Post-Loll: When Somebody Loved Me
Follow up to last nights Lollards. It is difficult to describe the horror of something visual on the radio. My dislike for the Randy Newman penned, Sarah MacLachlin sung “When Somebody Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 is less about the song itself, but rather its role in the film. So here is an in context clip for you:
In particular look at the deathlike glassy mask on Jessie’s face when Emily is playing with her on the horse.CREEPY! Now clearly I have more ontological issues with this than the average eight year-old kid, but nevertheless even taken as it is within the film the subtext of this song is appalling. Within the film, which is a rollicking adventure about toys, there is this heartbreaking song about what happens when you no longer play with your toys. It interrupts the flow of an otherwise great movie, and injects an air of horror into the proceedings. Woe betide the parent who decided on a bit of decluttering before the trip to see the film.
What I grappled and failed to talk properly last night about is despite this bizarre and wrong-headed morals, the Toy Story films are great. And indeed stories where the heroes are the naughty kids, or bad, set a trend for what we will later enjoy as fiction. Oddly though the Toy Story transgression is thematic rather than within the characters. Much is true of all Pixar films (the moral of Monsters Inc is that scary monsters EXIST, but they are scared of us!) So I would agree that this could well be the saddest song ever written, and therefore is hugely out of place in this film.
My other contention is this film works best for the parents of young children, going from the transition from the childs unconditional love of them, to the more complex relationships that spring up. I wonder, of the kids weaned on Toy Story over the last ten years, if there are parents out there who now wheel it out for their own memories of watching these films with the kids. (Don’t start me on Shrek).
And for more battles of sadness, here is the Poruguese version of the song in a fado style.
And an Arabic one (which I think is the best)
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FT's Alan on February 14th, 2008
Thanks Pete. I am now crying at work. There is an objection to be had in there somewhere - akin to the thing in Narnia with Susan being more interested in boys and makeup, where Narnia = the secret life of toys. But actually though that is still a sound mark against CSL, it doesn’t hold in Toy Story cos in the end they decide that yes kids inevitably change and outgrow them, BUT that this is good, and they will be along for the joy and pain of that ride.
I agree about the appeal to parents with growing up children btw - i don’t think that needs much contending.
Kat but logged out innit on February 14th, 2008
Kids will inevitably grow up and go to DANCE PARTY which can ONLY be a biting comment on today’s druq-fuelled society </M Whitehouse frothing at mouth>
Andrew Farrell on February 15th, 2008
Pete you utter menk, that is the best part of one of the best films of the last 10 years*! It totally doesn’t disrupt the flow of the film, it is both foreshadowed by Jess’ freakout about going back in the box, and as Alan says is part of the theme of the movie, of enjoying your life now. And yes, WOE BETIDE those parents. For the kids who don’t have a hamster, goldfish or other small pet (or an older relative with a dicky heart) the moment when you realise that the toy that was taken away for “cleaning” isn’t coming back is the first touch of death. Which is very up front and center in the movie from the start, when they find Weezy the penguin.
This undercurrent of horror is one of the things I like the most about the Pixar movies, like the late scene in Finding Nemo which shows a completely confused Dory utterly lost without her friends. Or the moral in Monsters Inc that the true monster is the Businessman In His Suit And Tie. Particularly when he is also actually a monster.
* I am aware that you are not arguing against the last part of the sentence.
Jack Fear on February 15th, 2008
Disruptive? Appalling? Bizarre and wrong-headed morals? I have no words.
I’m sorry, Pete, but your reading of the films—from what I can glean, because you’re not laying it out particularly clearly*—seems to me a spectacular case of Missing The Point.
From the start, the TOY STORY movies were about transience—the new displacing the old. It’s a tight thematic weave, and it shows up everywhere, from the first scene of 1—where the toys are dreading Andy’s birthday party and the arrival of new toys—to the last line of 2 (”It was fun while it lasted”). Buzz displaces Woody as favorite; the family moves house; the puppy displaces the baby in the interim between movies; “Woody’s Roundup” gives way to science fiction in the wake of Sputnik; et bleedin’ cetera.
The movies work on a lot of levels, but they’re very fundamentally parables about the inevitability of change, and the importance of accepting same and defining for yourself a new place in the new landscape. That accounts, I think, for their resonance with children across a wide range of ages—who recognize themselves at various spots along a continuum of change and growth—as well as with parents, who are navigating their own shifting relationships with their kids.
My oldest is in early adolescence, and mingled with the pride of seeing her grow into a sharp, funny, creative young woman there’s a pang of loss for the direct, uncomplicated love of childhood. But things change. It’s the most fundamental truth, but also the hardest to accept. The TOY STORY movies don’t flinch from that, and that’s why, to my thinking, they’re miles better than any of the other Pixar movies, with their facile, easy-to-swallow “family is great” / “believe in yourself” messages.**
* Be it noted I haven’t yet finished listening to the ep of Lollards in question—you may lay it out in more detail there; there may be a follow-up post once I’ve digested your point.
** except possibly THE INCREDIBLES, which I find both hugely entertaining and politically problematic; while it’s the match of TOY STORY for emotional complexity, it’s also kind of repugnant.
Jack Fear on February 15th, 2008
Ah. having listened to the podcast in full, I note that you do (albeit briefly) touch on the notion that the toys are, in a way, a stand-in for the parents—but I still think you’re dead wrong about the core message of the films.
I don’t know where you get the notion that the films are saying that the relationship between the kids and the toys must stay static and unchanging and strictly codified (i.e., they must be played with “properly”)—most of the screen time is spent by the toys trying to adjust to a changing status quo—resisting and denying, but in the end giving way gracefully.
It’s much more explicit in 2 than in 1, I’ll give you that; but I think 2 is the better film for it.
Pete on February 15th, 2008
Perhaps my problem with the films (yet again, absolutely underlining that I think both films are as terrific as everyone else does) is routed in where your sympathy lies. Perhaps I overly identify with Woody, being a wooden toy myself, but I get an ontological problem with the set-up of the films. OK OK, I know they are fiction, and kid-lit at that, but the devoted subjugation of the toys to their masters is probably at the heart of my distrust. These are funny, sparky intelligent toys - for their goal in life to be “to be played with” seems such a shame. It gives me a subtext (and I know I am our on a huge limb here) that in the end the greatest satisfaction in life comes from doing what you are supposed to do, to surrendering your free will to THE MASTER.
But I am probably reaching a bit there. My actual dislike of Jessie’s song is its over-sentimentality, it beats to death a theme which I already got from its well written script.
You’re right about the issues of change and lack of permanence in the films, and they are pretty well tackled themes. However the creative play aspect does bug me, because it is in the end what Sid the neighbour is demonised for. Perhaps there is a fine line between breaking / destroying something and creative play - but Sid just seems cleverer, more interesting despite his own merciless bullying from his sister. Perhaps he is “taking it out” on the toys, but then he doesn’t know they are alive!
Apologies for lack of clarity, I have always felt uneasy about these two films (despite loving them) and it is an disquiet I have as yet not found an adequate way to express. It may just be that I hate Randy Newman!
Jack Fear on February 15th, 2008
It gives me a subtext (and I know I am our on a huge limb here) that in the end the greatest satisfaction in life comes from doing what you are supposed to do, to surrendering your free will to THE MASTER.
Oh, I don’t think you’re out on a limb at all. The first film, in particular, functions as a theist parable par excellence, and you’re surely not the first to think it.
What astonishes me is that some nitwits seem to think that TOY STORY presents an atheist viewpoint:
Which might be clever, were it not for the fact the shattering truth that Buzz discovers (and that Woody already knows) is that they are not alone—that they are beloved of and protected by, that they serve and are served by, that are created to love and to be loved by, a huge and powerful entity: and that all their illusory activities in this world are vain and pointless and that the way to true fulfillment is to surrender oneself to the service and trust of this benevolent entity…
Jack Fear on February 15th, 2008
Also: you seem to be assuming that the toys, as the main protagonists, are stand-ins for the audience. And I think the movies are a lot sneakier than that.
Instead of toys = kids, and kids = masters—i.e. parents—I think it’s exactly the opposite: kids = kids, and toys = parents—in the sense that their function is to love the kids unconditionally, to suffer all indignities with patience, to be there when the kids need them and to give way graciously when that’s no longer the case.
I think, in watching the films, kids don’t want to be Woody—they just wish they had one just like him (brilliant for merchandising purposes, obv—the characters come pre-commodified!). I would argue, therefore, that the films are an exercise in empathy, rather than a vicarious acting-out.
(MONSTERS INC. does much the same thing—inviting the audience to identify with characters who are fundamentally unlike themselves; familiar figures, but on the other side of the power divide. Or imagine a school story, written for kids but told from the POV of a teacher.)
That’s why Woody’s “revenge” near the end of 1 was so off-note and terrifying; Woody becomes, suddenly, the threatening drunken Dad, and there is no place of safety (”We’re always watching you, Sid…”)