at the You Seminar, his mind displays scenes of himself eating in restaurants and watching TV alone, and repeated rejections at auditions, with only the rare joy felt from teaching a talented student or watching a jazz musician. Although the film’s shuffling between the beforelife, afterlife, and Earth might suggest an aspiration to uncover life’s big meaning, instead it offers a modest lesson on the importance of perspective—to live with mindful intent.
An attempt to return Joe’s soul to his body accidentally places his soul in the body of a cat, leaving his body to 22. Despite not knowing what her purpose might be, she discovers a love for quotidian sensations—a slice of pizza, a fresh haircut, leaves in the wind. Notably, 22’s responses to these stimuli never crosses from sensory pleasure (pizza tastes good, leaves feel nice against the palm of a hand) into an intellectual interpretation or nuanced understanding. Skywatching and walks aren’t “purposes,” Joe tells 22, but 22’s zest for life proves that she’s ready to live on Earth nonetheless.
Throughout Soul’s wistful ode to the little things, which calls for us to be attentive and thankful for life itself (note that Joe died because he wasn’t watching his step), lies the recurring suggestion that passion (the engine for the pursuit of one’s purpose) should be moderated. An early scene takes Joe and 22 across “the Zone,” a spot where souls fully immersed in their passions (actors, pianists, gamers, and basketball players) enter a state of focus (also known by positive psychologists as the “flow state”). However, near the Zone, there are also lost souls, consumed by sadness. When asked why those joyously engaged in the Zone are not that different from the lost souls, Joe is warned that “when that joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life.” This word of caution haunts Joe, who starts to feel guilty for being uninterested in anything not related to jazz.
After an intervention by Terry reverses the body swap, and Joe finally plays the long-awaited gig in his human body, he’s seemingly fulfilled his purpose in life. “It’s what I was put on this Earth to do,” he boldly proclaims to the saxophonist. She replies that he’s “an arrogant one [...] you really are a jazz musician.” But Soul does not grant Joe any relief or reward for his pride, and instead sets out to humble the arrogance of the artist with cold reality. After the performance, the film lingers on Joe’s face as he wonders, “What’s next?” At the thought of performing again the next day, then the next, he suddenly becomes sullen. The dream of being a jazz musician dissolves into drudgery. That night, he recalls things like the beach and a delicious piece of pie, and wonders if his passion for music has clouded the other things in life that 22 found so satisfying.
A 2018 Durham University assessment of working life in Disney animated films’ and their central assumptions about "what it is to do work and be managed'' concludes that in Disney’s more recent titles, to escape a demeaning job means to find a more suitable one. Whereas earlier films like Pinocchio (1940) or Bolt (2008) depict a character "being rescued and returned to a non-work environment," in films like Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), and Moana (2016):
"The main characters are rescued from exploitative or poor working conditions, but in being so rescued are delivered to new, more empowering working lives which, we are led to believe, more accurately reflect who they wish to be and who they truly are."
In Soul, the fulfillment of work does not derive from the job or the possibility of a better one but from the worker’s own contentment with life itself, a feeling greater than what the film categorizes as obsessions. So whether a jazz musician or a band teacher (not working is not an option), Joe must accept that there are no perfect jobs and live each day satisfied with what he already has, with his mind and body open to the tiny precious moments that make the mundane an easier pill to swallow. The film’s split between intent and purpose encourages a balance between the two as the key to wellness. This is supported by a simultaneous discouragement against any excess of passion that might tip the scale.
Top: Kiki's Delivery Service
After all, Joe’s “arrogant” conviction that he’s a talented pianist, and that jazz is everything to him, has brought dissatisfaction upon himself with his high expectations. By placing responsibility on Joe for his perspective, and not his circumstances (specifically, the choice his mother expects him to make between a job with health insurance and “gigging” as a jazz musician), Soul dismisses the emotional strength required to have a dream, to persist in a world that repeatedly says no. Among the many ups and downs in an artist’s life, Soul inflates the downs of lonely dinners and failed auditions, and the sadness that emerges after small successes. That this would be a life not worth living is a matter of perspective: When following a passion, a multiplicity of feelings are sure to follow, none of which are static.
Missing from Soul’s depiction of an enjoyment in things like food and nature is how a painter, musician, or gamer can encounter an enhanced beauty of the world through their unique, specialized conceptualizations. But having established that specialization of this sort would be obsessive, the film removes any possibility for Joe to commit to his purpose. Its conclusion is ambiguously motivating, as if Joe, too, has completed a mentorship program. After his spiritual adventure, he steps into the sun, proudly uncertain about the future but just slightly more self-aware. He vows to live “right” (which contains an implicit commitment to work even harder than before) as an expression of gratitude to the corporate leadership of the You Seminar. Unlike countless others, Joe has been given permission to keep his life—and his job.
The last piece of writing advice that science fiction author Octavia Butler offers in her 1993 essay “Furor Scribendi” advises writers to avoid the allure of inspiration: “Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence and practice. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence and practice.” Not only does Soul present Joe’s inspiration to play music as fleeting in the face of disappointments, but it also undervalues his persistence to love music every day, instead characterizing this mature practice as an unhealthy distraction.
After weeks of flying around town and making deliveries, the witch Kiki in Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) realizes that she can no longer fly. Disheartened by unhappy customers and the thought of no longer possessing her one special gift, she falls into a depressive state until Ursula, a young painter, invites her over. Ursula admits to having her own days where she can’t paint at all. She cautions Kiki against trusting her depression as a sign of failure. “Maybe you should just take a break. Stop trying. Take long walks. Look at the scenery. Doze off at noon. Don’t even think about flying. And then, pretty soon, you’ll be flying again,” she says. Implicitly, her recommendation to rest urges Kiki to endure, to persist beyond her present moment. For Kiki and Ursula, worldly comforts are only necessary so much as they rejuvenate the soul to chase their otherworldly passions. Kiki still cannot fly when she wakes from her sleep, yet she’s newly eager to try, and to risk it all over again. Indeed it helps that Kiki has full ownership of her precious gift, and whether she makes her deliveries or not, nothing and nobody can take that away from her.