My New Philosophy

"Up" is one of my all time favorite movies. The montage of Carl and Ellie's love story leaves me in tears every single time I watch it. This movie I feel is the most human of all of Pixar's movies, even though it features a house lifted by balloons. This movie expertly weaves through the joy and heartbreak that comes with life. The annoyances of present struggles and the fears of the future. After Carl loses Ellie, he becomes a grumpy old man. The house that he and Ellie built together has come to symbolize her. It embodies her spirit with the mural she painted on the wall and her armchair. When Carl is forced to move from his house, he simply can't move as that means letting go of Ellie. So, he does the rational thing and literally moves his house. Throughout their childhood Paradise Falls has come to represent their dream. When Ellie dies before they are able to visit it, Carl decides to take her to Paradise anyway. Along the way he meets Russell, an adorable

"Brave" is Pixar's feminist take on a traditional Disney princess movie. Something that makes "Brave" stand out from a traditional princess movie is the lack of a romantic prospect or subplot. The movie instead focuses on the relationship between Merida and her mother, Elinor. This movie was very progressive as it focused on a female relationship that did not revolve discussing men or being witty sidekicks. It shows the generation gap between Merida and her mother. Merida refuses to be given away in marriage and proudly proclaims that "I'll be shooting for my own hand". Merida does not fit in the traditional roles of ancient Scotland. She places her bow on the table, climbs dangerous cliffs, and excels at archery. At one point, Merida literally breaks out of her antiquated gender roles as she rips her stifling dress in order to shoot her bow. Elinor represents the older generation that does not understand why progress would be needed when she is

Over Thanksgiving break, I saw the new movie Coco with my family. In a fun twist of fate, it actually happened to come out on my birthday! For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, I highly encourage you to go see it. It was the clever, amazing Pixar we all know and love. Also, this analysis will be spoiler heavy so avert your eyes if you plan on seeing it! Coco takes place in Mexico on Dias de Los Muertos or the Day of the Dead. This movie dealt very heavily with the importance of family and why we have an inherent need to be remembered. In the movie, a person can actually die two times. First, the physical death but the second death occurs when no living person remembers them. This is why family is so important in Mexican culture. On the Day of the Dead, they lay out an offrenda with all the portraits of their family. In order for the dead to pass to the living's realm, their family needs to place their picture on the offrenda. Miguel longs to be a musician but is forced to s

"The Stories that Bind Us" was an article written for the New York Times by Bruce Feiler. The thesis of the paper states that knowing about your family and your family history makes you more resilient. There are different kinds of family narratives that are commonly used in a family structure. The first is an ascending family narrative. This is shown in the song "Started From the Bottom, Now We're Here". This is when the family says that they started with nothing and grew into the family structure that they have today. The second is a descending family narrative. Where they say that they used to have it all, but descended into the family they have today. The healthiest narrative according to Feiler is the oscillating family narrative. This narrative mixes the ups and downs of the family's history. They are very insistent that they got to where they are today by having strong family bonds. I am very lucky to have a strong family. I was able to answer all t

For as long as humans have been alive we have had anxiety about our emotions. What they mean, and how they affect our decisions in life. People are often split between using their emotions or their logic to base the majority of their decisions. For example, in the popular Meyer-Briggs personality test, one of the categories is whether the person is "thinking" or "feeling". Which aspect of their personality they use to guide many of their decisions. In western culture, it is seen as weak to show your emotions. Women are usually considered "weaker" because they are "emotional", and men are only seen to be strong if they constantly hide their emotions. Why has hiding our emotions become such a staple in our culture? Don't our feelings make us human? In the movie, Rylie the main protagonist has five main emotions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear. In the beginning of the movie, Sadness is seen as nonessential. She is literally put inside

A Bug's Life has a strong Marxist theme to it. Marxism deals with class struggles and a rallying cry from the oppressed masses against the bourgeoisie. The ants represent the proletariat. Their only valuable resource is their physical labor since they are uneducated. In fact, the grasshoppers and Hopper especially is against allowing the ants to start thinking for themselves. Near the end of the movie he tries to put Flik back in his "place" by saying, "Let this be a lesson to all you ants: ideas are very dangerous things. You are mindless, soil-shoving losers put on this earth to serve us!" Hopper is smart enough to know that if the ants realize that there are more of them than the grasshoppers, they could easily overpower them. Hopper recognizes the danger of ideas and knowledge. In order to keep class struggles from occurring you need to keep knowledge away from the masses. At the beginning of the movie Flik is disillusioned with how the power dynamic is si