Disney Has Done It Again!

As any great producer, director, and/or author knows, the key to getting someone to enjoy their movie, TV show, or book is get the audience attached to its characters. Think about all the shows and books that you've enjoyed throughout the years.........most likely you found them exciting or interesting because you got to know the characters and felt an emotional attachment to them.
Lately, we've talked about "Reality Shows" on this blog. The common ingredient in each reality show and why one enjoys watching them is the personalities on stage.

Think about that for a second.....the first episode, you're not really into but by the 3rd or 4th, you have been sucked in. Why? Because you've emotionally attached yourself to someone on the show. You want them to be successful. You want them to get the girl or guy and/or "live happily ever after."

Walt Disney knew this better than anyone. He knew how to get his audience "emotionally attached." Therefore, each "Disney movie" contains a common theme: The absence or loss of a parent(s).

Think about the Disney movies that you've seen in the past....most likely each one that you come up with involves a parent of the main character dying in the beginning or he or she doesn't have parents at all.

What does this accomplish? It tugs on your heart strings and makes you immediately attached (emotionally) to the main character. You feel for him/her. You mourn for him/her. And you hope that by the end of the movie, he/she "lives happily ever after."

Well, the latest Disney movie doesn't disappoint. It's called "WALL.E" and I took my boys to see it on Friday. Disney writers have come up with every conceivable storyline trying to weave their theme throughout:

Girl has no parents at the beginning and therefore is a step-daughter (Cinderella, Snow White). Girl's mom dies at the beginning (Bambi). Girl gets ripped away from parents (Sleeping Beauty, Pocohontas). Girl gets lost in a hole and has to survive without parents (Alice in Wonderland). Dad gets injured and daughter must fill in (Mulan). Girl has no mom and a crazy dad (Beauty and the Beast). Girl has no mother and a very demanding father (The Little Mermaid).

Boy has no parents (Aladin, Peter Pan). Boy has no mother (Pinocchio). Boy's father dies (The Lion King). Boy can't live with parents until he proves himself (Hercules). Boy gets dropped off in jungle by parents (Tarzan). Boy has no father from the very beginning (Treasure Planet).

Anyway, you get the point. So now what does Disney do? They create a robot who not only has no parents and no friends but no correspondence of any kind. Yet within 10 minutes of the start of the movie, the little robot watches a movie that includes a romantic scene where the people on the screen hold hands and the robot realizes what he has been missing his whole life: Someone or something that cares for him and loves him for who he is (a loving robot that condenses trash into a small block).

I mean....who couldn't love this robot? Isn't that what we look for in man/woman? Someone that will take our piles of trash (literal and symbolic), gather them up, and put them into a small condensed block...never to be seen again? Talk about true love.....

Anyway, within 10 minutes, we (the audience) are now emotionally attached. We want "WALL.E" to find that someone. We want "WALL.E" to live......"happily ever after."

And so, we watch the movie with anticipation. There is very little dialogue throughout the hour and a half movie but we don't care and we don't notice. All we care about is that "WALL.E" finds that someone or something.

Yes, I knew what Disney was doing. Yes, I had it all figured out. Yes, I knew the ending. And yet, I enjoyed it just like I have the other 30 Disney movies I have seen that have a similar theme.

Maybe we are all just WALL.E's or Snow White's or Cinderella's or Aladdin's or Hercules' at heart and that is why we love Disney movies so much. In the end, all we really care about is for someone to hold our hand in that gentle way that tells us, we are loved and that even through disastrous times (an atom bomb gets dropped in this movie), we will in fact live....."HAPPILY EVER AFTER."