Towards Infinity And Beyond Branding, Reputation, and the Critical Reception of Pixar Animation Studios Richard John McCulloch Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of East Anglia, School of Film, Television and Media Studies May 2013 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Abstract American author and journalist Jonah Lehrer declared in 2012 that Pixar Animation Studios was ‘the one exception’ to the oft-cited maxim that, in Hollywood, ‘nobody knows anything.’ Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times spoke in similar terms in 2008, writing that, ‘critics and audiences are in agreement on one key thing: Nobody makes better movies than Pixar.’ Thirteen consecutive global box office successes and scores of industry awards would seem to suggest that Lehrer and Goldstein are correct. Yet it is important to recognise that such statements invariably refer to something intangible, something beyond a particular Pixar film or selection of films. There exists, in other words, a widely held set of meanings and associations about what the studio represents, and to whom. This thesis argues that this set of meanings and associations – Pixar’s brand identity – is far from the fixed and unambiguous entity it is often seen to be. If the studio has come to be seen as guarantee of quality family entertainment, when did this notion become widespread? Have the parameters for ‘quality’ and ‘success’ remained constant throughout its history? I demonstrate for instance that Pixar benefited considerably from Disney’s wavering reputation from the late-1990s onwards. I approach branding as a discursive process, and one that brand producers sometimes have little control over, contrary to the implicit claims of most marketing literature. Broadly chronological in structure, the thesis traces the development of the studio’s reputation by drawing on Barbara Klinger’s approach to historical reception studies. Individual chapters focus on how Pixar was discussed by critics and journalists at specific moments or in specific contexts, as it evolved from a computer graphics company to become the most celebrated film studio of all time. Ultimately, this is a case study of the cultural work involved in the making of a brand or an auteur, and how these meanings can shift over time. 1 Contents 1 Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction Locating Pixar: Developing a Discursive Approach Towards Brand Analysis 27 Chapter One Booting Up: The Many Faces of Early Pixar 61 Chapter Two You Got A Brand In Me?: Layered Reputations and the Consumption of Toy Story 96 Chapter Three A Mouse Divided: Disney, Pixar, and the Reception of Industrial Conflict 111 Chapter Four Almost Pixarian: Genre, Rivalry, and Emerging Discourses of Quality 134 Chapter Five Whistle While You Work: Pixar’s ‘Behind the Scenes’ Narratives 151 Chapter Six Imagined Consensus: Review Aggregation and Post-Takeover Pixar 180 Conclusion Beyond Infinity, Beyond Animation?: The Future of the Pixar Brand 193 Appendix 195 Pixar Filmography 198 Filmography 202 Teleography 203 Bibliography 2 Acknowledgements Completing this thesis has been the most challenging project I have ever undertaken, and I am forever indebted to everyone who has helped me along the way. I would like to thank the University of East Anglia, School of Film and Television Studies, for generously funding my research, and to the entire school’s faculty and postgraduate community for their ongoing suggestions at various stages. I am particularly grateful to my co-supervisors, Rayna Denison and Keith M. Johnston. Their patience, guidance, feedback and advice throughout the last three years have been invaluable. Somehow, they consistently managed to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, and I always came out of our supervisory meetings with a renewed sense of buoyancy about my work. I could not have asked for a better team, either on a professional or a personal level. I am also eternally grateful (yes, yes, like the Toy Story aliens) to Peter Krämer, whose infectious enthusiasm for film studies inspired me to pursue a career in academia. It was also Peter who first encouraged me to focus my research on Pixar, and his assistance with the PhD application process will not be forgotten. Special praise goes to my closest friends and colleagues in Norwich, a.k.a. Team TAMSONH: Hannah Ellison, Melanie Kennedy, Tom Phillips, Liz Powell, Rhys Thomas, and Helen Warner. I feel genuinely honoured to have gone through this process with them, and thanks to their friendship, never once felt as though I was ‘on my own like Tarzan boy’. It would be impossible for me to name everyone else who has assisted me during the writing of this thesis, but for going the extra distance when I needed it, I am also especially thankful for the contributions of folk superstar Oliver Gruner, and Gavin ‘Give it to Holt’ McArt. My family, and especially my parents, Anne and John, have always provided unwavering support whenever it was called for. This thesis is dedicated to them, for bringing me into the world, fostering my love of film through an extensive home video library, taking me to Disney World, and of course for buying my ticket to see Toy Story all those years ago. My dog, Henry, has also played his part, and even though he is illiterate and deaf, so will never read this or hear me say it, I feel he deserves a mention here too. Good boy. Finally, huge thanks to my wonderful girlfriend, Caroline, who always continued to believe in me, even in the moments when I stopped believing in myself. I could not have done this without her support, companionship and terrible impressions. She means everything to me. Richard McCulloch May 2013 3 INTRODUCTION -Locating Pixar- Developing A Discursive Approach Towards Brand Analysis Nobody in Hollywood knows anything. Pixar seems to know everything. - Jonah Lehrer, Wired 1 In June 2012, within days of Disney-Pixar’s animated fairytale Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, 2012) being released in American cinemas, movie website Slashfilm published a lengthy article detailing ‘the 15 reasons [it] doesn’t feel like a “Pixar” film.’ 2 Laremy Legel explained that ‘Brave isn’t a bad movie on merit, it’s merely an average one … But within the greater context of Pixar’s previous work, [it] does come up short’. 3 Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times made a similar point, opening his review by stating, ‘If the Walt Disney Studios logo were the only one on Brave, this film’s impeccable visuals and valiant heroine would be enough to call it a success. But Brave is also a Pixar Animation Studios film, and that means it has to answer to a higher standard.’ 4 Even Variety’s Peter Debruge, whose response was far more positive than either Legel’s or Turan’s, agreed that ‘Brave feels quite different from earlier Pixar films’. 5 For critics, then, attaching the Pixar name to an animated film fundamentally changes the way(s) in which we interpret or otherwise assign value 1 Jonah Lehrer, ‘Animating a Blockbuster: How Pixar Built “Toy Story 3”’, Wired, 24 th May 2010 <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/process_pixar/>, Accessed 24 th July 2012. Original emphasis. 2 Laremy Legel, ‘The 15 Reasons “Brave” Doesn’t Feel Like A “Pixar” Film’, Slashfilm, 25 th June 2012 <http://www.slashfilm.com/15-reasons-brave-doesnt-feel-like-pixar-film/>, Accessed 13th August 2012. 3 Ibid. 4 Kenneth Turan, ‘Not A Bull’s-Eye’, Los Angeles Times, 22 nd June 2012, p.D1. 5 Peter Debruge, ‘“Brave”’, Variety, 10 th June 2012 <http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947728/>, Accessed 13 th August 2012. 4 to it, ushering in a complex series of (largely positive) meanings and assumptions about the people and processes behind the production. But what are these meanings and assumptions? The idea that Brave somehow felt different to Pixar’s previous output was a recurring theme across reviews in the American press, yet few critics saw the need to clarify what this might actually mean. That the studio must ‘answer to a higher standard’ implies that this is at least partly a question of ‘quality’, but what does quality mean in this context? Legel’s article is particularly illuminating here, eschewing any kind of formal analysis of Brave, and couching his assessment almost entirely in terms of what he felt was absent from it. Chief among his lamentations are the following arguments: the film ‘doesn’t ever fully pull at the heart strings (or the head strings)’; it lacks ‘dramatic tension’; the dialogue is ‘neither quippy nor dramatic’; it suffers from ‘a serious lack of whimsy, [or] moments of pure silliness’; and it demonstrates too little ambition (i.e. a desire to explore ‘new’ and ‘creative’ story ideas). 6 Both implicitly and explicitly, he describes these features as being typical of all Pixar’s films, suggesting that the studio has developed a reputation among critics for routinely striking powerful emotional and artistic chords with audiences. As Turan goes on to say in his review, ‘It’s hard not to be affected by the emotional ending of Brave, but the magic that is Pixar’s birthright – a sense of unending enchantment … is inescapably absent more often than not.’ 7 Tellingly, these are all abstract, highly subjective qualities. Pixar is positioned within these reviews as a director usually would be – the authorial presence credited with stamping its personality onto the film.