Immutable Monsters

CHAVES, Camila

Haven’t you ever wondered why Pixar’s movies are so acclaimed? Do you know what the secret underneath Pixar’s success is?

It is taken for granted that Pixar has always found the key to get universal critical acclaim from its movies for children. Since 1995, when Toy Story appeared, the studio has won 26 Academy Awards and its productions have made over $6 billion worldwide. Monsters, Inc is one of Pixar’s movies that has been so successful and popular all over the world that it has forced the filmmakers to speculate about its sequel. The film received extremely positive reviews around the world and it achieved over 50 award nominations, including the Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Film.

However, success does not necessarily go hand in hand with innovation, and surely the filmmakers took this into account when they invented these creatures. Everything the audience see on the surface, such as monsters as the main characters of the film and a whole company which employs them to scare children, makes them think that this popular creation will surprise them with innovation. However, what Monsters, Inc offers them is a traditional stereotyping plot.

An illustration of the traditional plot the story presents lays on the film's main figure. The fact that Sulley is a monster is not enough to differentiate him from all the classic heroes that existed before him. He is good and generous, and he tries to defend innocent people and fair causes. He is the typical strong hero that society has been dealing with since DC’s Batman. Coincidentally or not, as the superhero from Gotham City does, Sulley has an assistant who is always by his side, Mike Wazowski. Traditionally, the hero’s partner is always one step behind him. In the case of Monsters, Inc, apart from the fact that Wazowski lacks one eye, he is smaller and weaker than Sulley. 

Monsters, Inc’s traditional plot also reflects the classic conception of good and evil that almost all children’s movies have kept intact throughout time. In every children’s movie there is always a good character and a bad character, and of course, Monsters, Inc has its good and evil representatives. Typically, the good character differentiates from the bad one by means of physical appearance. It is simply a matter of turning nice into a synonym of good and ugly into a synonym of bad. Here, Sulley is the soft and nice monster that looks like a teddy bear. His antithesis is Randall, a repulsive monster which can be easily compared with a snake. 

In addition, as regards the personality of the film’s characters, Monsters, Inc follows the traditional conception of good and bad present in almost all children’s movies: the good guy is humble and the bad one tends to be egoistic. Here, Sulley is caring and fair and he does not claim for social recognition. As regards Randall, he is cold and cruel and he only thinks about winning at any cost.

Gone is the innovation in Monsters, Inc’s characters’ attributes. This movie does not take the risk of changing the characters’ classical characteristics. The basis of the creativeness of Monsters, Inc’s filmmakers is found in almost all children’s movies. It looks as if the surface of this movie attracts the audience due to the fact that it seems to deal with monsters in a different way. However, in this movie, the key of success is the static conception of characters developed in all children’s movies’ plots.