What if I told you they were preparing us for the future? What if I told you Pixar’s films will affect how we define the rights of millions, perhaps billions, in the coming century? Only by analyzing the collection as a whole can we see the subliminal concept being drilled into our collective mind. I have uncovered the skeleton key deciphering the hidden message contained within the Pixar canon. Let’s unlock it.

The Hidden Message in Pixar’s Films
> Catena Ex Situ

Found via The Disney Blog, here is a  video essay on YouTube™ entitled Sexism, Strength and Dominance: Masculinity in Disney Films. Some brief comments afterward.

I found the essay to be short-sighted and reductionist. He seemed to cherry-pick the characters which fit his thesis (mostly from Beauty and the Beast, which is often used as a dead horse for essays of this nature). For every shallow example he brings up, a counterexample could surely be found. Off the top of my head: characters in Tarzan, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound. The topic of the representations of masculinity and femininity in Disney movies is worthy and interesting, and deserves better. For a much more thoughtful and insightful discussion (without the crutch of video clips or lame This American Life-esque background music), see the very excellent over-analyzation Mulan: A Modern Rescripting of the Classic Romance.

• “I don’t know if Disney has a house rule about which animals can speak and which cannot, but guidelines seem to be emerging. The rule is, if you are a predatory carnivore, you don’t talk, but if you are a pacifist, a vegetarian or cute, you do. In Tarzan, the apes spoke, but the leopards didn’t. In Dinosaur, all of the creatures speak, except for the vicious carnotaurs. A Faustian bargain seems to be at work: If you are an animal in a Disney picture, you can speak, but only if you are willing to sacrifice your essential nature.”
  -Quoted from Roger Ebert’s review of Dinosaur >Catena Ex Situ
• A black & white Betty Boop in Who Framed Roger Rabbit was employed a cigarette girl at the Ink & Paint Club circa 1947. She bemoaned how “work’s been kind of slow since cartoons went to color”. Perhaps Miss Boop forgot about her starring role in the 1934 Fleischer Color Classic “Poor Cinderella.”
  -Contributed by Brendan S.
• In Ratatouille, whether Remy walks on all-fours or on two feet depends on his mood:
  “If he feels exuberant, he tends to be more upright, and his hands pulled back. Later on, when he feels shame in front of his father, and [his dreams] have all turned into disaster, he folds back in again. It’s not just a mannerism. It’s a thing that helps tell the story.”
  -Quoted from an L.A. Times interview with Brad Bird >Catena Ex Situ

This submission is an old one, but was never added to the site.

Contributed by Miguel L.

As recently as Tarzan we see Disney’s new target of ridicule. The baboon tribe was seen instantly as vicious, heartless monsters who attack the helpless in overwhelming swarms. Strangely enough the baboons weren’t even the villains of the movie and showed a steep contrast to the anthropomorphic peace-loving gorillas (which was the founding reason for this whole movie- gotta have some animal, vegtable, or mineral that talks). One would suggest they represent the individuals who’ve left society and banded together to punish those that are civilized. In the end they help the good guys because that’s often the cause for the intellectual- to rile the ignorant masses to do their job- it sums up quite a bit of human history.

A very similar example hails from Disney’s current rival, DreamWorks. In Antz you have the terribly de-humanized termite army (fresh from battling with space marines) who are intended to draw fear and nightmares from the kids. Once again, those bugs aren’t the villains- in fact this time you have blatant political symbolism to fascism battling socialism… but only among the human-faced ants. Why place psychotic termites in the story at all? The gimmick is it’s supposed to show life through the ants POV but this isn’t some parody of sci-fi horror/action. As far as we can tell both arthropods are equals- it’s just that the ants got to look REAL good for no real reason. Unrelatively, I’ve seen plenty of nature documentaries to prove otherwise (ants only invade termite mounds to steal their very bodies for food!). It’s fair to say different species of ants have instinctively fought real battles when they crossed paths. Being the animator, would you have intentionally-humanoid ants fighting in the tradition of Braveheart …or… humanoid ants fighting H.R. Giger’s interpretation of ants? It’s sadism versus hypocrisy.

You can catch more of those cartoon demons -all brainlessly thought up and deserving of death- within the Mongols in Mulan, the entire species of housecats in An American Tail, and various predators in Land Before Time (it’s simple nature that carnivores have to have more intelligence than herbivores in order to survive- where would they come from?). The list really goes on forever. What you may not realize, is this trend of de-humanization has existed long before animated cartoons. In fact, political cartoons and caricatures were the birth of all cartoons to begin with and has been a staple for thousands of years. Any artist will draw a new character or symbol that transpires some of their own bias and ideals into it, sometimes without knowing. The result is simply to draw a certain emotional response from the audience- positive or negative (sometimes it’s done for pure initial deception). So just be armed with the plain old truth that you’re just looking at moving propaganda fed to kids all the time