[ SECRET POST #2242 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2242 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #320.
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

[yeahscience]

Well, first of all, the fact that a children's movie did that at all is pretty bold, but second, I disagree with your glossing over it.

First off, Toothless isn't just injured in that he can't be nursed back to health and has to permanently rely on Hiccup to fly. However, at first, Toothless is angry and actively rebellious against Hiccup's help. Even after that he blames Hiccup when their flying doesn't go smoothly, because he has to rely on Hiccup's guidance and support. Those are things I think kids with disabilities can definitely relate to -- I know that I related as someone who has disability as an issue in their life. Again, it's not like... a Black Stallion situation, because in that case, they learned to trust each other and became a team voluntarily. In this case, it's not at all voluntary on Toothless's part, but he learns to cope and then thrive with it.

Then you have the ending, which is brief but does have important textual and subtextual content in it. Hiccup wakes up, sees what happened, and has an obvious emotional reaction that I personally found instantly relatable. He then learns that his new leg is specifically tailored to Toothless's saddle, such that they're now almost literally built to fly with each other. Neither is broken, but each is better with the other there... not only that, but better and more powerful than anyone else on the island. That is, honestly, a really strong message to send to kids who might be struggling with their own bodies or mental health.

So, yes. I would say there's a strong subtext about disability in that movie that I think elevates it above the chaff.

[sugar_spun]

I didn't think it was chaff--it's either Dreamworks' best film, or their second best, but I don't think it's a masterpiece.

It's not that I think Hiccup and Toothless' relationship is plain or boring or one-dimensional, I just don't think it's terribly nuanced. It strikes all the same chords to me as most rescuing wild animal and boy + animal stories go. I didn't think it stood out in that regard. I feel like Toothless' reactions are animal ones, which is fine, but I don't think that makes it an acceptable parallel for human disability.

[yeahscience]

I said classic, not masterpiece. There are few things I would call a masterpiece, and I can't even think of a Pixar movie I'd include in that. The first 30 minutes of Wall-E, maybe.

But whatever, I made my case about the disability thing. As someone who does have a relationship with disability and as someone who works with disabled kids, it spoke to me in a way that other "horse and his boy" stories do not. I'm happy to have it on my regular rotation.

[sugar_spun]

Ah. Does that mean you're using 'classic' as a stand-out example of a certain genre, style, etc, and 'masterpiece' as being a very outstanding work of art? I usually conflate the two. I was being tautological above.

In that case, I don't think I disagree. It's a very good animated family film that will probably hold up very well in later years.

Hm...actually that gets me thinking about Pixar. As a group, Pixar produces so many excellent films that it didn't really occur to me I might not think of one of them as being a 'masterpiece'. I'm tempted to say Toy Story 2 is, though, especially if you see it as a story about death and accepting death.

[yeahscience]

Eh, personally I found Toy Story 2 relatively bland and lacking in the freshness and punch of the original. It was too nakedly emotionally manipulative to have an impact on me, I think.

[cloudsinvenice]

+1

I'm disabled and this is exactly how it pinged for me, too. It wasn't a perfect movie, but I'm very fond of it and I wish I saw more movies that managed to get across that disability is not some unique ~dependent state that sucks for able-bodied people and makes disabled people separate, but that as people we are all interdependent - I thought that the way the dragons and Vikings wound up living and working together underlined that beautifully.