[ SECRET POST #2031 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2031 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #290.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[herongale]

I would have been happier if he'd just been destroyed fair and square.

God, the whole Toy Story mythos basically creeps me out. So much fucking fridge horror. It breaks my heart to contemplate a universe where most toys suffer in some kind of semi-eternal tortured state of brokenness and abandonment regardless of the good or evil they do in their toy lifetimes. Even the main heroes? I don't see the ending they get as happy... it's just that their ultimate similar fate has been deferred, "tastefully" taken off-screen so kids and less thoughtful adults can wallow in cheap sentimentality... only to maybe eventually realize that it's a hell tale of torment and pointless suffering, even for the heroes.

I... kind of hate the Toy Story trilogy. Everything about it. It's such a dark and unhappy story, ultimately.

[biohazardgirl]

. . .That hurts my heart.

I kind of like that they did address the darkness though in the third movie. Maybe the movie makers are just trying to say that every touch of happiness or narrow brush away from death for humans is just us also slightly deferring our rest in eternal purgatory & torment. . .because what is life even really but a hell tale of torment and pointless suffering mixed with slight moments of joy that will soon be crushed by more suffering. . .

*ahem* I'm going to go hug Kafka's "Metamorphosis" now and eat chocolate ice cream and have a good cry.

[(Anonymous)]

lol damn, i'll join you

*brings booze*

[herongale]

See, I take the opposite tack, mostly because it breaks MY heart to think of my adorable baby nephews who love these movies uncritically and with full open hearts eventually realizing the darkness that is in this series, precisely because the guys at Pixar DO end up addressing it in that third movie. Before then, the full level of darkness had been a lot easier to ignore and overlook.

I guess... in a way I respect it, as art? The Toy Story series is the closest thing we have to a modern-day Grimm Fairy Tail in terms of built-in horror that is somehow seen as completely okay to introduce kids to (mostly because I think that the darkest aspects implicit to the story STILL go over the head of most adults, even with the kind of obvious darkness in the third movie). It's truly deep and meaningful storytelling, and precisely because of this it is allowed to have all these sad and hopeless layers that a lesser series wouldn't even try to touch. I even think that there are important lessons about the fleetingness of happiness and how therefore every little bit of happiness in life should be treasured, and a little built-in terror can be a healthy thing I guess.

But I still remember how I felt when I realized the horror of Pinnochio after first watching it when I was, idk, 10 years old? In that movie, you have the "bad boys" who end up transformed into donkeys and sold back to the human world as mute slaves who are denied their basic humanity... and who are whipped even as they lose their voices crying out for their moms, their voices breaking into animalistic braying midway through. I'm a grown-ass adult who is fairly competently able to handle lots of real-life tragedy, but... I still tear up and get a heartbroken feeling when I think about those poor boys from that dumb movie, and I had nightmares and complexes for YEARS that all stemmed from that movie. It's gorgeous and a classic but... I feel like it didn't do me any favors as an oversensitive child to be exposed to shit that made me afraid that any element of bad behavior on my part might get me such transformatively evil punishment.

And with Toy Story, I just KNOW that my nephews are just as much of emotionally sensitive snots just like I was, and will eventually figure out this shit on their own... and who even knows what it will make them feel. I just know that it will probably make them sad and make them cry. And I can't really forgive the Toy Story movies for that.

[biohazardgirl]

I really like your analysis! It's very interesting.

(I'm going to be a bit more serious in my analysis now; the last bit was a bit jokey, although I did address some of the things I wanted to)

I don't know though. I think that most kids need to be exposed to dark themes through media, because fiction helps people cope with the sad reality of the real world. Ultimately what I think is cool about toy story is that in the third movie, the toys were prepared to accept their death in the furnace because they knew that they had each other until the very end. That's a really powerful message, and it's learned throughout the whole movie.

I'll sort of use a "God" allegory now to say that the toys learn that even when they feel that "God" (in this case, their child) has deserted them, they still can gather together with one another and stay strong through times of loneliness and purposelessness, and they learn that their purpose lies in one another instead of in some arbitrary authority figure. They learn that they can be happy even when times aren't good as long as they are together, and that when they die their lives will have not been for nothing because they will have enriched each other's lives. It's a pretty deep message, especially for a children's movie, but it's an important one: pay attention and give love to the ones you care about, because that's all that matters in the end.

Pinnochio is straight up scary though xD Talk about scaring kids straight.

[(Anonymous)]

lol i kind of have to agree even though i really love the first one. my friend said when she was a kid she had nightmares because she felt so bad for not playing with her toys enough.

[intrigueing]

Dude, it's very possible that I've never seen someone miss the point of a film as completely as you have. The point which is, that life — having friends, being loved, holding onto hope — is good and worth living despite all the shit that goes along with it. Who's to say that a toy's brokenness and abandonment is any different from a human being's old age? Who says their pointless suffering is any different than human beings' pointless undeserved suffering? Who's to say their happiness in spite of their suffering is any less valid than human beings' happiness in spite of their suffering? Woody made it pretty clear that he thought that some things in life, like being loved by Andy and having friends around him, was worth all the hardship in the world over an eternal life of unchanging safety in a museum. I think that's extremely comforting and hopeful and uplifting, not "dark and unhappy".

This kind of "omg, the presence of darkness = ALL DARKNESS AND PURE MISERY ALL THE TIME AND ALL THE HAPPINESS THAT GOES ALONG WITH IT IS A LIE BECAUSE SUFFERING HAS THE ABILITY TO INVALIDATE HAPPINESS" reading is so shallow it makes me want to laugh, and the fact that people think they've struck upon some deep and mature understanding that is better than everyone else's understanding makes me want to laugh even harder.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, I like you.

[diorama]

That's the amazing thing about art, people take different things away from it. Your interpretation is valid, but so is everyone else's.

[herongale]

Nahh. No, I don't feel like I've hit on anything different or deeper than anyone else. That's just how this series of films affects me personally, if that makes any sense? And I feel like my nephews will react similarly to me in time, mostly because I see them as being as ridiculously oversensitive and emotional about stuff as I am. That's all I was trying to say.

You know, I'd rather see the Toy Story movies as being hopeful in the way you describe. I understand that was the intended message, after all. Logically, I agree with you, too. I find happiness in a lot of different stories which have similar levels of darkness in them, so it's not like I can't see how it works or haven't experienced that with a lot of other movies or books. But for whatever reason, I just don't get a happy emotional response to these movies. Or even a particularly hopeful one.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to come off as being all "I've got this down better than you plebes" or whatever! In fact I feel the opposite: it frustrates me that I can't just let go of this emotional response and appreciate the films for what they are. So anyway I apologize for making it sound like I look down on people for reading these films in a more hopeful way. All I can do is assure you that I don't look down on anyone like that.

[intrigueing]

Ah, well, perhaps I misunderstood what you wanted to say, but your description of people who thought the ending was nice as "less thoughtful" and "wallowing in cheap sentimentality" kind of makes that conclusion inevitable, y'know?

[herongale]

Yeah, wow that's... sure a thing I said.

Wow.

God, I need to sort of pay closer attention to the words I'm typing, huh. ANYWAY THAT ISN'T REALLY EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT EVEN THOUGH THAT IS CLEARLY WHAT I SAID. Seriously, wow.

/facepalms over personal dumbness. Anyway, yeah. Uh... (wanders off in blushing shame...)

[(Anonymous)]

*pat pat* its okay bad internet things happen to everyone

ur good?

[intrigueing]

It's fine! Just wanted to clear up what you were intending — I know I've said things that came out sounding reeeeaally off from what I meant on the internet too ;P