4 posts tagged “stories”

James' post on WALL E as well as my recent turn on my other blog (though I'm learning about human characterizations of passions there) has made me think of personifications in movies, especially cartoons and animated movies. We are used to animals acting and speaking like, and thus personifying humans, and then toys doing so in Toy Story, and now it's WALL E, the robot acting like a human. Even more so than the people in Narnia, as James observes. My developing theory is that we have a very high expectation of how humans should act. "Should" being the key word. They should be intelligent, consistent, brave, virtuous, etc. We are very critical of ourselves and others. But we do not have such high expectations of animals. They are "lower" and are appreciated mostly for their cuteness and vulnerability. We relax around them. And relaxing actually makes us more true to ourselves. So if the creators and the audience are relaxed in the presence of a non-threatening bunny for instance, maybe they and we can be more ourselves through the bunny, if that makes sense. Any human activity, like talking, pestering, playing practical jokes is impressive if a bunny does it. More so in fact.

Back to WALL E, I'll speak of the first part so's not to give too much away. What if he'd been a lone human person similarly cleaning up the garbage left behind by the departed humans. One, he would have been more connected to the ones departed, in our minds, perhaps even sharing responsibility. And there would have been a complication with how he was bonded, or not so, with his parents. Having him be a robot programmed by humans for a specific task lets us blame short-sighted humans as a whole and not specific people/parents. He is different than other robots though in that he bonds to things emotionally. Therefore we as humans can relate to him. We can personify our instinctive bond with created things through him, but his is untainted by passions - greed, lust of power, laziness, impulsiveness, lack of planning, etc. that got the earth in that shape in the first place. The robot is innocent of these things as a child is. Somehow he is impervious to temptation, which is how we "should" become, and which is indeed our fundamental state. The passions are an anomaly that we have sadly gotten used to and have developed a habit, after the Fall, of being lead by them, which - I have learned through Orthodox teaching - is unnatural. We are naturally innocent and virtuous like the robots, toys, and animals in stories. Writing about them and reading/watching them is a way to get in touch with that buried humanity by letting our guards down. Somehow, because of passions either in us or in others, when we are dealing with humans, our guard gets up and we get stiff and rigid - more like a robot and less like a human - how's that for irony? Iron - get it? 

p.s. the other day I tried to post a couple of new home videos but they would not upload so that's why it said I posted when I didn't.

Don, the eloquent story-teller, tagged me for to share my favorite Christmas memories in the circulating Meme. I'm going to cheat by using Youtube videos, but really, watching the movies and the shows depicted below have taken me to that warm, charmed, transcendent place better than about any real life memory I can think of. Not to say that watching movies isn't a real experience...

I especially liked Don's snow scene while driving alone in his car (but please read all four of his stories). I suppose that watching snow fall while alone takes me there too. When I first was rejoined with Andy Williams and the Williams Brothers Christmas album a few years ago, and listened to it alone in my tree-lit, but otherwise dark, living room, I was taken back to that place of my earliest memories of listening to it over and over. I can't share those songs because they are copied onto my CD, and besides I really want to stick with these scenes.

First, Linus sharing the true meaning of Christmas,

I love the debut of Irving Berlin's White Christmas in the movie, Holiday Inn. Please stick around for the second verse for the harmony and tinkling of the bells on the real candle-lit Christmas tree.

Judy Garland was never lovelier or heartfelt, except for Somewhere Over the Rainbow, than in this scene in Meet Me in St. Louis, where she sings Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

How bout a story,

Once upon a time, there was a little bird. It was a newly nestless bird who tentatively hopped and flew around new boundaries and ate plentiful seeds and insects along the way. One day a squirrel came and said, what do you do all day? The bird replied, hop around, testing boundaries. The squirrel said, that is a very useless occupation. Don't you know you should be working very hard to prepare for upcoming deprivations and disasters? You make me uncomfortable, said the bird and she turned to look unjealously at busy bees and ants who were gathering pollen and food for their communes.

One day a cool, slightly uncomfortable north wind started to blow so the bird headed south, eating bugs and seeds along the way, guided by the wind currents. Eventually she started noticing orange and black butterflies growing in number around her. Since she was a small bird, the Monarchs intimidated her a bit, even though she saw larger birds snatching them out of the sky. Where are you going?, she asked one of the butterflies. To Mexico to our commune where we huddle together to stay warm. The thought of huddling with a bunch of butterflies all over her made her uncomfortable so she just said oh.

The bird noticed that the low-lands were warmer than the highlands so she kept to those and found forage, shelter, and occasional company wherever she went. Eventually she found a loving boy bird of her own kind and continued to forage and test boundaries with him and their young. the end.

No real animals were harmed in the making of this story. All creatures are fictitious, any resemblance to known birds, squirrels, ants, bees, or butterflies is purely coincidental. Quotation marks and usual conversation format was not employed because of a rebellious fit of non-conformity.