Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
Upper Secondary School Teacher Training in
English Language and Literature
Bc. Nika Göthová
Male Roles as Presented in Animation Movies Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph. D.
2019
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Author’s signature
I would like thank To my supervisor, for his patience and willingness to help To the heroes of my family, who kept other responsibilities at bay To Sir von Newhouse, for he kept positive energy and sugar dose coming To all the librarians and those who bought the new computers in the lib. And the many others, not for the thesis, but for the years of teaching me and creating me And to the best of all my teachers, though he would not understand it here, he sees it from above and knows.
Table of Contents Introduction ...... 5
Theory ...... 8
Selection and analysis of data ...... 21
Characters ...... 27
Physical Appearance...... 27
Accent ...... 32
Character in Relation to the Story ...... 35
Characters and Society ...... 48
Conflict ...... 57
Conflict Stages in Finding Nemo...... 65
The Message of Conflicts ...... 69
Case Study: How to Train Your Dragon ...... 73
Synopsis ...... 73
Analysis ...... 75
Conclusion ...... 88
Works Cited ...... 91
Summary ...... 98
Resumé ...... 99
Introduction
The world of animation has changed over the last few decades. The companies attributing to it multiplied and so did the number of movies presented to the viewers.
The primary target audience for most of the movies, however, stays identical: children.
The influence of movies on this age group is growing. The entertainment industry slowly takes over time and some roles that previously belonged to parents and school and becomes one of the most common sources of information of the children of the western world. The influence originates in cinemas, home screening, the internet, advertisements and even toys. This thesis explores the message the animated movies send about the role of sons and fathers in the family and in the society.
Due to the importance and common occurrence of family in the world of children, the representations of the fathers and sons are not scarce in animation movies.
Many movies try to offer a character that can become a target of identification of the viewer. And that character should have a family, hence, at least one relative. This thesis argues that such common representation of the roles of father and sons in the animation movies create patterns. These patterns arise from the combination of characteristics of the figures in the target roles, and their place in the plot presented in the movies.
This thesis recognises that a pattern connected to a character in a certain role is not bound only to the character as an individual but to the complexity of his representation. The patterns thus can be found in connection to the looks of the character, their mentality, reactions, sociability, values or the place a character has in the plot of the story
The milieu and complexity of the animation movies and of their influence on the audience is explored in the first chapter. Although the thesis concentrates more on textuality of the movies, animation movies have been created by a specific process that
5 makes the product distinct from all the other movies. The specifications of genre, of the target audience and a basic introduction to present stage of research are briefly explained in this chapter. They are followed by an insight into the methodology and process of collection of data.
A selection of a specific animation studio was considered unessential, as the focus is on the receptive, not on the productive side of the movies. Instead, the material was chosen according to several conditions. The most important one was the earnings of the movies in the box office. This condition allowed for selection of probably the most influential material. However, it also secured a place in the corpus only to the US made movies from several studios. The studios supply only a limited number of producers and creators of the movies, which is probably one of the sources of the coherence in the message of the movies.
This thesis recognises that a pattern connected to a character in a certain role is not bound only to the character as an individual but to the complexity of his representation. The patterns thus can be found in connection not only to the mental and physical aspect of a character, but also to the manned of their reactions, sociability, values or the place the characters in the plot of the story.
This is why the second chapter is dedicated to the description of patterns concerning the representations as individual beings. It explores the patterns of physical, vocal and mental qualities among the representations of the target roles. The chapter also shortly addresses the place of the selected characters in the societies in their respective movies, the position and relation to the society.
The last aspect of the patterns in the depictions of fathers and sons is their position in the conflict. The third chapter represents an attempt to describe whether depiction of fathers and sons are necessarily connected to conflicts and whether these
6 are minor or major conflicts in the stories. The text comprises a short analysis of reasons behind the conflicts on both sides and tries to identify a pattern of the development of the conflicts from their birth to the closure. Further implications of the conflict patterns and thei influence on the perception of the target roles are described at the end of the chapter.
The argument is concludes with a case study on animated movie How to Train
Your Dragon. In this case study, I attempt to analyse the elements described in the rest of the thesis and demonstrate how the individual pieces compose a wholesome picture.
The application of decomposed particles of the target roles to the movie and comparison of the conclusion of my analysis in the synthesis of the movie is supposed to demonstrate that the separate parts composed into a one image really sent the messages identified in the separate parts of the thesis.
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Theory
Animated movies have found their target audience and their place in the cinema industry. Some of them can be found among the highest grossing movies in the US. The highest grossing animated movies, The Lion King (1994) or Shrek 2 (2004), are comparable to movies from long term projects such as Star Wars or Avengers (Box
Office Mojo). Generally, however, animated movies tend to gross less in the cinemas than movies which target mainly the adult audience. Nonetheless, they extend their influence through the screens at home.
The influence of animated movies on the whole family overreaches the cinema experience. First of all, although the animated movies are primarily designed for children, this is not the only target group. The producers anticipate the inevitability of the presence of parents in the audience. This means that producers are trying to create a multi-layered movie that can be enjoyed by multiple age groups (Booker XXI, Shepard
176, Kümmerling-Meibauer 39). Second of all, for many families, the experience of watching a certain animated movie is not limited to cinema. Box office, as the main indicator of the popularity of movies, was introduced in this essay from practical reasons as it is an easily accessible and a relatively general indicator. The degree of influence of movies on society is a much more complex issue. Animated movies exercise their influence extensively even outside of cinemas, since it seems like for many families the real and frequent contact with the content of an animated movie starts at home. According to Booker, children tend to watch the same movies again and again
(Booker XXII). The phenomenon of repetitive watching of a movie is a quite current trend. It has been enabled by the new sources of storage of data such as VHS, DVDs, and, today, the internet. A tendency to watch a movie frequently might induce internalisation of various notions and values presented in the movie, a creation and
8 acceptance of stereotyped roles as “normal”. Using a multitude of psychological and sociological research, many articles dedicate a large portion of their length to the endeavour of proving and explaining the influence of the media on the development of children (Wynns and Rosenfeld 2003, Pixar’s Boy Stories 2014, “Nurturing New Men”
2016, Hare 2018, Zurcher , Webb and Robinson 2018,). Their conclusions detect that animated movies have found their place in the process of socialising of the young generation by teaching them values and other elements of social life and system.
Despite of such influence on the young generation, which is even further encouraged by all the commercial products such as toys which usually accompany a release of a movie, not many studies have been dedicated to the content and analysis of animated movies. Disney productions and their princesses often become one of the early interests of the undergraduate student (Ebrahim 45). Yet Wooden and Gillam mention a lack of coherent set of studies and critical discourse of boy, and male, representations in animated movies (Pixar’s Boy Stories XI-XII). A comprehensive introduction to animated movies could be partially substituted with studies of other kinds of feature movies. Animated movies are, however, using different audio-visual features. This difference is a consequence of different means of production and a different tradition from that of the non-animated movies. In sum, the tendencies in the ambience of animated movies vary significantly from those of the other feature movies.
Moreover, studies of the animated movies of the previous century become less and less applicable as the world of animated movies has undergone many changes in the last decades. On one hand, animation became more democratised in the sense of access to various tools of production of animated movies, which should allow more ideas to enter the discourse. On the other hand, the development of technologies broadened the number of methods employed in the creation of animated movies. These changes were
9 accompanied by foundation of new studios or branches within already existing studios whose plan was to find success in the world of animation, among others Pixar and
DreamWorks.
According to Booker, the 1980s is the decade when everything around the animated movies started to change. In his opinion, this was the decade when “the children’s films for the first time became market-driven, as film makers scrambled to give children what they wanted, as opposed to earlier decades, in which the Disney company, with a stranglehold on the children’s film market basically gave children what
Walt wanted” (XVII). In the same period, Disney hired a group of new animators and producers to their team. Some of these people became some of the leading persons of newly developing companies in the 1990s. Jeffrey Katzenberg became one of the founding figures of DreamWorks SKG in 1994 and John Lasseter moved to Pixar
Animation Studios. Among the mentioned personages were also Tim Burton and Brad
Bird who created their own style later on (Booker 40-42). Many producers and animators left Disney as they had a different vision of the future of animated movies; some of them visual and some of them textual. In any case, if the products of different branches today are to be compared, their differences and the variety they offer might be rooted in the 1990s separation of some of the important figures of the world of animation.
Pixar decided to take the road of technology and a specific contextual style.
Pixar was computer oriented from the beginning. They started as a computer section of
Lucasfilm and they tried to progress computer animation ever since. In cooperation with
Disney they produced the first computer animated feature film in the world in 1995, Toy
Story (“Pixar, Our story”). This first movie is already a demonstration of two features that distinguish Disney production from Pixar production: Pixar is “foregrounding
10 technology, rather than typical Disney emphasis on magic” (Booker 78), and is overtly focused on boy culture and male characters, especially in the protagonist roles (Ebrahim
44).These features make Pixar production one of the key sources of this essay.
The success of Toy Story signposts a change in the production of animated movies. Although its box office grossing was only a half of that of The Lion King, an animated movie released a year earlier by Disney (Box Office Mojo), Pixar proved that
CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) could be used efficiently even for feature movies.
Gradually, perfecting the CGI means of animation opened new possibilities for the content of animated movies, such as, for instance, coordination of characters in crowd scenes (Neupert 121). DreamWorks also joined the CGI oriented production in feature films by releasing Antz in 1998 and later, even more successful, Shrek in 2001.
All the above-mentioned factors caused the world of animation of the 21st century to be different form the one of the 20th century. Not only market for movies but also the producers of movies have pluralised which influenced the scale of topics covered by the animated movies. Content of animated movies, especially of those of
DreamWorks and Pixar production, was further influence by the ongoing movement of gender and genre boundaries (Booker XVIII). Technological development allowed faster, more numerous productions of animated movies, variation in their audio-visual production and enabled multiple rewatching of movies at home, which increased their impact on the audience. The complexity of all these changes in the milieu of animated movies, which have been going on for a shorter of longer period of time, justify inquires to the topic, especially if focused on the 21st century.
An animated movie is a unique and a very complex genre. In addition to its probably most perceptible textual element, it is composed of audio-visual effects uncommon for other kinds of movies. Settings as well as characters, music and sound
11 are creations of human hands, whether with a pen and paper, or using a CG technology.
Naturally, some scenes or whole movies are animated based on real actors’ performances, however the final product is still only a reflection of the production team on what emotions, colours, shapes, movement, race and other visual aspects of the life look like. Therefore, the “visual design” and “cinematography” as described by
Bernshoff and Griffin (4-5) are not a fusion of material available in the real world and cinematic “tricks”, but often of producers’ eyes and hands and technology. Therefore, it can be argued that an animated movie is a product that needs a different kind of analysis than that of a non-animated movie, for the production and the final effect, maybe except for literary design, is different.
Animation influences the world and the viewer in ways unlike those of a movie with real actors and settings. This is connected to the above-mentioned source of acting.
And thus, that acting comes often from how producers imagine the target expression should look like as opposed to acting as an expression of human body when the brain requires it to act. This kind of representation of the world can be further diverted by choice of world that is unavailable without animation. Animal world is often used in animation movies as a personification of humans and their societies. The impact of this feature, unique for animated movies, is debatable. According to Iris Shepard it resulted in an underrepresentation of children in Pixar movies and those that are present in the form of animals are in reality a mixed form of anthropomorphised adults and embodiments of their expectations from children (169). This notion is important in the analysis of representation of sons in this thesis, as no matter whether a character is a teenager or a child, it is a body animated by adults and thus what is usually only a script determination of a character in a non-animated movie becomes a determination of whole existence of a character in an animated movie.
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On the other hand, Hey Jean Chung sees the application of personification of animals as, at least in Kung Fu Panda, a form that detaches characters, in this case martial arts protagonists, from many conditions that usually define humans. This is, in his opinion, further supported by digitalisation, CGI, as it “enables the transcendence of textual borders, special borders, and the corporeal connection to a terrestrial body that is restrained by nationality, race, gender, and species.” Thus, an animal animated character can be often void of categories such as class and ethnicity, and can be even, to a certain degree, unimpeded by the restraints of physical laws.
Despite the importance of animation for the interpretation of individual movies and in many cases of the influence of bigger body consisting of multiple items, this thesis focuses primarily on the textual analysis of chosen movies. The analysis of animation related feature of movies and their influence on the content, the message or perception of movies seems to be too complex to be performed in this thesis, therefore, even though the problems connected to animation and the need for a different approach are acknowledged, an analysis of this sort will not be provided here. Although this thesis is working with the end-product of animation, it will not problematise the influence of the method of production to an extent of its contextual influence. It is important to realise that there are variables to different kinds of production of animated feature films, yet the textual and visual aspects of the final product are much more vital for the sort of inquiry employed in this thesis.
Importance of attention to male roles in animation movies is apt due to their multiplicity. Inequality of representation of genders in movie production has long been an issue (Hare 52). Animated movies have not been an exception to the general tendencies prevailing in cinematic world. A quantitative research presented in the article by Sara Hare asserts that female characters, as compared to male characters, are
13 underrepresented as protagonists in animated movies. Moreover, they are less likely to figure in the title of a movie, they have fewer speaking roles and are generally reduced to secondary characters (59). For many scholars this might mean that women and girls have less opportunities to find a character to identify with. Underrepresentation might stigmatise women and fit them only to certain roles. At the same time, however lack of representation can provide freedom of decision as to self-presentation as the discourse lacks a stereotypical model1 which could set a standard. Such a high representation of male roles, especially if created by a small closed group of authors, is bound to offer portrayals with common traits which together create models or manuals on “how to behave. These should be studied since, when presented in the same way in multiple movies, they might have the power to influence learning and creation of stereotypes.
Some argue that the boy culture in stories, for example does not deserve studies, since males are the privileged (Pixar’s Boy Stories XVII). I see such opinions as unnecessary marginalisation of patterns that influence society.
High number of representations can be potentially a source of a coherent message about the standards or preferred qualities of a male in a certain role or position.
Examination of the animated movies which earned more than 200 million dollars in the domestic box office shows that approximately half of them contain a father or a son figure. Their employment in the story has various purposes and take diverse forms. Yet, such frequent occurrence may have the power to create a picture that can be perceived
1The expressions “model” and “stereotype” have been chosen outside of a specific theory.
Their meaning in this essay has certain common qualities with Jungean archetypes or what
Abbott calls “masterplots” (46). And, to a certain degree, it can be considered an alternative to what Stephens calls “schemata” and “scripts”. The “model” or “stereotype” does not, however, refer to these traditions, since the thesis tries to explore common features in a closed corpus, not relations of these patterns to an existing research, o ld and new.
14 as a model. This power is not connected only to an essentialist perception of who a father or a son is and therefore to their personal characteristics, but also to their action and the shaping of the characters by the narrative. Characteristics of an individual together with their journey and patterns across cross-cultural stories have been analysed and identified as, for instance, Jungian archetypes. Whether the creation of these archetypes was made possible by their inherent presence in the source texts the scholars used, or it was only the diligent work, analysis and subsequent synthesis, and will of the scholars to find the patterns, the existence of the set of identified archetypes proves that patterns created across individual texts or stories can become models in human minds.
And these models can result in a naturalisation of a certain traits as inevitable parts of a certain type of a character.
Some research seems to suggest that men are stereotypically not raised to be a part of a family. Adams and Coltrane definition of male characteristics are not usually defined in relation to the family. They are judged on their performance outside of the family environment, which is eventually one of the reasons for the pressure man put on other family members “to conform to their own sense of masculine standard” (237-239).
In comparison to females, adult males of the family have a greater tendency to require conformity (Adams and Coltrane 237). However, the article comes to the conclusion connected to the conviction of many scholars about the traditional western cultural binary opposition of genres that boys are pushed to “follow an abstract dominant idea of masculinity that instruct them that, in order to be masculine, they must avoid the feminine” (244). Despite considering the research and possible comparisons of representations of male in animated movies to its results, this essay recognises that research of masculinities and fatherhood was often conducted by researchers who felt strong about feminism, certain family or religious values. The same people also
15 formulated the questions and the methods of research (Kimmel, Hearn and Connell
250). The same kind of bias could be theoretically present in the research of animated movies. The results presented in the chosen studies divert from the conclusions of
Adam and Coltrane.
Studies which focused on the representation of males in Pixar stories observe an employment of New Man ideals in male figures of the animated movies. Finklea identifies depiction of fears in representations of fathers, their loss of control and their successive acquisition of an ability to cope with the situation and finding new balance
(Examining Masculinities 124-129). Similar transition in male characters of the Pixar movies was detected by Gillam and Wooden. In their article Post-Princess Models of
Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar they argue that the male protagonists of the chosen animated movies, Cars, Toy Story and The Incredibles, “[travel] through a significant homosocial relationship and ultimately mature into an acceptance of his more traditional ‘feminine’ aspects.” (2). Therefore, based on their observations, selected male characters, even though they appear to be representations of the older authoritative model of masculinity, are compelled by other characters to uncover their softer, more emotional selves. The application of these qualities on the representation of males does not, however, happen in a vacuum.
The employment of the New Man model in the Pixar movies can be understood as a part of a larger shift in male representations. This took place, according to Finklea in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He connects the shift to the change in the US presidency from Ronald Reagan to George H. W. Bush and the attempt of the new president to distance himself from the “hard bodied presidency” that his predecessor incarnated
(Examining Masculinities 29-30). The New Man, in short as a model that arose in the
’90 and exhibits a wider „range of emotions and [is] more actively engaging with and
16 valuing [his family] and friends“ (“Nurturing New men” 90). Or as Jeffords puts it, they display „moral rather than muscle fibre“ (qtd. “Nurturing New men” 90). The whole movement was timewise parallel and content-wise closely related to the notion of traditional masculinities being “in crisis” that resonated in the society (Examining
Masculinities 32). The change in the representations of men and their transformation to the New Men might have been partially a reaction to the moods detected the society.
The contradictions between the studies can be caused by several factors. A different kind of bias might be present in the research done in social studies and media studies. The influence of this variable can range from choice of methods research questions and material, to interpretation of the results. The difference can be caused by time or space difference between the execution of the studies as well by the different subject of the studies. One study focuses on masculinities and their formation within a social world, the other concentrates on representations of masculinities in human-made
“universe”. Therefore, one environment is co-created by a huge number of semi- dependent socio-cultural and economic factors, the other is much less complex structure created by a handful of people and only reacts as well as contributes to the first one.
An analysis of similarities between the results of social research and media research is vital to the picture of responsiveness of media to reality. Major source of a big portion of movies is their own society and its current oscillations. Moreover, media are a powerful tool of production and reproduction of ideologies within societies.
Therefore, a comparison of the results of social and media studies inquiries to identical subjects is essential in the identification of whether media tend to reproduce already existing ideologies or rather tend to set new standards. Scarlet Wynns and Laurence
Rosenfeld conducted a such comparative research focused on the representations of
“successful” and “unsuccessful” father-daughter relationships in four animated movies,
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Aladin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Little Mermaid (1989) and Pocahontas
(1995). Some of the main focuses of an analysis of how the positive or negative nature of the relationship influenced the tendency of the daughter to disobey their fathers, another on whether the disobedience, even if selfish, had any influence on the outcome of the story. This means whether the daughters were punished or not. The authors of the article conclude, that, despite reflection of qualities of real-life relationships, the presence of factors that helped to distinguish “(un)successful” families in their source social study had practically no influence on the outcome of the story. Therefore the representations did not comply to the likely outcomes in the real world (102).
Families are often a part of an animated movie’s plot. As mentioned before, animated movies, although some call them children's movies (Booker 2010), are scarcely intended exclusively for the child audience. Adults and adolescents are often also included as the target consumers, which requires their representation in movies.
Moreover, for little children, family is the social environment to which they are accustomed the most. This is one more reason why representations of at least some kind of family relations are common in the animated movies. Jessica Zurcher, Sarah Webb and Tom Robinson made a research investigating structure of families and the representations of family in the Disney Feature film production. They examined 104 animated movies, 82 of which were produced since 1990. The research was interested in composition of family, ethnicity, gender distribution of representations and relationships within the depicted families. Based on their research, it seems like a depiction of positive and supportive family relationships is deeply rooted in the history of Disney animated movies. The percentage of positive relationships as compared to the depiction of negative family relationships never sank under 70 percent. Furthermore, in the
‘70s/’80s and 2010s it rose above 80 percent in all three categories connected to family
18 relationships: “Family Support”, “Protagonist’s Relationship with Family” and “Family
Climate” (9-10). Family is therefore not only a structure which is commonly represented in animated movies, but also it is represented, in vast majority of cases, as a rather nurturing structure.
The topic of family and home extends beyond the world of movies. According to
Mavis Reimer who, writes not about movies but about children literature, “A nurturing and safe family home is a primary setting of many texts of children’s literature” (106).
By home, Reimer does not refer only to a place, but also to “the quality of feelings associated with the place” (106). In many narratives home means just the warm feeling of balance, protection and love one feels when they are with their family. As it will later be apparent the story structure Raimer attributes to children literature, “home-away- home” (107) is often applied also in the animated movies as well. This kind of journey will not necessarily be connected to spatial movement of characters, although this is often the case, but rather to re-establishing of the comfortable atmosphere of home and family comfort.
The journey in between “homes” or the restoration of balance is often connected to liminality. The journeys in children literature and animation stories are often
“narratives of maturation” (Bradford and Baccollini 40). After the protagonist leaves home, he has to learn lessons and be tested before the return to society. This could be considered sort of an analogy to the right of passage, in which a child enters the liminal space of becoming and returning home a man with his own identity and a place in the society. The depiction of this process, however, usually lacks the celebrations.
Several studies have noted that some animated movies and especially those of
Pixar production base the plot development on male homosocial bonds (“Post-Princess
Models” 2008, Ebrahim 2014, Examining Masculinities 2014). According to these
19 studies, the advancement in homosocial relationships usually softens the original approach to life of the original characters and recreate them to what can be called the ideal of “the New Man”.
The narrative discourse has also a certain influence on how characters and their transformations are portrayed. Narrative strategies are widely discussed in the field of critical discourse analysis. By many scholars they are considered to be some of the tools of perpetuating various ideologies. In his Cambridge Introduction to Narrative H. Potter
Abbott describes narrative as an instrument of power, especially because “in almost every narrative of any interest there is a conflict in which power is at stake. You might say that conflict structures the narrative” (55). Therefore, it is the narrative and the form of structuring a story, the parts that are expressed and those which remain unsaid that create heroes and villains, winners and losers, and determine where the narrative begins and where it ends. Conflicts in narrative, on the other hand have, according to Abbott, also social purposes.
Constitution of conflict itself can represent a reaction to current issues in society.
“Narrative Provides a way for a culture to talk to itself about, and possible resolve conflicts that threaten to fracture it” (Abbot 55). These may include many aspects of social and individual life, such as values, worldview or just feeling. If Abbott’s claim about narrative and conflict are true, and I believe it is, then patterns in the representations of father and their children, and sons and their parents might be suggesting certain types of solutions to conflicts. These conflicts often appear to be working with the search of identity of the child that has been identified as one of the motives in children literature as well (Coats 109-112).
The decisive moment of the conflict is closure. Abbott identifies multiple types of closure, however, in animated movies, the conflicts are usually resolved and thus the
20 closure brings satisfaction and restoration of balance. The idea of re-establishment of tranquillity appears to be the desired end of a story that is primarily, even though not only, aimed for children. However, closure also brings a decision of whose original stance was defeated and who was empowered in the story. In this way, according to
Abbott closure “normalises” and “confirms the masterplot” (64). Masterplots have been mentioned before in this essay. They are the abstract structures and patterns of narrative that can be potentially derived from the basic or chosen storylines of multiple individual narratives. Abbott makes two points about masterplots that are important for the purposes of this essay. Firstly, the rhetorical impact of various masterplots on an individual can vary on the basis of the extent of their identification with its storyline
(46). Secondly, masterplots have “moral force” that is connected to their ability to create world where good is clearly separated from evil (48). The closure therefore decides on whose values, feelings or worldviews should be encouraged and whose should be abandoned. The seeming rightfulness of this message can be further encouraged by the apparent objectivity of the extradiegetic eye of the camera, which seems to be merely following the story, not narrating it.
Selection and analysis of data
The thesis represents a fusion between a qualitative and a quantitative research.
A purely qualitative research would not satisfy the aim to uncover the prevailing patterns of the representation of the target social roles in animation movies of the 21st century. A selection of a much smaller sample of analysed movies would require a shift of focus from representation of the target social roles to the most demonstrative representation of common traits. Such approach would omit a significant number of
21 individual representations that deviate from the common patterns in less or more significant ways. A purely quantitative approach, on the other hand, would require an extensive time investment into an analysis of huge amounts of data and would probably result in a rather statistical paper. A combination of the above-mentioned methods, which is apparent mainly in the number of analysed movies, however, allows to detect some the most prevailing patterns as well as to describe individual representations.
Additionally, the final part of the essay will attempt to offer a more detailed analysis of an item chosen from the corpus which should be a valid representation of some of the prevailing patterns.
The corpus of animated movies investigated in this thesis was composed on the basis of data published on boxofficemojo.com. As the primary focus of this thesis is on the nature, the consistencies and the inconsistencies of the pictures of father and son figures presented to the audience, the selection of data and conditions under which the selection was executed had to concentrate on the message of a movie and the number of its viewers, rather than conditions under which it was produced. The importance of the focus on the numbers of receiving audience is the determiner of the second condition which is described, among others, below.
The content of the corpus was determined by three conditions. Firstly, a movie had to contain at least one son or father figure. Secondly, a movie had to earn more than
200 million dollars in the box office in the US when adjusted to ticket price inflation in
2017. Thirdly, a movie had to be released between 2000 and 2017.
The original content of the corpus was supposed to satisfy one more condition.
Movies incorporated in the corpus were supposed to be produced in one of three major studios: Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar. When confronted with the above-mentioned database, however, this condition was considered redundant, since most of Disney
22 production which satisfy second and third condition did not contain major father or son figures. Additionally, the source database, boxofficemojo.com, revealed that many movies that satisfy all three conditions mentioned in the previous paragraph do not originate in either of these studios. Thus, the fourth condition was deleted as the focus of this essay is on the influence of the movies and (in)coherences of the features of father and son figures they create, not on the institutional preferences for the features of these figures. Nevertheless, the deletion of this condition and admission of the product of other studios did not result in a clear final list of material.
The first condition proved to be a rather complex one. It required an operational definition of “father figure” and “son figure”. Many men are fathers, although this role might not be emphasised in a narrative. At the same time, every man is someone’s son.
The question is: Where to draw the line between a character that has children or parents and a character who is portrayed as a father or a son? The difficulty of this issue lies in the fact that this essay is not interested in characters that can be distinguished based on their appearance or other more concrete features, but in characters that are selected on the basis of their social role. Therefore, the satisfaction of the first condition arises not from the essence of an individual character alone, but rather from the focus of the narrative of the story, the social settings of the movie and the performance and identity of characters. And thus, for the sake of this essay, following rules were implemented: If a character is to be considered a representation of the role of a father or a son at least one of their parents or children needs to be present in the story. Narrative of the story has to either elaborate on the relation of the two parties, not necessarily in form of a conflict in a story, or the relation must be introduced as formative for a character under scrutiny. Nevertheless, the relations defining social roles of son and father do not need to be the main focus of the story. Neither does the narrative have to introduce the
23 relationship of a father and a son. The status of a role of a son or a father can be achieved by meeting the above-mentioned criteria in relation to a daughter or a mother.
A few movies that present a non-biological father were included in the corpus.
One of such movies, Despicable me (2010) and its sequels, introduces an adoptive father. The formal admission of children into the house takes place in the middle of the movie, followed by the second half of the movie where bonds between the characters are created and the role of father starts to be assumed by the main character. The characters can be considered to enter the second movie as daughters and a father who raises them. And “raising” is the key word for the selection of the role of a father.
Similar exception was not, however, granted to all movies, where an older person takes care of children. Despicable me represents an adoption, therefore assuming responsibilities of a parent legally and morally for life. Although some of the other movies represent a similar relationship between generations, their adult character does not assume this kind of responsibilities, and thus can be labelled as representation of a
“guardian”. Male adults who merely take care of children for a certain period of time, are not viewed as fathers in this essay. Consequently, movies such as Up (2009) where little Russel travelled with Carl, an old man, and Monsters Inc. (2001) where Sulley and
Mike take care of little girl Boo had to be excluded from the corpus. The Simpsons
Movie (2007) had to be excluded as well, although it contains the figures of both a father and a son, since the characters were predetermined and dependent on the context of a show that was running long before the release of the movie, The Simpsons series.
The content of the corpus was further influenced by time the characters spent on screen. The aim of the thesis is to introduce the fullest possible picture of father and son figures in animation movies. Therefore, also figures that are not granted a long screening time in the movies, but satisfy conditions mentioned above are to be
24 considered in this thesis. Movies containing a son or a father figure with a short screening time are for example Brave (2012) and Moana (2017).
Implementation of all above mentioned conditions created the corpus with which this thesis works. Out of 63 movies, each of which grossed more than 200 million dollars in the US when adjusted to ticket price inflation of 2017, 48 were released after
2000. Out of 48 movies that met the second and the third condition 25 contain a son or a father figure. One of them The Simpsons Movie is not considered in this essay because of the above-mentioned reasons. The resulting corpus, listed as “Primary Sources” in
“Works Cited” comprises 24 items. This number should provide enough material to spot certain patterns in behaviours and nature of the characters that perform the target roles and, simultaneously, the number of movies should not be overwhelming considering the nature of this thesis. This should allow a certain type of a fusion between a quantitative and a qualitative research, although probably not meeting all the requirements of either of them.
Some chapters and subchapters will be provided with guiding tables. These tables indicate the occurrence of chosen characteristics in individual representations. In the case of father figures the examined characteristics include various types of conservativism, restrictive behaviour towards children, reasons that validate such kind of behaviour, signs of anxiety and nervousness. The table will further indicate motivation for a fathers’ behaviour. Three possible reasons are included: love of relatives, keeping social order and peaceful relations, and maintenance of power. Sons will be analysed in connection to kindness and softness of their hearts, courage, mischievous behaviour, cleverness and innovative thinking.
Relations in conflict will be addressed in two separate tables, as the conflicts often include other characters than sons and fathers. The tables are included for an
25 illustration of the method of research. Most of the text does not refer to them, since statistical data do not reflect on the importance of individual characters. The table exploring father’s part in the conflict includes possibilities of being in a major or minor conflict or being outside of a conflict. It also includes some of the more commonly spotted reasons for the conflict with their children, such as lack of understanding, insensitive behaviour, emphasis on society and tradition and fear for loved ones. The table that analyses a son’s participation in the conflict focuses on the son's presence in the main conflict of a story and on the motives that led to the conflicting behaviour.
Motives are analysed by the means of four categories: rebellion against restrictions, search for new solutions, following a dream and search for identity.
All of the above-mentioned categories were chosen inductively. They are based on observations of common patterns in the selected movies. The analysis also focuses on the influence of narrative discourse of the movies, the focus and omissions of the narratives. And further, implications of the plots on the roles of fathers in the real world.
This part can be considered to be an attempt to a critical discourse analysis.
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Characters
Physical Appearance
Body is one of the main features of a character. The physical appearance of father figures is the source of first impression. Their building, movement, and even colours in which it is depicted are integral parts of their character and suggest a lot about their identity, position in society, cultural affiliations and other components of their existence. Physical appearance and body offer the means of interaction with other characters, expressing emotions and opinions. Bodies are often the first aspect of a character in an animated movie, the audience interacts with, since characters often appear physically before they speak. This means that the moment of judgement of a character can take place before the mental and temperament presentation takes place.
Moreover, association of the attributed mental characteristics and of the “destiny” of a character inside the plot with the physical representation or individual features can take place retrospectively.
A predominant number of representations of a human form are large and disproportional when compared to real humans. Animation offers more freedom as it is easy to choose which features of a body are foregrounded and which are backgrounded.
It can go beyond costumes and allows incorporation of desired features directly to the body of a character. Such deliberate choice of putting the emphasis on certain bodily features resulted in a certain type of father body that appears in multiple animation movies. In movies where the father figure assumes an important or semi important role in the plot and has a significant screening time2 the body is usually big, muscular, with a thick neck, at least some beard, large chest and arms and small legs and feet. Thus, the
2 The Incredibles, How to Train your Dragon, Brave, The Croods. 27 upper part of the body is emphasised as compared to the lower part. In real life, such a figure would just be very clumsy at its best and would not be able to stand at the worst.
The foregrounding of the upper part of the body such as arms and chest, together with a heavy beard and moustache that are present in the father figure of How to Train Your
Dragon and Brave could be considered to be an emphasis of masculinity. On the other hand, a thick neck or an absence of it, together with the narrow foreheads as opposed to strong jaws which are present in all four fathers might be associated with stupidity as the size of the braincase is one of the features that distinguishes us from our humanoid ancestors and most of the species of the ape families. This is further emphasised by the generally disproportionally smaller heads to the bodies of some of these fathers. The appearance of these fathers therefore suggests the frequency of use of muscles to be higher than that of the brain. Therefore, the masculinity and force can be considered to be the prominent and determining feature of their body composition.
The proportions of the above discussed bodies can be considered to be a representation of the “Old Man” as opposed to the “New Man”. These bodies can hardly be associated with the suited or rebelling male representations of the ‘50s’ movies, yet it might be an allusion to the muscular bodies of the Reagan era that Finklea considers the model in reaction to which the construction of the New Man model arose in the ‘90s
(Examining Masculinities 31-33). Such case can be furthered by the presence of a
“thinking” counterpart to the masculine father. In Brave this counterpart is present in the form of the queen. Fergus’s wife is an embodiment of a “civilised” approach of negotiations, logic and politeness, while Fergus himself solves everything by a direct command to someone or by a fight. Guy, the counterpart of the father figure in The
Croods, is an inventive young man who gradually gains admiration of Grug’s whole family for his stories, dreams and innovative way of life. In this case, the symbol of
28 evolution to a more civilised model is further emphasised by the bodily figure of Guy.
As opposed to Grug, who is a humped cave man with large teeth and bushy eyebrows,
Guy is a straight standing medium muscular man, whose movements are smooth and sapience sapience like. His body is proportional to that of a real young man. This is connected to the difference in the evolutionary stage between Guy and the family. He even comments on these differences when he meets them the first time “Cavemen!
Stand back! Do you see their bony, sloping foreheads? The huge primitive teeth? The excessive body hair.” (00:33:15). The comments belong to the whole family, however,
Grug, together with his son Thunk, are the perfect embodiments of Guys characterisation.
Most of the fathers depicted as humans are white. Whether they are Vikings or
The Stone Age men, the fathers are depicted as white. This is connected to general representations and underrepresentation of non-white communities in American movies that has been criticised by many people. Whiteness might be logical in the settings of the past age Scotland or Scandinavia. However, it can be criticised in the cases when the subject of depiction is the American society. Neither of the few non-white depictions can be, however, included among fathers who share the above described features.
Two fathers cannot be included in the previously described model, although their features in the abstract agree with the characterisation. The general impression of
Gru, a guardian of three little girls from Despicable me movies. He is a rather comic figure with a long nose, bold head and big belly. His general appearance does not appear to appeal for the position of an authority, but rather that of a half/evil clown that he is. He can hardly be considered an allusion to the masculine representation of the
‘80s or the western ideal of a masculine man. On the contrary, Chief Tui from Moana could be considered such masculine representation. However, his figure can be
29 considered to be proportionally respectable to a real-life person. His legs, feet and head are not disproportional in relation to his upper body. Thus, despite his large muscular body, neither traditionally masculine features of his body, nor the features that can be associate with intelligence are emphasised. The choice of proportionality as opposed to emphasis in this representation of a Hawaiian chief, might have been influenced by an effort to be sensitive to the representations of this particular ethnic group.
The last four human depictions certainly do not share features with the representations of fathers that were already mentioned. Three of them, Coco, Inside
Out, and Frozen, can be considered to present one type of depiction. They offer relatively realistic portrayals of proportional, slender bodied men, with moustaches and occasional bad shaving. However, the screening time of these father figures is relatively short and can be considered flat characters. They are used instrumentally at the beginning of the story or in the closure. On the contrary, Fiona’s father, the king, has a significant role in the second Shrek movie. He is one of the sources of the agon of the story and has a counterpart present in the narrative; Shrek. While in the first pattern muscular robust and muscular fathers are contrasted by a female or smaller male who represent civilisation, the king from Shrek is the one who represents civilisation, or what might be considered to be civilised by the viewer and Shrek is a representative of force and savageness. Therefore, the bodily representations is still in sync with the notions of the first pattern, where a smaller, more feeble body is connected with civilisation and a bigger body with strength. Only the position to which the narrative places the two characters is different.
There is no particular pattern in the physical depiction of son figures in the selected animated movies. There are only 6 depictions of sons in human form and one of them is in the adult stage of life. 3 of the depictions are under ten years old and two are
30 adolescents. The sons in Brave, Coco, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Incredibles tend to have larger heads with full cheeks and quite visible larger eyes. Their necks are thin and they tend to be rather lean. Despite all the depictions originating in either Pixar or DreamWorks, they do not display any significant pattern as individual beings, except most of them are white.
Patterns in depiction tend to be related to the intra- rather than intertextual milieu of the son figures. While the depiction of the physical composition of father figures can be considered to create both vertical and horizontal patterns3, depiction of sons has practically no horizontal pattern except for the choice of race. However, their depiction seems to have a connection to the relationship with their father. If the boys are not in a conflict with their fathers, they tend to share their features. Dash shares his father’s desire to use his superpowers, he also shares his body type, colour of hair and eyes and a thin mouth including the smirk on them. Triplets and the daughter from Brave inherited their father’s hair and type of skin. Thunk’s posture, colour of hair, and general appearance is very similar to that of his father in The Croods. On the contrary,
Hiccup, whose conflict with his father creates the main storyline of How to Train Your
Dragon, is a very visible opposite of Stoick. Stoick is a big red-haired Viking. Hiccup is a tiny clumsy brown hair creature with practically no muscles. Therefore, the appearance of the sons seems to depend on their fathers and the relationship with them rather than on the preferred image of father.
Depiction of race makes an analysis of common patterns among the representations of sons and fathers more difficult. Lack of notability of patterns in the non-white depictions probably originates in the caution granted to the creation of these kinds of representation. These are connected to the real-world issues and political and
3 When vertical patterns are related to the content of the story and horizontal patterns to representations of fathers in various animated movies. 31 social relations of various ethnicities. These depictions, however, disrupt only the patterns of physical depiction, not the patterns in employment of fathers and their children in conflicts.
The narrative world of half of the movies from the corpus is located in the animal kingdom, which makes the physical appearance of father and son figures far more variable than that of the human animated forms. Such diversity of forms hinders attempt to compose a comprehend message about the physical features of the target roles. In case some of the animal the figures evince any form of significant deviance from the animals of the same species in the same story, as for example Oscar’s father in
Shark Tale, its purpose is usually to signify something within the story itself. The specific features of the animal father characters are neither frequent, nor homogeneous enough to create a pattern. The animal world, in combination with various settings, complicates the determination of class.
Accent
The second feature of a character that becomes apparent right after their corporeal disposition is their pattern of speech. The audience does not have the opportunity to hear any substantial talk before they realise the pronunciation characteristics of a given character, i.e. their accents. An accent or a dialect4 can be especially important in the creation and perception of an identity of an animal animated character, as it is one of few markers of identity, any possible ethnic or class related affiliation and other features of a character. These might be chosen to complete a round
4 In some stories a different accent is used, and in some a dialect. Although linguistically speaking these terms describe two different phenomena, they are perceived as a marker of identity in this essay, thus only “accent” will be used. 32 character or to give it a position within a story. On the other hand, a particular accent or dialect can place the character within the real society, the society of a viewer. By accent, an animated creature can become a representation of a certain group, not only of that of certain ethnic or social background as mentioned above, but also of such, that is, in viewers mind connected to a certain worldview, attitudes, or generations. The accent can thus also serve as a factor in the point of identification, not only of the character and of the viewer, but also of the third party by the viewer. The believe implemented in this essay is that more educated people and “higher social classes tend to use more features belonging to the standard language (“Dialect”) and thus marked accent has connotations of lack of education. Expression “marked accent” is a composite of what Labov called a marker, language variations carrying social information (Wardhaugh 142), and the notion of accents being different from the standard. Thus under expression “marked accent” is in this essay understood a nonstandard accent that suggests affiliations to a social group or lack of education.
In some movies the accent does not play a role as everyone, or no one, has an accent distinguishable from the standard forms. There are movies where an accent is clearly used in connection with the local way of speech. Fergus, the father from Brave, could hardly be judged on his Scottish accent, if everyone else in the story has the same accent. Similarly, the accent of Alex’s parents in Madagascar 2 can be analysed as the outcome of early separation, which caused Alex to be raised in the US and his parents to stay in Africa. In Coco every person in the family has a marked accent as they are all from Mexico. Yet, in some of the other animated movies in discussion, accent can be considered a signifier as it differs in characters without any clear reason clarified in the plot.
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The Marked accent is usually spoken by parents5. Their children, however, usually have an accent that is closer to a standard form. Stoick, narrated by Gerard
Butler, together with Gobbler, who are representatives of the older generation in How to
Train You Dragon speak in thick Scottish accent. On the contrary Hiccup, Stoick’s son, and his generation have accents that are closer to the Standard American English. The difference is even more notable when Hiccup parodies his father using not only the expected expressions, but also his accent (00:08:49). Shark’s Tale follows almost the same pattern. Father, Don Lino, and the whole family speaks with an Italian accent, which is supposed to be reminiscent of the gangster dialect from the 1930s (Booker
155). However, Lenny, his son and one of the protagonists of the movie does not share the same speech patterns. In this case, his brother, Frankie, who identifies with the clan policy and worldview shares the pattern. The same pattern appears in Moana and Happy
Feet. A slightly smaller difference in accents between a son and his father can also be spotted in Kung Fu Panda and Sing.
The intragenerational change of accents is interesting and unfitting pattern when considered in the context of royal heritage of some of the characters. In the case of
Moana and How to Train Your Dragon the children are not merely offspring of the voted leaders such as Don Lino could supposed to be. They are members of bloodlines who are expected to become leaders after their parents’ death. Moreover, they live in a small and relatively closed society. Therefore, the settings and situations do not produce any reason for such a obvious divide between the accents of the fathers and their children, besides for the sake of expression of identity or injection of one more phenomenon that could divide the old, the conservative, and the new, the innovative.
5 If the mother is present, she usually has the same accent as the father. 34
This difference is even further emphasised by the fact that Moana’s mother’s accent is more similar to hers than to Chief Tui’s.
In cases where tradition or cultural heritage plays no role, accents are not important. In The Croods and Finding Nemo, there is no difference between the accent of the fathers and their children. This can be connected to the fact that these two narratives are rather connected to individual relationships of fathers and their offspring.
Parents are not tied by any societal restrictions and the conflict is rather connected to their will to maintain control and (over)protection over the actions of their children. In both cases a counterpart to their restrictive behaviour is present in the story. Whereas in
The Croods his accent is unmarked, in Finding Nemo where Marlin probably represents a middle class male, his counterpart, a father turtle Crash speaks in a marked dialect.
Moreover, Crash’s pattern of speech is very slow and relaxed. He prolongs vowels, uses simple grammatical structures and colloquial language ending every sentence with
“Duuude” (00:53:30), which can be considered to be a signifier of a very laid-back attitude, a contrast to Marlin’s way of life and speech, which tends to be quite angry and restless
Character in Relation to the Story
Analysis6 of the mental features and attitudes of fathers and sons will be focused only on the representations featuring in the major roles. In contradiction to the bodily formation and accent, attribution of mental characteristics to a creation of any stereotype requires longer time and space to the development of a character in a story.
Temperament, opinions, and attitudes are not as immediately obvious as, for example,
6 Find the respective tables at the end of the chapter. 35 wide shoulders. Similar temporal requirements apply to the social position of a character.
Representations of father characters undergo a change in most of the movies.
Booker sees this as a feature specific to Pixar (178) but the claim can be extended to other movies as well. The general tendencies of perceiving reality in the western culture are essentialist. The western culture forms us so that individuals expect that the environment to which they are introduced is ever lasting and unchanging (Booker 176).
The notion that the world around individuals, including them, has been in a constant flux of change while they have been unaware of it is still alien to many people.
Although some might admit this notion to have truth in it, we are often unlikely to apply the information to what we seen on the movie screen. Thus, the difference in the behaviour of fathers that is usually depicted in the animated movies is probably not perceived as a display of various parts of his character and momentary choice of priorities suitable for the given moment, but rather as a change of attitudes towards his relationship with the other person in the conflict or the change of his nature.
Most of the fathers start the story as conservative and constraining figures. To define the understanding of “conservative” in this essay, Oxford dictionary provides a suitable definition: “Averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values”
(“Conservative”). Not every father is conservative in the same way. Mr Incredible, for example, is unable to leave his superhero career behind after the society finds it redundant. There is not significant problem in his wife’s transition, but Bob’s aspirations are tied to the outside society more than his wife’s. He wants responsibility and gratitude that goes with it. He has a strong moral sense and is unable to hold himself in case he sees unrighteousness. He offers advices that help to get money from his employer, an insurance company, and can’t stand letting a robber run away (Pixar’s
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Boy Stories 44). These instincts are in an agreement with the moral system of the outside society, but the way he feels is also connected to his ego. It is not what he does that makes him conservative. It is the fact, that although his whole family behaves as if they had no superpowers, and his friend desires to follow the same way of life, Mr
Incredible failed to undergo the transformation from Mr Incredible to Bob. He is mentally unable to leave the superhero identity and the way of life behind. This “is visually communicated in his being far too large for his tiny office and his tiny car”
(Rösing 94).
King Harold from Shrek 2 is conservative in connection to traditions and his own expectations. As a king he does not want his successor and any of the successors of his kingdom to be ogres. He despises the thought that Fiona should take Shrek as her husband (1:24:00). Moreover, when having her locked in a tower, he had a different idea about her future husband. In the course of the movie it becomes clear that he once promised his child to marry prince Charming, the son of fairy god mother, in exchange for a transformation his original shape, frog, to the human form. This is one of the motives that leads him to the conservative approach he has. Yet, he is also disgusted by
Shrek’s appearance and by the way Shrek’s and Fiona’s love changed her not to a permanent human, but an ogre form. The motives are spread across the movie. What is, however, constantly visible is contrast of his attitude to the attitude his wife has toward
Fiona and Shrek. She is much more welcoming and eager to try to admit them into the family. Thus, the father becomes the real picture of conservativism.
Django, Ratatouille, is reluctant to innovation. His son has a special gift of smell and taste and a passion for cooking. The whole family, however, eats garbage. Once
Django finds out about the talent and the passion, he only uses it for survival, and thus for Remi to sniff whether the food they eat is poisoned. It takes the whole movie to
37 realise that Remi’s talent can bring a high-quality food to the colony. Anything beyond sniffing is considered foolish and needless, as it does not provide any practical outcome for the colony.
Father figures in selected animated movies are restraining towards their children.
However, this is not the case in The Incredibles or Brave, where fathers do not find themselves in a conflict with their children. Yet, as seen above, Django is restricting
Remi in his cuisine-related aspirations. Memphis, as opposed to his wife in Happy Feet does not like Mumble dancing and exhibiting this form of the otherness in front of the rest of the society. Chief Tui tries to prevent Moana from sailing beyond the reef and although he says they have only “one rule” (00:14:25), this seems to be an empty phrase. In Finding Nemo, the main adventure of the movie is based on one act of disobedience, or rather an act of rebellion against a too constraining father. The children, who are usually the main protagonists then rebel against the rules of their fathers, because they are seen as too limiting either for their aspirations or their identity search. Finklea identifies fear in fathers as one of the common features in Pixar movies.
He connects them to the role of a New Man that these figures are assuming. In Mr.
Incredible’s case, in the moment of Syndrome almost destroying his family, in case of
Marlin, from the moment the barracuda ate his wife and children(Examining
Masculinities 124-125). By explaining the milieu of fears of fathers, especially that of
Marlin, Finklea shows that there are reasons behind, what he calls, Marlin’s “over- protectiveness” (124).
Most of the fathers have a reason to be restrictive. Even the representations of father figures are sometimes given a history, although not a story. Sometimes, a tiny sequence of a movie is dedicated to a short explanation of father’s reasons to be restrictive. There is no stable point in the story where the reasons are provided.
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Sometimes the segment can be located at the beginning of the story. Finding Nemo starts with an attack of a barracuda which kills Marlin’s wife and eats all the eggs except for Nemo (00:03:30), who consequently becomes the object of Marlin’s protection. Eep, the narrator of the beginning of the story and the daughter in conflict, of The Croods says herself that all their neighbours are dead already, because they live in a very dangerous environment. Although, the narration might be meant as a comical element at the beginning of the story, it provides a clear legitimation of Grug’s restrictive behaviour. The reason can be explained to the child after the viewer is introduced to the story as in Moana. The moment Moana argues with Chief Tui about going beyond the reef, her mother explains to her the reasons of his reluctance to let her go: “He is hard on you, because he was you! ….He crossed the reef and found and unforgiving see. Waves like mountains. His best friend begged to be on that boat. Your dad couldn’t safe him” (00:15:25). In some cases, the truth about father’s motifs can be revealed at the end of the story. King Harold’s original shape, a frog, is only revealed at the end of the second Shrek movie. These three representations are not the only ones that have reasons for their approach to the rules set for the kids.
The reasons that validate the fathers’ rules usually disappear in the flow of the narrative and the rules themselves are invalidated by the story. In most of the items form the corpus, a sequence that provides the explanation of the father’s restrictive behaviour, is not a part of the main narrative. It is not incorporated, either chronologically or relationally, to the main story line. The fact that the reasons are provided only in a side story makes them partially irrelevant to the main story.
Therefore, they can be easily forgotten. This not only flattens father’s character but takes away the justification of his worries. Moreover, the narrative usually ends with a happy ending, despite child’s disobedience. An unharmed return home and mending of
39 everything that was wrong by the actions that the disobedience allowed further proves that the father had nothing to worry about in the first place.
Expecting and early fathers tend to be nervous and panicking as well. Both
Shrek and Manny find out in the third part of their respective movies, Shrek and Ice
Age, that they are going to become fathers. Both panic, each of them in a different way.
Shrek has nightmares about dozens of babies appearing in his house, each of them entering a dangerous situation that includes knives, fire, falling and others (00:22:55).
Manny tries to keep the future mother safe and a playground that he built baby proof
(Ice Age 00:07:20). He is panicking far less then Ellie, the mother, who tries to reason with him: “Manny, this is the world our baby’s gonna live in. You can’t change that.”
Manny responds in a very controlling restless way: “Of course I can, I’m the biggest thing on Earth” (00:07:27). The same way emphasis is put on the physical largeness of most of the fathers in the animated human characters, Manny’s size and the importance he ascribes to it is represented in this sentence. However, it is clear from the context that he tries to rely on the massiveness of his body because he feels so insecure about his ability to protect the baby.
It is not a lack of love that would bring fathers to forcing the members of their family to obey their rules, but rather their insecurity and inability to see something beyond the scope of their routine and way of thinking. They are unthoughtful of their counterparts having other needs and possibly desires. They are simply living inside of the world as they understand it and are unable to comprehend patterns of behaviour that do not agree with their “world”. They are usually so concentrated on the few problems they can detect that they remain oblivious to the problems of others. Furthermore, the solution they offer is usually a solution that keeps them in control of things and that is based on their experience. Innovation and creativity are usually not of their strengths.
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In the animated movies selected for corpus, maintenance of power, control and restrictions are usually motivated by love for the family members. The attempts to keep power from the side of the father in Finding Nemo, The Croods, The Incredibles and others, is undeniable, but it is not for the sake of power that they try to maintain it. The fathers of the animated movies love their families. Every single one of them can be identified to have a positive relationship to the role of a father. With the role, however, come responsibilities, and the fathers in animated movies apparently believe, that they and their rules represent the best way of protecting their family. The fathers, thus, appear to be very self-reliant. They do not trust anyone else. This could also explain the extent to which they cling to their rules. These rules have been tested, often by generations, and any new experiments could endanger either the family or, in the case of socially bound conflicts, the whole society.
As mentioned above, the depictions of characteristics of the father figure at the beginning of the movies and at the end of the movie tend to differ. Finklea documents a change of male characters from the “Old Man” to the “New Man” in connection with emotions. In his opinion, “once [male] pride is stripped away, they are able to express their raw emotions in ways they have not done before” (Examining Masculinities 113).
Wooden and Gillam believe that Mr incredible, among others “develop[s] a gentle ethic manhood” and that he, and others, “begun his respective film believing himself an
“Alpha” superstar or superhero” but gradually “learns to find joy and satisfaction in community, cherishing his friends and/or nurturing children”( Pixar’s Boy Stories
XXIX). The end of the movies is, however, not always as elaborative, characterwise, as is the beginning. Introduction to the story provides information about character, the end of the story provides information about the closure of the action.
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Fathers are not depicted so much trough opinions and speech at the end of a story as through actions that suggest a change in attitudes. It has been already mentioned that father figures give different impressions about their personalities when they enter the story than when the story is at its end. It is the decision of the narrator where the story ends and thus, what its conclusion and message are. Many of the animated movies end with reconciliation enriched by another positive element. The reconciliation is usually connected with joy of parents over seeing their loved ones again. This means tears of joy, hugs and similar greetings. Such scenario is realistic, but so would be scolding children for their disobedience and risking their lives. Yet, such reaction is always omitted from the stories. Therefore, the depiction of reconciliation and, occasionally, commencement of the new order, such as symbiosis with dragons in
How to Train Your Dragon or the return to the sailing way of life in Moana, can be considered a change in the character by the viewer. Both fathers shouted at their children at their children at the beginning of the movies for the thoughts and worldviews they embrace at the end of the story. Such “revaluation” of attitudes can be perceived as a rebirth into a new man and the New Man, although it might be just the short and obscure depiction that fuels such apprehension. The lack of confrontation at the end of the stories is not only evoking a change into a new man, but also, as Wynns and Rosenfeld conclude, that rebellion is good (102-103).
A search for patterns neglects the exceptions. The rage of representation of fathers and sons in the animated movies is much wider than what is explained in this essay. The relationships are deeper and circumstances more eloquent. In spite of the inability to illustrate the full picture of the way the target male roles are depicted, this thesis can demonstrate what the divergent representations of fathers and sons look like.
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Fathers who are not part of a major family conflict of a story can be unburdened.
Crush from Finding Nemo is a very laid-back turtle father who serves as a figure which teaches Marin about a different kind of parenting. He lets his son discover the world, even its more dangerous part, without being overly concerned about his life or health.
Fergus from Brave is a carefree, amiable, cheerful man, whose only interests are drinking, eating, fighting his allies for fun and bears for real. He can be deemed irresponsible to his leader duties. Wooden and Gillam connect him with expressions such as “buffoonish” and “idiocy” (Pixar’s Boy Stories XI) and both off them fit, however, he fills his role of a supportive husband in the conflict of Merida and the queen. Gru, from Despicable Me, is an adoptive father of three girls, who he gradually comes to love. He is not overly protective or pushy like some of the other fathers, but he is constantly moving from anger to cheerfulness which evokes a child character, not a responsible adult one. This is influence by the fact that Gru is actually a sort of parody of a villain and thus is not meant to be a depiction of an average father.
A father often finds himself in the light of the reaction. Since fathers are usually the representatives of the original order and the children of the reaction, contradiction or anomaly in that does not suit to the original order, it should be the children who are represented in the reactionary light. The contrary seems to be true. The narrative usually follows the path of the struggling youth, hence, the details introduced in the story are only that of their life. The details of the original order and the worldviews are introduced only through negation, thus mostly the parts the hero of the story, the child, does not agree with or those that pose a problem for them. This causes the original order to often look like bleak, restricting environment. Remi’s brother in Ratatouille has friends, therefore there is a sign of a flourishing life in the rat colony. Yet, it is not
43 depicted. This is connected to the fact that the child is usually a loner. Depiction of friends is scarce, which makes the original order and society even bleaker.
In most of the cases, it is difficult to estimate a clear age group of the representations of sons. Most of them, ratio 8:6, from the corpus are animated animals.
The estimation of the age of these characters often remains a surmise. There are examples of movies, where age group is quite clear: Finding Nemo, Sing, and
Despicable Me. Yet Shark’s Tale, Ratatouille, and Kung Fu Panda do not have any clear indicator. In these and similar cases, the estimation had to be based on the voice, clothes, and problems the characters are dealing with. The members of this group could be aged around 20, as they are trying to leave home and to find their own place in the world that would agree with their desires and expectations. The stage of the life they are experiencing, detachment form the family unit, is usually characteristic for the early adulthood.
The age group represented in in the roles of sons tends to be entering towards the early adulthood. The comment of Iris Shepard that Pixar has reduced the number of children representations in their movies (169) can be theoretically extended to the whole corpus used in this thesis. Only three out of 5 out of 16 representations are kids, and although the triplets from Brave are counted as one, since they are practically indistinguishable in character or looks, the representation of this group is quite low.
There are three adolescents among the representations of the role of son and 6 characters that can be identified as living their early adulthood years. Two certain adults whose characters are portrayed as influenced by their parents have been detected. In case these representations are meant to be the targets of children’s identification, then
Shepard might be right when claiming that “children may be learning that the best thing for them to do is to grow up as quickly as possible” (169).
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The representations of sons are usually active. Their presence in the story is usually connected to the main plot and their actions influence it. The activity is connected to the fact that son figures are usually the main protagonists of the selected animated movies, but also with the long term tradition of “[presenting] boys in fiction as movers, doers, explorers, adventurers, creatures of action, guile, mischief, intellect, and leadership” that Sutherland (1985) point out (qtd. Hateley 87). Wooden and Gillam identify “action and adventure” as common features of Pixar movies and at the same time admit that the Pixar movies are predominantly about males (Pixar’s Boy Stories
XXIV-XXV). At the same time, however they admit that Pixar offers different models from that of “the uncomplicated alpha or loveable looser” (XXV). Base on the analysis made for this thesis it seems that the representations of sons outside of Pixar are neither alpha, nor losers, and although they are loveable, they are not uncomplicated.
The contrast is further emphasised by the nature of sons, who are usually kind and soft hearted. This is usually highlighted in comparison to their environment. Lenny leaves his family, because unlike his shark family, he refuses to be a predator and eat other animals. On the one hand, the taste of the animals makes his stomach turn, on the other, he does not want anyone to kill them and rather lets them go. He does the favour for little prawns that are on the table in a diner in the time of his father’s and brother’s
“intervention” (00:17:55). This trait gives way also to his friendship with Oscar, who he refuses to kill as well (00:28:47). Johnny in Sing and Remi in Ratatouille are distinguishable from their fathers in the degree of the softness and kindness in their hearts. Johnny is a singer while his father is a robber and Remi longs for innovative recipes and mild differences between tastes of spices while his father wants him to eat trash. Gru in Despicable Me adopts three girls, first legally and then emotionally, and comes to love them, where he himself never felt loved and appreciated by his mother.
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In some stories the softness contrasts with whole societies. Mumbles kindness and lack of aggressive behaviour manifests against the background of the coarseness the elders and the complicit society of penguins in Happy Feet. The difference and the softness are not only hearable in Mumble’s calm and melodic voice, but also in his wide-open blue eyes where the rest of the society has light brown to golden eyes, and the eyes of the elder are black. Mumble is still coated in fluff where all the other peers have changed their fluff for the adult plumage. This adds Mumble on cuteness as compared to the other animals, which goes with the mildness and innocence of his heart. Similarly, Hiccup seems to be kinder and softer in How to Train Your Dragon.
He is the first Viking in hundreds of years that would not kill a dragon (01:08:38). Po is softer, in his physical and mental state, than the resto of the fighters in Kung Fu Panda.
Softness of the heart is not connected to lack of courage. In fact, most of the son figures are depicted as courageous. In the case of Hiccup, Mumble, Remi and some others, it is their softness that brings them to dangerous situations and makes them fight their instincts. In the case of Dash, The Incredibles, and Nemo, for example, courageous behaviour grows out of the situations in which they find themselves. Nemo is captured and transported an ocean away from his home and his father. Dash’s father is captured and the use of the superpowers of the whole family is the only option of saving. Dash perceives the situation rather as a joke at first, but when he and his sister loose the sight of their mother and have no information about her whereabouts, he is the one who explores the options (01:20:00). Triplets from Brave are depicted as fearless creatures as well. In contrast to most of the other examples of courageous sons, these are not courageous because they stand up to their fears, but rather because of their lack of rationality. The triplets could be considered tricksters, for they change shapes and are directed by the luck and appetite. Thus, although they are some of the most fearless
46 representations of sons, their fearlessness is less connected with courage and more with mischief.
Mischief in various representations of son figures is often connected to cleverness of the character. Sons are usually fast to think, act or are skilled in a way the other characters of their respective stories are not. They lack the rationality and the interest in analytical approach to events that the adults, often fathers, are depicted to have. They lack their fears and are generally less burdened with responsibilities and aspect of life they would like to consider. They have a goal and are extraordinarily inventive in their ways of achieving it. Mischief is connected to the lack of boundaries these characters have. Miguel in Coco steals a guitar of a dead man on the day of the
Day of the Dead. He has all three features mentioned above. Firstly, his goal is to play on the plaza. Secondly, he needs a substitution for his broken guitar and realises that there is one unused in the city. The fact that the one guitar that have been lying unused in a tomb for decades came to his mind proves he is clever. Thirdly, to steal a guitar from a tomb by a small boy can be considered a mischief, although it would be a crime in a case of an adult. Miguel’s mischievous nature is further reaffirmed by the other parts of the plot. Alex from Madagascar 2 and Gru from Despicable Me could be considered to be also examples of mischievous clever sons as well.
A certain degree of inventiveness is common for almost all representations of sons in the main roles of the movies from the corpus. There are approaches that are new for local societies. Alex solves the loss of inflow of water to the reserve by following the streambed. Mumble in Happy Feet discovers the reason for the lack of fish and brings people to fix the problem. Some sons use their inventiveness for their own purposes. Oscar in Shark Tale uses his inventiveness to gain profit, enter higher society and at the end of the movie, to fool Don Lino, by disguising his Lenny, Lino’s son, for a
47 dolphin. Gru develops plans and machines that help him prove himself in the villain community. Remi is inventive in kitchen and hiccup creates a system that allows his impaired dragon to fly again. Many of the solutions are not only inventive but also innovative. The innovation works as a contrast to the conservative ways of fathers, who draw it from tradition and experience, but whose ways are proven by the story to be unsatisfactory.
Characters and Society
Representations of fathers are more often married than not. Yet this statistical information counts in all the father figures, regardless of the time they spend on screen or their importance for the story. It is interesting that Gru, Despicable Me, is the only single father of a daughter, to be precise of three of them. He is not even a natural father of the girls. It seems like a single father who has a daughter is a taboo in animation movies, or such composition of family is seen as needless to depict. On the other hand, single fathers are often paired with one, alternatively two sons. These are exactly the cases when the father-son conflict takes place most often. Finding Nemo, Shark Tale,
Ratatouille, How to Train Your Dragon and Sing are all movies the conflicts of which are based on the disagreements between fathers and sons. There are movies, such as
Happy Feet and Madagascar 2 where mothers are present as well, but their role is backgrounded and only used for the sake of the conciliation of the disputes. The choice of single father and an only son is probably used to depict a power struggle between two generations of men in the patriarchal society, where power stored in the older generation needs to be transferred to the younger one, especially in the cases of leadership positions.
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The place of some father figures within the society of a given animated movie is often easy. As mentioned before, CGI technology allowed for a creation of crowd scenes full of individual movement. This opens a possibility of depicting the main character within their respective societies. Such depiction allows for the identification of the social position of a given character. Thus, Memphis and his family in Happy Feet can be identified as regular members of their society, whose only variable is the eccentric behaviour of their son, without hesitation. Similarly easy is the identification of Zuba from Madagascar 2 and Django from Ratatouille. Both are the leaders of their societies, something like kings. The high hierarchical position is one of the characteristics applicable to many fathers. It is unsurprising in the cases of the stories of
Disney princesses, Moana and Frozen, yet there are 6 more fathers who can be identified as leaders among the fathers of selected movies. It will be shown later that such a position in society often gives way and power to the children of these fathers to change the societies they live in.
Then there are fathers whose place in the society is not as hierarchically high.
Mr. Ping from Kung Fu Panda owns a diner. Johnny’s father in Sing is a criminal.
Miguel’s father in Coco is a shoemaker, like the resto of his family. What is more, the family seems to be working on the matriarchal, not patriarchal principles. In the case of these fathers, societal life does not play a role in the conflict with their son. With the exception of Happy Feet, the movies offering a representation of father from the middle, or lower class who is not a leader base their stories on individual, not social conflicts. Thus the conflict resolution has later no influence beyond the borders of a specific relationship.
Most of the son figures are portrayed as the only child. Whether the characters are the only children of their parents or their siblings are simply kept outside the story,
49 the overwhelming majority of them are depicted in such a situation. Brave portrays the triplets that have a sister who is in a conflict with her mother. The same conflict takes place in The Croods where Thunk, the son, has two siblings. Dash in The Incredibles has two siblings as well. None of these representations of sons find themselves in the main conflict of the story. The Triplets and Dash are sources of frequent practical jokes, but they are not majorly included in the conflict that drives the plot. The depiction of an involvement of the son figures in a major conflict starts with the lower numbers of siblings. The main protagonists in Shark’s Tale and Ratatouille have siblings. Both of the siblings are brothers and both conform to the worldviews and the way of living of their single fathers, who are both patriarchs of quite numerous clans. They serve as counterparts to the main protagonists in their fathers’ eyes and are emphasised by the fathers as the examples of a proper shark and a proper rat.
The sons who are depicted as the only children are almost always included in the main conflict. 8 out of 11 instances when a son was depicted as the only child he was connected to a conflict. The 3 instances when the son was located outside of the conflict are: Finding Dory - the disagreements between Nemo and Marlin were supposed to be solved in the first film, Finding Nemo, Sing – Buster Moon’s father is dead and he remembers his father’s supporting attitude towards his dreams, and Madagascar 2 –
Alex was lost as a small cub and now is being reintroduced to his home society in
Africa, including his parents who he did not remember. Out of the remaining 8 characters 6 are in a conflict with their fathers, in one with both parents, and in one with his mother.
Sons start most of the stories as loners. They are not necessarily introverts who willingly refuse the company of their peers. Sometimes they are simply outsiders of the society (Booker 141). They are depicted as people who are different by nature from the
50 mainstream of the society, this probably cases them having no friends. In case of Remi from Ratatouille, it is his interest in culinary experiences and resent towards the usual food of other rats. In the case of Nemo, it is his father’s restrictive raising that cuts him from society. Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon is considered weak and a bit laughable by his peers. Although in many animated movies a logical reason for the outsider status of the son could be identified as has just been done with three of them, a proper interaction between a representation of son and peers outside of his family can be located only in two movies: How to Train Your Dragon and Happy Feet.
Lack of friends causes the original society to look bleak and unfulfilling.
Although the reasons of the outsider status of the representations of the sons are not always depicted in the story, it can be often inferred that the lack of friends and company results from the otherness of the protagonist. Either he secludes himself, or he is secluded from either a larger society, or his own family. At the end of the story, he is usually reintroduced into the original conflicting society or family which, meanwhile became more accepting. The contrast between the beginning and the end of the story, where the end of the story epitomises belonging, acceptance, forgiveness, or gratitude, causes the beginning of the story to appear to be a hostile environment.
These stories of misplacement within the original order and finding a place in the new society could be considered to be stories of liminality. “During the 1990s,
‘liminal’ appeared frequently in research touching adolescence, generally qualifying an adolescent subject with regard to the ambiguousness of his or her social position and/or sexual identity” (Joseph 138). Such approach to liminality coincides with the majority of depictions of experiences of the characters in the son roles. In some societies, liminality was and is connected to the right of passage, this context of liminality was explicitly introduced only in Madagascar 2 and according to some scholars also in
51
Finding Nemo when Nemo swims through bubbles above a volcano in an aquarium
(00:38:51). However, if the new way of seeing the liminality, hence finding identity and cause of oneself, is taken as a pattern, then it can be detected, including reincorporation into society, in multiple stories. This journey could be also compared to the earlier mentioned journey “home-away-home” which Reimer considers one of the other occurring patterns in children literature (107).
Liminality is not present only in the movies where the societies play the role of home, although it is most obvious in such kind of stories. It is easy to detect this motif in movies such as Happy Feet where the outcast, Mumble, travels through Antarctica and reaches a Zoo in the USA just to bring human help to the rest of the starving penguins from his colony, just to find his new place in the colony as a recognised saviour. Remi, from Ratatouille enters the liminal space when he leaves his colony for the love of cooking. For this obsession he was an outsider at the beginning of the story, at the end of the story he reinters the society with the help of his family and the other rats dine in a small restaurant instead of eating litter thrown away by humans.
Liminality is also part of family stories, where the impact on the society as a whole is left more or less unattended. This kind of route is more often connected to uncertainty of the character about his identity and his destiny. Unlike Mumble and Remi who found their cause and follow the goal they had determined for themselves, Lenny
(Shark Tale), Po (Kung Fu Panda) and Johnny (Sing) do not have an exact goal when their independent life commences. Lenny feels he is different and dislikes the pressure his father puts on him. Po loves kung fu and does not see himself as following his father’s footsteps in their diner but is confused when he accidentally becomes the chosen one. Johnny loves singing, but is unable to choose between his aspirations and
52 his father’s expectations. These three characters are not changing their societies, they are merely finding and realising their identity.
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Table 1: An analysis of chosen characteristics of father figures
Name and form of
the father
ion
Reluctance to personal personal to Reluctance change conservativism Social to Reluctance innovat restrictiveness restrictive of Source indicated behaviour anxiety relatives towards Love of Transformation character Finding Nemo (2003) + Marlin (a clown fish) X X X X X X Finding Dory (2016) Crash (a turtle) The Incredibles (2004) Mr. Incredible/ Bob X X X X (a human) Ice Age: The Dawn of the Many (a mammoth) X X X X Dinosaurs (2009) Sid (a sloth) How to Train Your Stoick (a human) X X X X X Dragon (2010) The Croods (2013) Grug (a human) X X X X X Despicable Me 1 (2010) Gru (a human) X Despicable Me 2 (2013) Despicable Me 3 (2017)
Shark’s Tale (2004) Don Lino (a shark) X X X X X Oscar’s father (dead) Shrek 2 (2004) The King (a human) X X X X X X Happy Feet (2006) Memphis (a X X X X X X penguin) Ratatouille (2007) Django (a rat) X X X X X X X Madagascar 2 (2008) Zuba (a lion) X Kung Fu Panda (2008) Mr. Ping (a duck) X X Brave (2012) Fergus (a human) X X X X Sing (2016) Big Daddy (a gorila) X X X X Buster Moon’s Father (dead) Moana (2016 Chief Tui (a human) X X X X x Shrek the Third (2008 Shrek (an ogre) )Shrek Forever After (2010) Frozen (2013) The king (a human) Inside out (2015) Dad (a human) Zootopia (2016) Stu Hopps (a rabbit) Coco (2017) Papá(a human)
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Table 2: An analysis of chosen characteristics of son figures
clever
skilled
clumsy
hearted
Kind/mild Kind/mild
innovative
courageous mischievous Finding Nemo (2003) + Nemo ( a fish) X X X X Finding Dory (2016) Shark’s Tale (2004) Leny (a shark) X X x Frankie (a shark) X X X Happy Feet (2006) Mumble (a penguin) X X X X X Ratatouille (2007) Remi (a rat) Emile (a rat) X x Madagascar 2 (2008) Alex/Alakay (a lion) X X X X X Kung Fu Panda (2008) Po (a panda) X X X X X How to Train Your Dragon Hiccup (a human) X X X X X X (2010) Sing (2016) Johny (a gorila) X X Buster Moon (a koala) X X X Coco (2017) Maguel (a human) X X X X X Despicable Me 1 (2010) Gru (a human) X X X X Despicable Me 2 (2013) Despicable Me 3 (2017)
The Incredibles (2004) Dash (a human) X X X X X The Croods (2013) Thunk (a human) X X Brave (2012) triplets (human) X X X X
Table 3: The importance of the marriage status of father in relation to the conflicting relationship to the offspring of either gender:
Nature of relationship In a conflict Not in a conflict
Married (in relation to wife) 2 (1) 10 (3)
Married (expecting, in relation to 0 2 (2) wife) Married (in relation to son) 2 (2) 3 (2)
Married (in relation to daughter) 4 (2) 6 (1)
Single (in relation to son) 6 (6) 3 (0)
Single (in relation to daughter) 1 (0) 0 (0)
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Table 4: The importance of presence of mother and/or father to the depiction of sons in conflict:
Nature of Relationship In a conflict Not in a conflict
Both parents (in relation to 1 (1) 4 (3) mother) Both parents (in relation to 2 (2) 3 (2) father) Single mother 1 (1) 0 (0)
Single father 6 (6) 3 (0)
Dead father 1 (0) 1 (0)
In several stories, multiple examples of fathers and sons appear. They are included as individual examples. This means that the table is composed on the basis of the number of representations, not number of movies. Both minor and major conflicts are included.
All representations, major and minor are included. The brackets indicate the same sort of information, but only representing the major roles.
Table 5: Number of siblings of son figures:
Number of siblings -> 0 1 2 3
All characters included (number of 10 2 2 1 representations) Main characters (number of representations 10 2 1 0
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Conflict
The table “The Role of Fathers in Conflicts” indicates the place of individual father figures in the conflicts of their respective movies. The data it shows are only approximate since too many factors play a role in the relations within the narratives and any strict lines between classifications of these relationships and conflicts themselves are inevitably arbitrary.
The table includes all roles of fathers, small and big and their relation to the conflict whether they are part of it or just play an external supportive role. Movies where fathers play a significant role in the plot are coloured orange. Movies where fathers have a significant role, but they are given shorter screening time are coloured green and movies where fathers appear only shortly, but play a role are coloured blue.
In the case of more fathers in one movie, where one father is given less time than the other, the one with smaller role in relation to the development of the story is coloured separately under the heading of the movie.
The first division of the table is between the main conflict and the minor conflict of the story. In some cases, the estimation of the importance of the conflicts was more problematic as the conflicts themselves are not the main objective of the stories. The Xs in the “Main conflict” section indicate active involvement and influence of father in various stages of the main conflicting situations of the narratives. The sixth column further indicates whether the resolution of the conflict included a change (CH) in the impression and behaviour of the respective father figure, or whether the father figure stayed unchanged (X). In cases where estimation of change would be too questionable, both options are indicated. The individual representations of father figures could be further involved in the minor conflict of the narrative or play a supportive role in either
57 of them. The involvement of children in a conflict with the respective father is indicated in the ninth and tenth column. The conflict is sometimes depicted as one sided.
Therefore, the ninth column indicates whether the father perceives the situation as conflicting and the tenth column indicates the attitude of the child. The tenth column further suggests whether the child who feels in conflict is a daughter (D) or a son (S).
The last part of the table indicates five possible sources of conflict from the father’s side. These are only instances chosen based on observation, not a complex set of components of conflicts. Depictions of individual conflicts are much more sophisticated than these simple categories. However, the table constitutes an attempt to identify the aspects of the fathers’ behaviour that are depicted in the narratives as the sources of conflicts and of its maintenance on the side of the father. Each of them is then coded in the table under a respective letter, in order to make reading of the table easier.
As seen in the first part of the table, most of fathers find themselves to be the parts of the main conflict. The occurrence is more common in the case of fathers with longer screening time. They are usually involved in the creation of the conflict, its maintenance and also the resolution of the conflict. Fathers who are not bound to the plot of the story, but rather to the motives of the protagonist, usually do not take part in the maintenance of the story but appear at it and take part in the resolution of the conflict. Don Lino, Memphis and Chief Tui do not take part in the journeys of their children but wait in the original society and admit them back on the moment of their return. Most of the fathers who are coloured in blue only serve as the sources of the problematic situation. In Frozen the king and queen are responsible for binding and restricting Elsa’s powers. The whole mental crisis of Riley in Inside Out is caused by the father’s choice of a new job and Shrek, for example, changed the whole reality of
58 his world in Shrek Forever After only because he could not handle his family situation and responsibilities connected to it.
Approximately two thirds of fathers who are coded orange or green find themselves in a conflicting situation with their children. Although the conflicts are not necessary seen as conflicts from the both sides, they play a role in the plot and put fathers in the antagonistic position. Mumble from Happy Feet is not presented as a penguin who feels to be in a conflict with his father, yet his father cannot fully accept
Mumbles’ otherness. The distance Memphis keeps from Mumble is one of the motifs for the quest of the main protagonist.
The majority of offspring who feel to be in a conflict with their father are sons.
This is probably connected to the fact that many sons are depicted as softer than their fathers, which prevents them from feeling of living up to their father’s expectations.
This is further emphasised by the conservativism and inflexibility of their fathers’ reactions and understanding of the world.
The most commonly depicted source of conflict on the father’s side, from the five that were considered, is the lack of understanding. The constraining fear for loved ones, inconsiderate behaviour or dependence on traditions or the opinion of the society play their role in individual movies and conflicts, yet, in almost all of them, these unique problems are accompanied by the father’s lack of comprehension of the problems of his child. Lack of consideration of the motifs and feelings of their offspring sometimes originates in the inability to understand, sometimes in their reluctance to listen to them. The communication pattern, or the lack of it, is one of the key aspects of the conflicts.
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The Role of Fathers in Conflicts
The main conflict Causes of conflict (father’s side)
In case of conflict with an offspring
Name of the father with his children children his with
and form
nflict
Outside a conflict a Outside the of birth the At co the sustaining conflict the of Resolution conflict conflict Minor in role mediator or Supportive conflict a Inconflict child) the of side the (From children his with Inconflict father) the of side the (From Incosiderate (I) behaviour of Lack (U) understanding ones loved for Fear (F) (P) pressure Society (T) tradition Keeping Finding Nemo (2003) + Marlin (a clown fish) X CH S X I U F Finding Dory (2016) Crash (a turtle) X X The Incredibles (2004) Mr. Incredible/ Bob X X CH (a human) Ice Age: The Dawn of the Many (a mammoth) X X Dinosaurs (2009) Sid (a sloth) X How to Train Your Stoick (a human) X X CH S X I U F T Dragon (2010) The Croods (2013) Grug (a human) X X CH D X U F Despicable Me 1 (2010) Gru (a human) Despicable Me 2 (2013) X Despicable Me 3 (2017)
Shark’s Tale (2004) Don Lino (a shark) X CH S X U T
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Oscar’s father X S (dead) Shrek 2 (2004) The King (a human) X X CH X I U F T Happy Feet (2006) Memphis (a X CH X U S penguin) Ratatouille (2007) Django (a rat) X X CH S X I U S T Madagascar 2 (2008) Zuba (a lion) X X X X x T Kung Fu Panda (2008) Mr. Ping (a duck) X S I U T Brave (2012) Fergus (a human) X X Sing (2016) Big Daddy (a gorila) X X CH S X I U Buster Moon’s X Father (dead) Moana (2016 Chief Tui (a human) X CH X F T Shrek the Third (2008 Shrek (an ogre) X )Shrek Forever After (2010) Frozen (2013) The king (a human) X U F Inside out (2015) Dad (a human) X X/ D I U CH Zootopia (2016) Stu Hopps (a rabbit) X Coco (2017) Papá(a human) X X/CH S X U S T
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The table “The Role of Sons in Conflicts” has two main parts. The first part, the third and the fourth column, indicates whether a given figure from the second column finds itself in a conflict or not. In the case of a positive answer, the fourth column further suggests whether it is a conflict with the mother (M) or the father (F). Capital letters indicate a conflict that is important for the plot and is an integral part of the main story. Lower case letters indicate minor problems. The second part of the table, last four columns, indicate the reason for the conflict which usually also commences the action in the story.
In the cases of the son figures, all of them find themselves in conflict, except for those who have a sibling. In the case of Brave, Ratatouille, Shark Tale and The Croods the role of a child in conflict is fulfilled by the siblings of the representatives of sons. In the case of Ratatouille and Shark Tale these are also sons, and thus belong to this analysis. In the case of the other two movies, the protagonist child characters are female who are in a conflicting relationship with one of their parents, therefore the sons can be unburdened from the conflict and are put outside of it. However, the moment there is a son in the story, who is an only child, he is a part of the main conflict and the main storyline of the narrative.
In the case of sons who are in conflict with their parents, or the conflict creates one of the main plotlines of the story (capital letter), reasons for the conflict form son’s side were attempted to be clarified. Most of the sons rebel against the restrictions imposed on them by their parents, usually fathers. The reasons for the rebellion are various. In the case of Nemo, for example, it is a plain revolt against the limitations. In the case of Remi, for example, the revolt is inspired by his dream of being a chef. For
Mumble and Lenny, it was the feeling of being different and the exploration of their own identity. Mumble’s cause comprised also looking for new solutions in the time of
62 shortage of fish. The complexity of the motivation of individual instances of representations of sons cannot be, indeed, explained in these three categories. Yet, they provide the reader of this essay with some of the motives behind the actions of the characters in roles of sons.
Throughout the thesis, the sources and the nature of the conflicts of fathers and their children depicted in the selected animated movies have been commented on. They are connected to identity, power, will to break the limitations, will to find solutions and many other aspects of human life. Some aspects of the nature of these conflicts have been suggested above, as well as the characteristics the concrete depictions of the target roles they have in common. Nonetheless, it is impossible to compose the whole pictures of the problems with which the individual movies deal. Yet, the movies constitute patterns of phases which most of the depicted relationships in conflict have to experience.
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The Role of Sons in Conflicts
Name of the son and
form
Outside of the conflict the of Outside mother with Inconflict (F) father or (M) against Rebellion restrictions new for Looking solutions dream a Following identity of Exploration Finding Nemo (2003) + Nemo ( a fish) F X Finding Dory (2016) Shark’s Tale (2004) Leny (a shark) F X X Frankie (a shark) X Happy Feet (2006) Mumble (a penguin) F X X Ratatouille (2007) Remi (a rat) F X X Emile (a rat) X Madagascar 2 (2008) Alex/Alakay Kung Fu Panda (2008) Po (a panda) F X X How to Train Your Dragon Hiccup (a human) F X X (2010) Sing (2016) Johny (a gorila) F X Buster Moon (a koala) X Coco (2017) Maguel (a human) M, F X X Despicable Me 1 (2010) Gru (a human) M Despicable Me 2 (2013) Despicable Me 3 (2017)
The Incredibles (2004) Dash (a human) M X The Croods (2013) Thunk (a human) X Brave (2012) triplets (human) X
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Conflict Stages in Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo includes a perfect exemplary sequence of a conflict. The movie is a story of a journey of a father, Marlin, and a son, Nemo. Since the movie focuses on the story of both of the parties, including their motifs and values, it can be considered objective in presenting the characters. Moreover, it allows for following of the process of change of attitude in Marlin as opposed to the other movies, where only the final product of the father, whether in the first, conservative, or in the second, embracing form, is depicted. The story does not contain a strong social context, which means it is not representative of the complexity of problems. Yet, the lack of social context makes the relationship clearer and less dependent on factors beyond individual characters.
Such detachment makes the conflict and its individual stages clearer, more vividly described and unobstructed by the factors from the outside of the concrete relationship.
The movie starts with a trauma. As mentioned before, at the beginning of
Finding Nemo, or before the beginning, as the scene is cut from the rest of the story by the opening titles, an attack of a barracuda leaves Marlin a widower with the last egg, even though there were many before. This part sets the presuppositions for Marlin’s overprotectiveness, which later becomes a source of the conflict between him and
Nemo. The scene foreshadows the further development of the story by the last sentences before the cut. Marlin takes the last the last egg into his fin and whispers to it: “It’s ok.
Daddy’s here. Daddy’s got you. I promise I will never let anything happen to you,
Nemo” (4:45). Moreover, the last word carries the symbolism of a permanent reference to the day of the attack. Nemo is the name Marlin’s wife liked, not Marlin himself.
Thus, the name Nemo and son himself also represent the last wishes of Marlin’s wife, which make them even more precious.
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After the opening titles the matrix of disagreements and divides is set between
Marlin and Nemo and underpins the slowly escalating conflict. Marlin’s concerns are portrayed in the context of multiple situations. Nemo has to train retreating back to the anemone for the case of dangerous situations (6:45). Marlin is unable to tell jokes (8:40) and asks the teacher for a special treatment of Nemo because of his maldeveloped fin
(10:20). Nemo, on the other hand, is very lively, wants to talk to his classmates and is also a little bit embarrassed of his father’s behaviour. The final rise to the escalation of conflict and the act of rebellion comes when Marlin finds out that the destination of the school field trip is the place of the attack from the beginning of the movie. Nemo is angry to see his father has followed him to the field trip and thus this part of the conflict concludes with an argument with goes from anger to resignation: “You think you can do these things, but you just can’t Nemo!”, and Nemo’s sad answer: “I hate you” (13:30).
The escalation of the argument leads to Nemo’s act of rebellion. He disobeys the rules of his father, and shocks everyone who is present at the trip and swims to the open ocean. This one decision marks the start of the journey of both figures.
Both characters learn their lessons on the way to each other. Marlin’s worldviews are gradually altered by the travels with Dory, a fish with a short-term memory loss, Crush, a turtle father who has a much freer approach to parenting, and all the adventures he goes through. Firstly, Marlin sees that Crush’s parenting, behaving more as a friend and relying on the offspring, works. Marlin cannot quite wrap his head around the manner of taking decisions under these conditions. Crush answer is: “When they know, you know” (55:25). Second of all, Dory is a quite confused but spontaneous being. She uses all the opportunities that appear on their way. Although this does not correspond with Marlin’s convictions, the viewer and Marlin himself slowly start to see that he does all the bad decisions and Dory’s moves progress their quest a bit further.
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When these two characters find themselves inside of a whale and Marlin does not believe Dory speaks whale, she translates for what that the whale says: “it is time to let go. Everything is gonna be alright” (1:13:00). It is not only the viewer that applies the lines to Marlins restrictive approach to parenting. It is Marlin himself. Letting go in the mouth of the whale is one of the lessons he learns, because trusting Dory, however irrational and unnatural it is for Marlin, gets them out of the whale’s body, and hence closer to Nemo.
Nemo, on the other hand, learns that he needs his father and that he is not as independent as he thinks. After he is captured, he finds himself in fish tank in a dentist office. He meets various kinds of animals. Among others, he meets Gill, a fish that teaches Nemo to strive to be strong and independent (Booker 89). Nemo’s primary aim is to get back to the ocean, especially after he finds out that Marlin is on a search mission. The final escape comes after several attempts that did not work out. The sequence of events is unexpected and Nemo almost escapes only by using the information he gathered in the tank and his own inventiveness, which he discovered in the tank. The situation, however, changes and Nemo gets to the ocean only because of
Gill’s help (1:21:00). The situation dictates that Nemo would die on his own, however rational he is in his attempts. Therefore, Nemo’s lessons are not only that he needs his father emotionally, but also that even though he is slowly growing up, he is still dependant.
The moment of reconciliation comes through Dory, after Marlin lost all hope. It is important to note that at this moment of the story, Marlin abandons the search for
Nemo, not because of lack of love, but because he cannot deal with the feeling of devastation. The hopelessness of the situation is so severe that Marlin sees forgetting about the search as the only option (1:23:46). This is the state of mind he finds himself
67 in the moment of reconciliation. The reconciliation itself does not come from the rational decision or an agreement on the new rules. It comes from the emotions of extreme joy of reunion and the survival of the other. Such emotional scenes work blissfully in the movies yet are not a basis for a stable and permanent establishment of negotiated power relations in the real world. Thus, the unification of reunion, a unique moment of joy, and reconciliation, a more complex process involving multiple situations, creates an illusion that an emotional act and love can resolve problems connected to multi-layered power structures.
In the case of Finding Nemo, reconciliation is connected to the test on the lessons learnt on the separate journeys. Right after the reunion Dory is caught in a fishnet together with a large school of fish. Nemo has an idea how to safe her, but to do that, he needs to swim in the fish net as well. Naturally, Marlin does not want to allow it. Nemo explains his plan in a hurry and ends his persuasion with a reference that leads to, among others, the moment just before the rebellion: “I can do this!” (1:27:40).
Marlin finds the trust in his son in this moment and taking back the fin extended to
Nemo he says: “You are right. I know you can” (1:27:54). Not only Marlin lets Nemo go into the net stuffed with fish, he helps him with the plan. Moreover, Marlin uses
Dory’s phrase “just keep swimming” to do that (1:28:40). This symbolises the acceptance of some principles of Dory’s approach to life: no matter what you do, doing something will get you somewhere. The scene tests communication skills between the two parties, the will to consider the views of the other party, the inventiveness of Nemo and the ability of Marlin to let go.
Nemo’s plan worked and although he almost died, he became a hero who reaffirmed his position in the newly established balance. Marlin’s overprotectiveness and worries were needless. The end of the story proves Nemo was right the whole time
68 and was able to judge his abilities correctly. His plan and actions saved not only Dory, but dozens of other fish. Thus, his inventiveness proved to be beneficial in solving not only problems but critical situations. His input was depicted as more beneficial than that of his adult father. If the end of the struggle had ended differently, Marlin would be just considered a horrible parent. Not letting Nemo go to that net would show that Marlin learnt nothing on his journey. It is the happy ending of the adventures and final battles that often reaffirm the newly gained position of the offspring as the rightful one, but always put the father into a position where it seems like he applied wrong rules in his parenting all along.
After the reunion and reconciliation Nemo and Marlin, together with Dory, re- enter the society. Nemo is not angry anymore and behaves more lovingly towards his father. Marlin is happier and more relaxed. He is able to tell jokes and is full of energy, which he lacked before. The relationship of the two is sincerer than before and no problems are posed.
The Message of Conflicts
Every individual depiction slightly varies from the described model. As already mentioned, Finding Nemo can be considered to be a movie with the fullest representation of the stages of the conflict that are present in various movies. In most of the movies that are coded green, the father figure is left out of the maintenance of the conflict, or the part of the story where the original conflict leads the protagonist to action, yet they appear and often take active part in the creation of the conflict and its conclusion. Reaffirmation of the new balance of power is often missing from the stories as well, because the achievement of the new balance of power or reintroduction to the
69 society depends on the strength of the social factors in the story, is where the story is cut.
The decision on the end of the story sets its outcomes. The traditional ending of the animated movies is a happy ending, where the evil is defeated and the good.
Through success the winner justifies the deed from the narrative, including the disobedience and other negatively connoted deeds, because they led to the positive outcome. In the case of the animated movies selected as the material for this essay, a father’s original position finds itself defeated at the moment in which the movie is cut.
This provides closure, but also a very unlikely unproblematic ending to the story. The embracement of the child by the father usually ends all, however complex struggles that were presented at the beginning of the movie. It usually does not solve only one aspect of the problematic relationship of the protagonist but offers peace and a complete resolution to the family, or society. The new balance seems to be a wholesome all- purpose permanent solution, not only to a concrete argument between a parent and the son, but to all possible struggles. On the screen, such ending looks glorious. Everyone leaves the cinema happy. Thus the question is: What might be wrong with movies using such structure of conflict?
Firstly, parents are the source of children’s unhappiness. Many movies build theirs stories on the disagreements between parents and their children. It almost appears that it is impossible to be in a harmonious relationship with one’s family. The fact that the protagonists are often depicted as outsiders in regards to their society does not alter the resolution of the conflict. Everything is solved by reconciliation with one’s father, including the social problems. In Happy Feet, for example, Mumble is ostracised by the elders and most of the flock, which would suffice for the creation of a conflict within the movie, yet father sides with the society, restricting his own child.
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Secondly, the conflict escalates in silence or anger, the resolution brings ability to communicate. Fathers and their children are unable to communicate until the reconciliation moment. Almost none of the characters approaches their counterpart with a vision of communication opened to understanding before they are forced to do so by a critical moment in the plot. Even then, as will be clarified later, they do not negotiate.
After the point of reconciliation, however, both parties are able to communicate and express their feelings without hesitation.
Thirdly, fathers are wrong and their concession is the way to general happiness and peace. The conflict is usually one sided. As already noted several times, animation movies are often narratives of maturation. The main protagonists of these stories are always children, who need to prove that their opinion matters. They want to be heard and listened to, because they are struggling with multiple issues. They are the depictions of real adolescents. But the movies seem to strive to offer comfort to those, whose parents do not listen. Thus, the parents, in overwhelming number of cases they are fathers, are depicted as conservative characters who do not communicate and do not understand their children. They are depicted in the unfortunately stylised positions that, for the sake of the happy ending and the success of the protagonist, terminate in regretting the attitudes, actions and principles of raising they had at the beginning of the movie. Moreover, by the outcome of the events they are shown to be wrong and incapable of beneficial judgment. Therefore, the message this structure of conflict sends is that parents should concede to children in case of a disagreement, because they tend to be wrong, and that a change of their attitude is inevitable.
Onwardly, the structure does not reflect reality. The conflictline is utopian in both positive and negative sense. The resolution that offers an acquisition of conflictless, peaceful and balanced situation which lets individuals thrive in their own
71 way is a desirable reality. But as much as it is perfect, it is also unachievable. And, be the impossibility of such universe ignored, the suddenness and completeness of the resolution in the movies creates an illusion of single-act solution. The reconciliation of the movies provides viewers with expectations of instant, rather than gradual change.
The negotiations of redistribution of power and of emotional or ideological agreements are usually entirely absent.
Lastly, social order can be changed by an individual. In most of the animated movies that include the social aspect, the social order changes at the end. The change can be understood metaphorically, as a representation of a transformation over decades or centuries, however, in animated movies the change happens from one moment to the other, or from one generation to another at best. The change is fast and is usually conditioned exclusively by the success of a son figure and his ability to see beyond tradition. Not only this presents the original social order as outdated, but it also suggests that such transformation can be done by one single misfit. This depiction is reoccurring despite of the fact that the process of socialisation usually works exactly the other way around. The celebration of the power of an individual is connected to the western ideology (Booker 139). Nonetheless, in the animated movies, it is being replanted to the
Viking age, Stone Age, and medieval Scotland, which, as already mentioned, sends a message, that young men have always been able to change societies according to their will.
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Case Study: How to Train Your Dragon
Synopsis
How to Train Your Dragon is a feature animated movie set in the world of
Vikings. It was released in the 2010, which is approximately in the middle of the time frame used in this thesis. The fact that the plot is situated in the human world makes the analysis of physical features of the father and son figure and the comparison to the models as they were introduced in one of the previous chapters easy. The story comprises a strong social element and can be considered representative in the connection to father-child and son-parent relationships. The fact that it deals with a father- son relationship only makes the analysis more concise. The son is a member of most commonly represented age group in the movies, since he is a teenager.
Furthermore, the family is suitable also in respect to social position and race, as the white representation and leadership position have been identified as the most common among the selected stories.
The people of Berg, a Viking village, are in a long war with dragons because the creatures steal their food. The viewer enters the story at the beginning of an early morning fight. Despite the absence of sun in the sky, almost whole village is fighting the dragon attackers. One boy is not. Hiccup, a young slender boy is sent away from the battlefield by the chief of the village, Stoick, who also happens to be his father. Hiccup, however, does not obey the orders and tries to join the battle. With the help of a machine he invented he hits and disables a night fury, a kind of dragon no one have seen before, as its hide is as black as night. At the same time, Hiccup manages to ruin the battle that was so far looking favourable to the Viking villagers.
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Not long after the battle, Stoick with some of the Vikings go for a quest to find the nest of the dragons. While they are gone, Hiccup is supposed to learn how to fight dragons. The training takes place in the village. Meanwhile, every day after his training,
Hiccup leaves the village to study Toothless, the night fury he shot down before, who is stranded at the far side of the island. Gradually, they become friends. Through this dragon he learns more about the whole species. This unlikely friendship is later discovered by Astrid, another trainee in the dragon fighting and Hiccup’s love interest, who is soon persuaded that Toothless is a friend.
Hiccup uses the information he learned from interacting with Toothless to handle the other dragons. Since the existence of Toothless is unknown to the villagers, his newly “gained” skills are perceived as a hidden talent. The success causes that he is chosen to kill his first dragon. Moreover, Hiccup discovers a dragon nest when on a ride with Astrid and thus realises that dragons act as enemies, because if they do not feet the dragon queen, they would be eaten themselves. The ride and the discovery wins him an ally, but at the same time further presses the issue.
Hiccup tries to persuade Vikings to stop fighting the dragons by a demonstration of possibility of taming them in the arena, yet after mentioning the nest to his father, who rejects Hiccup’s approach to dragons, another hunt for the dragon nest becomes the only effect of Hiccups persuasion. Thus, the father ties Toothless, who was captured when protecting Hiccup in the arena, to one of the Viking ships for navigation and the ships sail to fight.
Hiccup and Astrid know that the dragon nest is home to an enormous creature and that the quest might be deadly for everyone on the ships. That is why they persuade the other trainees to ride the dragons from arena to the battle. The moment they arrive, the ships are on fire and the battle almost lost. Hiccup, with the help of his father,
74 releases Toothless and challenges the massive dragon. He wins the fight, but it almost costs him his life. Stoick admits his mistake and the Vikings start to keep dragons as pets and vehicles.
Analysis
According to this synopsis, the main protagonist is Hiccup and the narrative tells his story. When constructing the synopsis, I was trying to tell the story of How to Train
Your Dragon, therefore the settings, main entities and the events, as opposed to the narrative discourse7. And still the end product is mainly following the footsteps of
Hiccup. The same could be considered true for the synopses published on IMDB,
Wikipedia and io9. The summaries are describing the story of Hiccup omitting the social matrix and family relations. The details and difficulties of Hiccup’s relation with his father are left unattended. Stoick is mostly considered responsible for the hunts on dragons, putting Hiccup into the arena and capturing Toothless. Stoick’s place in the story is mentioned in all three synopses in the reconciliation part of the narrative, the end of the story, when he admits he was wrong. Therefore, he is depicted as a person who makes all the brutal and harsh decisions and then is sorry for them. Only IMDB adds the scene where he wants to sacrifice himself to gain time for the other Vikings to run from the battle.
Stoick’s story appears to be a story untold, as so many of other fathers’ stories.
Although he attributes much to the plot by supplying motivation, direction, and even emotions, he is almost excluded from all four synopses. It could be argued that similar omission and reduction to negative effects can happen in the viewers’ heads. There are scenes in the movie, which point to the struggle Stoick is going through with Hiccup:
7 Terminology based on Abbott. 75
Hiccups conflicting identity perception (00:10:30) and his attempts to prove himself to others that are connected to a constant need of supervision since Hiccup is a frequent source of catastrophes (00:07:50) just to name a few. On the other hand, Hiccup feels frustrated by his stable status of a social outsider. In comparison to the fact the Hiccup is being an outsider, Stoick troubles are not important for the events of the story, thus are left unmentioned. Instead the synopses mention that Hiccup is an apprentice to
Gobber, local blacksmith, since it justifies Hiccup’s ability to create riding utilities for
Toothless and also helps to explain his innovative spirit and wit.
The viewer enters the world through a long swift over the sea surface. It is night and just beyond a layer or fog a huge cliff with asymmetric shapes on its top appears.
The music dances between fairy tale and adventure. The narrator’s voice is introducing the world of the story:
This is Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of
freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. My village. In
a word, sturdy. And it's been here for seven generations, but, every single
building is new. We have fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets.
The only problems are the pests. You see, most places have mice or
mosquitoes. We have . . . dragons.( 00:00:34)
This is the moment when the viewer sees Hiccup for the first time: a thin boy with a longer brown hair and green eyes. His relatively skinny pale freckled face is deformed in a grimace as he shuts the door just in time to stop dragon fire from eating him up.
This is the moment, to be precise the word “dragons”, when the voice is united with its owner and Hiccup is revealed as the narrator of the introduction to Berg. This makes sense as the appearance of the surprised teenager matches to the bored, annoyed voice of the narration. The viewer sees the whole body of Hiccup as he runs through the
76 burning village. He has thin long legs and arms, which do not help him in manoeuvring among other people who either carry things or are excitedly joining the fight. He is being pushed there and back until he falls down. After composing himself he continues to run while the angry villagers shout at him to get back inside. Apparently, he is not supposed to be in the battle, but he runs on. That is until a huge arm yanks him by the collar to the air by one simple pull before he almost enters a line of fire just breathed by a dragon. The viewers are, for the first time, being acquainted with Stoick the Vast, as
Hiccup introduces him.
Stoick the Vast, as his name suggests, is an enormous man, the biggest of the
Vikings. Gleiberman calls him “toweringly gruff” and Boulton “brawny chieftain” (44).
Hiccup makes something more than one arm of the man in size. Hiccup moves almost as a puppet without muscles as Stoick moves his body in the air asking for reasons of his presence on what became a battlefield. The deep thunder of Gerard Butler and his
Scottish accent take over the sound. As he releases Hiccup from his hands, Hiccup continues narrating with his almost standard pronunciation: “That's Stoick the Vast.
Chief of the tribe. They say that when he was a baby he popped a dragon's head clean off of its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes I do.” (00:01:49) Meanwhile, Stoic throws a wooden cart into a dragon as if it was a ball.
There are two roles of Stoick shown in this first scene. When he yanks Hiccup to the air, he looks as a concerned father. His voice melody is toned with emotions: disbelieve, concern and annoyance. After sending Hiccup inside, he enters the role of a chief, asking for a description of the current state of situation. His voice and face expression become hard, pragmatic, concentrated and emotionless, in one word, stoic.
Despite the depiction of these two roles, they are not elaborated on in the narration.
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Hiccup’s voice only attends the strength of the muscular body we see and the legend connected to it.
Much of the conflict in the story is connected to these two bodies. Apparently, the Viking world that the viewer is introduced to at the beginning of the movie is a world of strength and fighting. This is at least the way Hiccup perceives it. Stoick, being the embodiment of physical strength and the chief of the tribe, can be considered to symbolise the values of the people. Hiccup is fully aware his body type is in disagreement with what is expected of the chief’s son or any Viking. Several times throughout the movie a line, or the variation of it, “you just gestured all of me” appears
(00:03:51, 00:16:29, 01:27:31). The references to the whole of Hiccup’s body are usually negative. Being used so many times, the sentence becomes a symbol of his unsuitability for the society, of the visible difference between him and the rest of the tribe. Only at the end of the movie, when the line is used by Stoick: “Turns out, all we needed was a little more of this.” Hiccup: “You just gestured all of me” (01:27:27) the meaning of it turns to positive. What can be, however, easily lost in the narrative is that
Stoick’s problem is not as much related to Hiccups fragile stature, as to his tendency to ignore the predispositions of his body and putting himself to dangerous situations, just for the desire of proving himself.
The motives of Hiccup’s actions are comprehensible, but so are Stoick’s.
Hiccup finds himself in an obvious conflict with society. His peers do not accept him.
He serves rather as a target of humiliation and laughter. His love interest, Astrid, ignores him and he feels like he is a failure to his father’s expectations. He has practically no friends besides his father’s friend, Gobber, who is also the blacksmith at which Hiccup is doing his apprenticeship. He is tolerated in the society, but not accepted. Villagers rather go on another search for the dragon net than to spend time
78 with him. When Stoick threatens that “those who stay will look after Hiccup”
(00:09:52), everyone volunteers for the search.
All of these aspects of outsider status of Hiccup, however, tend to overshadow the reasons for his father’s restriction rules. Stoick is a chief that needs to take care of the villagers. The winter is approaching and he needs to secure food for the whole tribe.
Yet it seems like Hiccup is getting in the way a bit too often. “STOP! Just....stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems?
Winter's almost here and I have an entire village to feed!” (00:07:45) Yet Hiccup fails to understand the seriousness of the situation and answers: “Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't ya think?“ (00:07:59). He says it jokily, nonetheless, from a position of the chief’s son and in front of the whole village. By this
“joke”, although he is really trying to soften the situation, he is prioritising his desire to become a part of the society over its survival. Not only the attitude lacks logic, Hiccup is also insulting the members of that same society and thus a question can be raised:
What are the real reasons of his exclusion? This question is, however, backgrounded by the fact that this is the story of Hiccup and narrative discourse follows his grievances and his opinions.
Gobber, and at some point also Stoick himself, tries to explain to Hiccup that it is not the expectations of the body shape he fails to meet, but the expectations of self- contentment. The narrative does not devote much time to Stoick inner world and motivations. After all, according to the synopses, the story is not his. Yet, in one scene, he confides to Gobber, probably no the first time with his troubles with Hiccup
(00:10:15). The main problem he identifies is that Hiccup does not know who he is.
Stoick is annoyed with Hiccup trying to be the dragon slayer, when, obviously, he is not gifted in that way. “You are many things Hiccup, but a dragon killer is not one of them”
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(00:08:16) Stoick says disappointed in the conversation with Hiccup after the first battle. The disappointment does not originate in Hiccup’s failure to be another Viking, as he assumes, but as Gobber later tries to explain to him, what his father wants is for
Hiccup to “stop trying so hard to be something [he] is not” (00:09:11). The problem is, however, that neither of the two parties, neither the son nor the father, listens to the other.
Inability to communicate is partly responsible for the conflict of Hiccup and his father. Although it is Hiccup who mentions the lack of active listening from his father’s side (00:10:35) he does not listen either. Throughout the movie they exchange important information about their motives and attitudes several times. Almost every time, however, it is in the middle of an argument and when a proper communication situation is established, they cannot find clear words and formulations (00:48:35).
Gobber works as a part time mediator between Hiccup and Stoick and advices both of them on the basis of the information confided by the other. It is interesting that although
Stoick is the one who could be considered the less understanding from the two, it is him who takes Gobber’s advice, whereas Hiccup keeps refusing his explanations. Gobber encourages Hiccup to be who he really is, yet he does not change his approach until he meets Toothless.
The moment Hiccup decides to study Toothless, he leaves his Viking aspirations behind. When he enters the valley where Toothless is stranded, he carries a shield as a protection. Even before it is obvious that a shield is more of a burden for
Hiccup than help, but this time the shield becomes literally a barrier between Toothless and himself as it gets stuck between two rock walls at the entry to the valley. Although
Hiccup tries to unstuck the shield and carry it on, after a few unsuccessful attempts he has to crawl under it and leave it behind, together with the ideals of the Viking society.
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Here he, in my opinion, enters the liminal space. It is in this valley and on the flights with Toothless that he finds his identity, opinions and much of what will make him who he is at the end of the movie, away from society, on the side of the island that no one seems to go to. It is reminiscent of young boys leaving for hunt in some societies and only returning after they kill their pray, but not as boys any more, but as men, the rite of passage. Except for, Hiccup is not killing but taming the animal and testing the skills he learned as an apprentice, not as a fighter.
There are several points in the story when Hiccup could be considered to be re-entering the society. Firstly, thanks to Toothless, he is becoming better in the arena, accepted in the society and appreciated by his father when Stoick returns from the search for the nest. Hiccup finds a place in the society as a newly discovered talent. Yet, at this point, his secret life remains uncovered. The secret prevents this stage from being a reintroduction in the society, since the liminal space still exists. The second possible point of re-entry could be the moment he decides to show everyone that dragons are not dangerous. In front of everyone in the arena, he throws away the shield, his weapon and the helmet, piece of armour his father personally gave him as a symbol of welcoming him among the fighters of the tribe, and thus symbolically renouncing the way Vikings live. Such act meets with refusal of the society, including the chief. This act can be considered an attempt to re-enter the society, yet is too one sided and the transformation
Hiccup hopes for does not take place. But it is the first step from his side. Moreover,
Toothless climbs to the arena to protect Hiccup. Therefore, the taming is complete and the secret is revealed. The liminal space no longer exists.
Two other events could be more likely considered a reintroduction. In first of them, Hiccup and his approach to dragons become accepted by his peers who eventually ride the dragons from the arena to the battle against the enormous queen dragon. In the
81 second of them, Stoick apologises to Hiccup and accepts him as his son again, after previous renouncement. The ultimate reintroduction, however comes after the dragon queen is defeated by Hiccup and Toothless and Hiccup wakes up in his bed. He is in the room only with Toothless, no one from the outside, just him and the animal he brought from the liminal space. Hiccup stands up, one of his legs in the original form, the other one prosthetic. He almost falls, but Toothless catches him. After a few moments, he reaches the door and opens it. He shuts it back immediately as the scene looks quite similar to the scene in introduction when he was almost burned to death. The light in this scene is different though. Instead of scary night, the daylight shines bright this time.
Instead of screams and shouts one can hear laughter. Hiccup opens the door again and steps out. He is immediately greeted by his father, who proudly lays an arm around his shoulders. Gradually he is cheered not only by Gobber, who gives him new riding gear for Toothless, and his peers but also by a crowd of villagers. Astrid kisses him and
Toothless joins them in front of the house. This scene contains all the important elements of a reintroduction to the society, even though Hiccup did not really belong to it before, including the wielding of power, or the change of structure that George identifies as a common element for home-away-home structure of a story. (qtd. Reimer
107)
The change in the atmosphere that prevails in Berg at the beginning of the movies and at the end of the movie is a symbol of a deeper change. The beginning is dark. It is night and silence slowly transforms into the shrieks of war of the villagers and dragons, tribe’s worst and long term enemy. The tribe’s politics are based on ages old experiences, unchanging way of life and superstitions (Scot). Sheer strength seems to be the most valued quality, as it provides the means of defeating the enemy. The coordination of the fighting tactics is under single supervision of Stoick the Vast. The
82 fight, as the most important feature of the society is executed by adult people, mainly men. Younger generation either puts away fire, or in case of Hiccup, they are supposed to help at the blacksmith’s. Hiccup is being swung in the air by his father and reproached like an irresponsible child (that he is). Peers laugh at him and he struggles to find purpose and acceptance. This the dark beginning of the movie is connected to the old order of things, where power relations are unequal and older generation makes decisions. The system is built on tradition and long years of experience and Hiccup does not fit.
The ending scene is much brighter. As Hiccup steps outside of the door, he sees that dragons are now Viking pets. The sun is shining on the green grass that contrast to the bright blue sky. Stoick immediately approaches Hiccup and lays his arm around his shoulders talking to him proudly, communication and expressions of feelings do not pose a problem anymore. He treats him as an equal, walking by his side and not like a child, swinging Hiccup’s body in the air. Gobber hands Hiccup a new gear for
Toothless. This means that Gobber is already implementing Hiccup’s technology in his workshop. The villagers who are nearby are cheering and greeting him. Astrid gives him a kiss. Hiccup is appreciated while being identical to who he was at the beginning of the story, including the smallest parts of hi character.
Such perception of the situation tied to the fact that Hiccup is the narrator. The darkness and light are connected to his place in the society and his own outlook on the world. After all it is he who narrates the beginning of the movie and thus, theoretically, decides on the point when the viewer enters the story. It is the story of his achievements and not of his failures, the number of which can be considered high, based on the statements of the other characters. This reality develops from a lucky chance of shooting the right dragon and the dragon losing the exact part of the body that Hiccup
83 can repair. Indeed, Hiccup is only able to mend Toothless’s tail and build a device that helps him ride the dragon because his inability to participate in fighting and being an apprentice at the blacksmith, which is connected to his individualism. Yet, this lucky chance eventually recreates the whole society into an accepting tribe who lives in symbiosis with the dragons. Thus, the lucky act is the single source of an unlikely smooth transformation that is not accompanied with any kind of mistrust between the former enemies. Apart from the fact that such transformation is highly improbable, or would take generations, in the real world, the narrative punishes the original society and the father’s values.
The change of the original order and the wielding of the power of society to the younger generation can symbolise the wrongness of the values and ways of the older generation. The endless struggle whether deeds are to be judged by the aim or by the outcome is often not reflected in the world of animated movies. Animated movies have a long tradition, which have been gradually implemented by Disney and then often taken up by other studios, that creates a binary opposition of the evil and the good
(Booker 103). It is always the good that triumphs and the evil that is punished. This is often what the viewer is used to. Therefore, if such binary pattern of expectations is implemented to How to Train Your Dragon, then Stoick and the old order are inevitably perceived negatively. They do not need to be seen necessarily as evil, but easily as outdated, obsolete, punishing, and wrong in their opinions, irrational even. The establishment of new order and new power relations needs the opposition. The old order is the opposition that serves the purpose of showing how new is better and the old becomes a sorry existence at the moment of the succession.
The second part of the battle with the dragon queen becomes the scene of accession. As the monstrous creature emerges from its dwelling and burns all Viking
84 ships, Stoick realises that everything is lost and there is no chance of killing the creature. He resolves to capture the attention of the creature, even at the price of losing his own life, to allow the other fighters to retreat to “the far side of the island”. Gobber decides to join him (01:15:13). Such heroic action is, however, not needed anymore, as the younger generation flights in to help. The eye of camera follows them and the way they take their positions. Hiccup jumps on the deck of a burning ship to release
Toothless from chains. Although he tries several time, he is too week and slow. The ship sinks while the dragon is still chained to it. Hiccup is slowly being drowned when trying again and again, until he is pulled out of water by Stoick. Subsequently, Stoick dives again to release Toothless. He does so by one strong pull. This is the last act of the old order, the last manifestation of the importance of strength for the survival of
Vikings. In the next scene, Hiccup mounts Toothless and prepares for the battle. Sitting on the animal his body takes the higher position in comparison to his father’s, who suddenly seems small. The more so, because his hair and beard are wet and they cling to his small head. Stoick the Vast suddenly looks like a small scared sorry puppy looking at his son in search for forgiveness.
Stoick: “Hiccup, I am sorry…for everything.”
Hiccup: “Yeah...me too.”
Stoick: “You don't have to go up there.”
Hiccup: “We're Vikings. It's an occupational hazard.”
Stoick: “I'm proud to call you my son.”
Hiccup: “Thanks dad.” (01:18:57)
There is no time for explanations, just gladness. This is why the moment of reconciliation is unproblematic and the scene seems to be the moment of unspoken resolution of all the disagreements there ever were. Outside of the universe of the
85 expected happy endings of the animated movies, Stoick probably would not just let
Hiccup undergo such dangerous mission and stand there looking. The power to act and to assume the responsibility for the lives of every Vikings on the island is transferred unnaturally smoothly. In connection with the happy ending it sends the message that letting Hiccup do whatever he decides to do, even though it is extremely dangerous, does not only make both sides more relaxed, but also saves lives. In reality it is, however, wielding power and giving up everything what Stoick represented at the beginning. Although, from the constructivist view, this could be seen as a natural development of characters in their interaction, in the essentialist view, Stoick changed and it brought the whole society into a balance that was missing at the beginning of the movie .
The accession of the new order can evoke the inevitability of abandonment of father’s restrictions and rules as it has been argued. Yet the message can be much softer.
The outtake from the way the conflict was resolved can be the need for fathers to assume their roles as the New Man, instead of trying to have everything under their control. Nevertheless, if similar patterns are recurring in multiple animated movies, I think the outtakes that fathers are the restrictive ones, that they should not be, and that no punishment follows disobedience are more than suggestive.
The new society carries the message of the need to follow innovation and education. The first people who were riding dragons are the adolescents of the village.
This happens because Astrid who has been persuaded by Hiccup to accept Toothless as something amazing, has influence in the group. She is the only one whose character comprises both strength and cleverness. Through her influence the group starts to listen to Hiccup and take him as the leader of their offensive. Thus the most innovative person, the one who could imagine things beyond the traditional ways is suddenly in
86 charge. In comparison to the group of the older generation, members of the younger generation speak almost standard accent. This evokes weaker affiliations with the tradition, weaker identity ties to the Viking life and could be associated with educated- like approach to life. Although they do not have any education or creativity, except
Hiccup, that would stand from what is customary to teach in their society, their lack of marked accent is in harmony with their new, accepting approach to dragons and their willingness to follow the one who knows, not the one who is the strongest. They are also more plastic and memorable than the older generation. The adult “male Vikings come off as no-neck athletes on steroids. The youngsters look closer to cartoon humans and … come in different sizes” (Honeycutt). Therefore, while the older generation is being homogenised, in the younger generation, everyone receives their own face. This generation and Hiccup become the symbol of the new order as much as Stoick was the symbol of the old one.
Although the message of the resolution of conflict is explained in this thesis as a complex issue with multiple messages, the most obvious messages that cohere with the other movies are: Not listening to parents and acting against their will is ok. The child will not be punished and might even become a hero, as they bring innovation. The world of parents is too redundant and conservativism to slow to react for the ever changing situation, and thus change is inevitable.
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Conclusion
This thesis describes patterns of depiction of fathers and sons that the most popular animated movies create. The picture is not full, however it has been demonstrated that the depiction of male figures is dependent on the place they occupy in the plot and the conflict of the story. The patterns are also connected to relations between fathers and their children and sons and their parents.
Relations of fathers and sons create the most common patterns. The fact that they are often depicted as an only son and a single father in conflict limits the frame within which the characters are allowed to move. The fathers usually take traditionally more masculine role that is characteristic, but large body, thick accent and conservative outlook on the world. The sons, on the other hand, tent to be depicted as the opposite of fathers in bodily figure, in case the two parties are in a conflict. They tend to have accents that are closer to the standard forms and hearts much softer than their counterparts. They usually refuse to settle for the existing status quo and either hunt their dreams or look for new solutions of the old problems.
Thus sons can be considered to be the symbols of movement and progressiveness, while fathers are representations of the old order. The future is supposed to belong to the future generations, but the exchange of generations here is bound to the notion of transformation. However, the maturation stories, where teenagers find their place in the society imply much more than mere need for innovation and improvement.
Both characters, sons and fathers, enter the story with a certain way of life, attitudes and expectations. While the sons follow their dream, look for their identity and place in the society, in all cases successfully, fathers’ are forced by the plot to change
88 all above mentioned qualities of their character. This happens, because the stylisation of the plot proves their values redundant and unsuitable. Braking of the fathers’ rules turn to sons’ advantage and brings them happiness or a status of a hero. This means that children are presented with plots where every father is wrong, not fully appreciating his child’s abilities and restricting their freedom. They are presented with plots that suggest that parents do not know what is good for their children, where rules have no real purpose in the world, because they do not protect, but merely limit. This finding is in agreement with the findings of Wynns and Rosnefeld (103).
Therefore, on one hand, the animated movies provide the viewer with characters which enable identification. This identification with a hero may plant hope and even self-confidence into children hearts. But the storylines that depict fathers usually also suggest that the protectiveness of parents is only complicating things that would be otherwise so simple.
The stories’ endings suggest that fathers need sons to challenge their original way of life in order to connect with their emotional side. Fathers are usually serious, anxious or nervous at the beginning of the movie, overwhelmed with responsibilities.
Yet after the climax of the conflict and resolution of the problems, which are usually solved too fast and easily, fathers usually open up emotionally, become more energetic and genuinely happy. Thus, the conflict seems to result in a general satisfaction and be beneficial for both parties.
In sum, the implications of the personal relationships of fathers and children in the animated movies are that any conflict needs to end in favour of child’s aspirations.
Such is the only ending presented in the animated movies. And it is the ending which makes all characters happy, including the society. This is why it might be considered by viewers to be an inevitable kind of resolution of conflicts.
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Animated movies extend the conflict inside of a family to the whole society. Fathers are often depicted in the position of a leader. In these cases the resolution of the conflict between a father and his offspring does not end only the disagreements between the two characters, but extends its influence over whole society. In these cases, every member of the group discovers the magic of life that the sons’ or daughters’ actions inhibited and gladly changes their way of life.
The implications of structures of animated movies have yet to be researched.
The current state of examination is unsatisfactory. The research area might appear unattractive, but today’s animated movies shape the thinking, cognition and understanding of future generations. Their popularity makes then incredibly powerful and influential educational tools. Animated movies carry strong ideological messages that have been widely discussed in connection to Disney in the past, but critical discourse of movies from the other studios is yet to be developed.
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Coco. Directed by Lee Unkrich, Buena Vista, 2017.
Despicable Me 2. Directed by Pierre Coffin, and Chris Renaud, Universal, 2013.
Despicable Me 3. Directed by Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, and Eric Guillon, Universal,
2017.
Despicable Me. Directed by Pierre Coffin, and Chris Renaud, Universal, 2010.
Finding Dory. Directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Angus MacLane, Buena
Vista, 2016.
Finding Nemo. Directed by Andrew Stantion, and Lee Unkrich, Buena Vista, 2003.
Frozen. Directed by Frozen, Buena Vista, 2013.
Happy Feet. Directed by George Miller, and Warren Coleman,
How to Train Your Dragon. Directed by Dean DeBlois, and Chris Sanders,
DreamWorks, 2010.
Ice Age: The Dawn of the Duinosaurs. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, Fox, 2009.
Inside Out. Directed by Pete Docter, Buena Vista, 2015.
Kung Fu Panda. Directed by Jonathan Aibel, and Glenn Berger, DreamWorks, 2008.
Madagaskar 2. Directed by
Moana. Directed by Ron Clements, and John Musker, Buena Vista, 2016.
Ratatouille. Directed by Brad Bird, Buena Vista, 2007.
Shark Tale Directed by Vicky Jenson, and Rob Letterman, DreamWorks, 2004.
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Shrek 2. Directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon,
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Shrek Forever After. Directed by Mike Mitchell, Paramount, 2010.
Shrek the Third. Directed by Chris Miller, DreamWorks, 2007.
Sing. Directed by Garth Jennings, Universal, 2016.
The Croods. Directed by Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders, Fox, 2013.
The Incredibles. Directed by Brad Bird, Buena Vista, 2004.
Zootopia. Directed by Byron Howard, and Rich Moore, Buena Vista, 2016.
Not included in the corpus
Monsters University. Directed by Dan Scanlon, Buena Vista, 2013.
The Simpsons Movie.Directed by David Silverman, Fox, 2007.
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Summary
This thesis explores the roles of fathers and sons in selected animated movies released between 2000 and 2017. It describes the patterns these movies create, specifically in regard to the character as an individual, his position in the respective society, and his position in the conflict in the movie. The analysis employs comparisons of physical appearance of father and son figures across the individual movies, their pronunciation patterns, mental characteristics and the position they occupy in the society.
The findings of the examination inform of frequent depiction of sons in subordination. Son figures are usually portrayed as the protagonists in the narratives of maturation. Their usual part in the conflict is connected to rebellion against the society or conservativism of their fathers that is often inspired by a search for identity or following one’s dream. Sons are often depicted as the only children of their parents and outsiders in the society. The lack of bonds and belonging makes the sons feel unhappy and also facilitates their departure for searching for a different life.
Fathers are often depicted as large conservative men. The characters personifying these social roles usually feel obliged to traditional social order and rules, or their own way of life as opposed to the innovation of their children. The importance of their social ties is, among others, emphasised by the use of language, voice and accent. In relation to the narrative, fathers often get significantly long screening time. If a son figure is present, fathers become a secondary character in the story. The place in the conflict they occupy is often antagonistic to their children and the custom of animated movie ending happily leads to a sudden change in their original principles and their way of life.
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Resumé
Tato diplomová práce zkoumá roli otců a synů ve vybraných animovaných filmech, které vznikly mezi lety 2000 a 2017. Popisuje vzorce, které tyto filmy vytváří, obzvlášť ve spojitosti s postavou jako jednotlivcem, jeho místem v dané společnosti a v konfliktu ve filmu. Analýza využívá porovnání fyzického vzhledu otce a syna napříč jednotlivými filmy, výslovnostními vzorci, mentální charakteristikou a místem, které zaujímají ve společnosti.
Závěry šetření informují o častém vyobrazení synů v podřízeném postavení.
Obyčejně bývají zobrazování jako protagonisté vyprávění o dozrávání. Obvykle hrají rebelující roli vůči společnosti nebo svým konzervativním otcům, často inspirováni hledáním vlastní identity nebo následováním svých snů. Nedostatek vzájemného pouta
činí syny nešťastnými a také ulehčuje jejich odchod za hledáním jiného života.
Otcové jsou obvykle vyobrazeni jakožto velmi konzervativní. Postavy personifikující tyto sociální normy se obvykle cítí zavázání tradičnímu společenskému pořádku a pravidlům nebo svému vlastnímu způsobu života jakožto protikladu k inovacím jejich dětí. Důležitost jejich sociálních vazeb je mimo jiné zdůrazňována použitím jazyka, hlasu a přízvuku. Ve vztahu k vyprávění dostávají otcové ve vysílání
často mnohem více prostoru. Když je postava syna přítomna, stává se otec v příběhu sekundární osobou. Místo konfliktu, které zaujímají, je často protichůdné jejich dětem a zvyk animovaných filmů skončit dobře vede k náhlé změně jejich původních zásad a způsobu života.
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