Disney's Afterlife: Textual Backgrounds
For my final project, I'm going to be looking into Disney's representations of the afterlife, primarily through Pixar's Coco and Soul. I'm not sure what direction I'll be going in right now, whether it be a cultural, time-evolution, or historical approach, but I am undoubtable intrigued about how Disney chose to represent the afterlife to it's international audience of viewers, with a particular appeal to children.
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| Traditional Mexican dancers |
First off, Coco is based around the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos. Director Lee Unkrich was initially inspired by the Mexico pavilion at Disney' EPCOT park, wanting to create a Mexican-centric movie filled with colors, music, and emotion (Giardina). After visiting Mexico, he found there was no better way to present a Mexican story than through the holiday of Dia de los Muertos. The day itself originated as a holiday in Mexico, but has since spread across Latin America, as a celebration of life and love for the deceased. The holiday formed as a combination of Mesoamerican rituals surrounding the Land of the Dead and colonial influences from Spanish celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day ("Day of the Dead"). Unkrich recruited Adrian Molina to be a co-director and provide cultural context for the storyline, with Molina bringing inspiration from his own family into the characters we see on screen. The legends surrounding Dia de los Muertos have evolved since the Aztec origins 3,000 years ago to provide the colorful celebration of life we see represented in Coco.
The story in Coco was uniquely created by the writers at Pixar as a mode of sharing Mexican culture, through 12 year old Miguel and his journey to meet his ancestors for the love of music. The representation of the Land of Dead (shown below) in Coco was intended to be a layer history of Mexico, with Mesoamerican pyramids on the bottom, colonial buildings on top, then Revolution-era buildings, and finally modern construction on top (Giardina). I thought Coco provided an incredible representation of Mexican culture, one that could be easily grasped and enjoyed by viewers of all ages respectfully (especially following Disney's controversial attempt to trademark "Dia de los Muertos") and without lecturing the audience. I think Miguel's journey (and really that of his entire family) was a fantastic medium to share the story.
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| Coco's Land of the Dead |
The inspiration for Pixar's Soul is a little less obvious. The film is a bit more unique in its derivation, sprouting from writer and director Pete Docter's thoughts of what makes a life a good one. Kemp Powers also wrote the film, pulling inspiration for Joe's character from his own life. Disney shared this process via Twitter below. Pete Docter is known for his ambition in the tales he tells at Pixar: he previously created Monsters Inc, Up, and Inside Out: all known for the deeper messages that everyone feels. In creating Soul, Docter said the spiritual/religious aspects (dealing with the afterlife) and cultural considerations (with the African American main character) provided a careful challenge, especially with many young kids watching this movie in their formative years (Asay). Ultimately, I really like how the film turned out. It didn't provide a clear afterlife in one form or another, but rather a simple in-between state where Joe existed as well as the souls that hadn't yet lived on Earth ("The Great Before").
Experience the spark that led Pete Docter and Kemp Powers to create the story of #PixarSoul. Don’t miss the film, now streaming on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/ZSFC2dUnrv
— Pixar (@Pixar) December 29, 2020
One quick parallel between the two films: I love how they both start with the main characters entering the afterlife and terrified of it, but realizing the value of their lives by the end of the movie.
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| Miguel entering the afterlife in Coco |
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| Joe's initial panic from Soul |
As a side note, another intriguing (and recent) interpretation of the afterlife from Disney was a deleted scene from Avengers Endgame. The clip is included below, but we see Tony Stark in some post-life form meeting his grown-up daughter. Like the other two texts, Tony exhibits fear at first, coupled with sadness, but it is mitigated by the love of family.
Asay, P. (2020, December 22). What's the heart of Soul? A conversation with Director Pete Docter. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.pluggedin.com/blog/whats-the-heart-of-soul-a-conversation-with-director-pete-docter/
Day of the dead (día de los muertos). (2018, October 30). Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/day-of-the-dead
Giardina, C. (2017, December 12). 'Coco': How Pixar brought Its "day of the Dead" story to life. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/coco-how-pixar-brought-day-dead-story-life-1065932
Jack,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the tie-in to the MCU--I wish they kept that scene in, as it gives the viewer one last chance to see Tony's stark confidence (bad pun, I know).
I find it interesting that you think Disney wants to inspire introspection in its younger demographics, using death as a utility. In real life, we don't tend to visualize what the departed is saying/doing after they're gone, but movies give us the chance to do so. That's what makes these two Disney movies powerful, isn't it? They allow us to see the dead one last time, and they're usually depicted as reflecting on their time when their alive. This was especially evident in the case of the deleted scene, where we know Tony is dead, yet we still see him reconciling the decision he made when he was alive by speaking with his daughter. As we get older, we tend to reflect more on our lives, mostly because we have advanced our position to the grave; however, it's also because we have quite literally lived and seen more. Children have not lived very long, so their introspection will likely be very different from that of an adult; that's why I'm wondering why Disney might be targeting this audience. Are the interpretations of the movie supposed to be the same across age gaps, or are they different? I think you have a really good topic because you have a lot of questions that you can answer. Excited to hear where you go next.
Something that's always struck me about the way that Disney movies depict the afterlife is that they always do it with this sense of whimsy. There's the pastel-wonderland of The Great Before, the breathtakingly gorgeous afterlife in Coco (my 2nd favorite thing Disney has ever animated after the setting of Moana). Also, everything death-related always glows, which I always thought was kind of weird. It's such a contrast to how we usually think about death (maybe because of the need to be child-friendly, but I find that it appeals a lot to grown-ups too), and I think it's really cool how they do that.
ReplyDeleteI think that what Alex said about these movies using the afterlife to let characters reflect on their life was a really great observation, especially when we're talking about Soul, which to me seemed less about what happens when we die and more about what makes life meaningful. Coco did that too (death in general kind of does that), but I do think it more directly addressed the "how do we live on after we die" question than Soul did.
You mentioned that a direction that you're thinking of going in is a cultural approach, which I think would be really cool, especially when comparing the differences in the afterlives presented in Soul and Coco. I thought that Soul's afterlife was more reflective of the more Western, individual notions of happiness that we talked about in class -- it was all about finding yourself, and your special reason for living, and your own individual journey through life. It definitely included meaningful relationships, but I felt like it was framed more as "in order to find meaning in your own life, you have to build meaningful connections with others" instead of community being the goal itself. Coco was more outward focused -- it was more about how the mark of a life-well lived is the way you've impacted others. Family was presented less like one important ingredient of a good life and more like the goal of life itself (or maybe the measure of it?), which might reflect cultural ideas about the importance of oneself vs the importance of community. It's especially interesting that both views can exist comfortably together under the Disney umbrella, which I think is really cool.
Also, the fact about the historical layers of the afterlife in Coco blew my mind. The level of detail in that movie is absolutely amazing.
First -- full disclosure: I had (somehow?!?) never seen that deleted scene from Endgame. I knew that Katherine Langford had been cast as Tony's adult daughter but....the end? Where he says "I love you 3000?" My kids have recently started saying something similar -- my daughter says "I love you 55" because its the largest number to her -- and I may or may not have started bawling in my office.
ReplyDeleteWhich really brought home the authenticity at the heart of these epic, fantastic, superhero films...
....and perhaps the universality of those films? In this instance, I'm thinking specifically of the Marvel films, because they've grossed an insane amount of money worldwide, so there must be something about them that resonates around the world.
But I'm wondering if the same could be said of Coco and Soul? I absolutely agree that part of the motivation is "let's not offend anyone because that could hurt revenue." But to me, that seems like more of an executive decision, rather than a creative one. (And I realize that Disney is a corporation so they are inextricably linked but still...) I wonder, if, on the creative side, there's an effort to focus on the similarities among afterlife depictions? Or maybe even universal concepts that resonate globally? This may be a semantics/rhetoric thing, but these are extremely creative people who believe in the value of the arts, and the power of the arts. It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that they might be trying to focus on what we all have in common, and what could bring us together...