La Ron S. Readus
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What Went Wrong With Soul (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-02-05 21:00:03 +0000 UTCYes, I know I said I was gonna have this video out back in 2020. But then I ended up doing (gestures at studio) THIS.
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I’m just gonna be honest with you, Readers; I...didn’t really care for Disney/Pixar’s Soul
And it's not like I walked into it TRYING to dislike it, either. I was hoping I’d be able to enjoy it despite a lot of the very valid criticisms regarding the use of the main character made by many African Americans.
But at the end of the day after watching the movie for myself, I felt just like I did when I tweeted about it:
/I liked and appreciated the MESSAGES of the movie, a LOT more than I enjoyed the movie itself./
Now I know someone with crusty-ass lips who lives to hate-watch all my videos but never subscribe is out there saying:
He only said he doesn't like Soul because he doesn't like Jamie Foxx.
And while it is, in fact, true that I do not like Jamie Foxx, I have ALSO stated time and time again that I will tolerate a movie with a Jamie Foxx performance in it if the quality of said movie naturally surpasses its need to have him in it.
And the movie does that...with everything but how the narrative was delivered.
Make no mistake, Readers. The movie Soul is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. And the way it displays black americans and highlights the culture we had to create ourselves thanks to disconnection via slavery and colonialism was...a good start
/But while the messages and morals Soul was trying to send I agree definitely hit the mark, I can’t necessarily say the same thing for the entire experience of watching its narrative play out. And considering that the way the narrative of a story is told tremendously helps the impact of the morals and messages within it, I was one of those individuals who watched Soul that felt very “meh” about the whole package/
And a lot of it has to do with not only a very valid critique about African American characters in animation that’s being made lately regarding not allowing them to stay associated with their own bodies for the majority of the film, but also the very manner in which Joe Gardner had to learn the morals that the movie tried to convey.
/And that involves the actions made by the addition of Soul’s secondary character, 22/
I personally would’ve appreciated Soul’s narrative and its delivery of living life to the fullest without restricting yourself to figuring out a purpose to make life worth living if Joe wasn’t forced to realize this vicariously through the actions of 22. As a matter of fact, I would’ve preferred 22 to not be in the movie AT ALL.
The way they went about Joe and 22’s dynamic -- both in The Great Before and ESPECIALLY on Earth -- left a pretty bad taste in my mouth as I was watching everything transpire. The purpose of 22 in this movie is to be the conduit that teaches the morals of the movie to Joe, but the movie does it in a way that actually undermines Joe’s journey, even if it was unintentional.
/Not only is Joe FURTHER disassociated with his physical form by ending up in the body of a cat while 22 is free to take his body on a joyride, but seeing 22 go through the experiences that Joe should ACTUALLY be going through in order to understand that living life is more than just staying in a you-shaped box is kinda painful. And it even feels worse, because thanks to the dissociation of 22 being in his body and Joe being in a cat, the movie goes out of its way to remind you of how much power 22 has over Joe in regards to a lot of things./
Also, while the scene with Joe and his mother is indeed powerful and something I was looking forward to watching after seeing the two’s dynamic in the beginning of the movie...
/Knowing that it was 22 that delivered that monologue -- despite Joe feeding it to them word-for-word -- didn’t sit right with me. It would’ve meant MORE to me if JOE delivered it. ACTUALLY delivered it./
But what made me realize that 22 was what was keeping me from enjoying this movie was when they refused to give up Joe’s body until they figured out their purpose.
/It was expected, but still incredibly annoying to watch./
And it wasn’t annoying because I’ve seen it play out in narratives similar to Soul multiple times before; as I’ve preached in the past when it comes to tropes and whatnot, it’s the execution and the subversion that makes the difference between something interesting and cliche.
No, what made me annoyed upon watching it happen, was that once they made that decision to run away, I knew EXACTLY where the rest of the narrative was going to go.
By making this decision in the narrative, if you couldn’t already tell, 22 immediately becomes the focus of the rest of the movie; not Joe, the ACTUAL main character.
/Because while Joe had every right to reclaim his body -- especially after 22 decided to renege on their agreement in order to find their purpose after experiencing what it's like to live -- Joe’s actions over the course of the two’s experiences on Earth would then be looked at as selfish. And after spending an afternoon watching 22 live it up in his body, he’d only truly learn the morals Soul’s narrative has to offer by taking everything 22 experienced into consideration, and have to apologize for denying them an opportunity to learn something about themselves through the means that was never rightfully theirs to use in the first place./
It’s the equivalent of being forced to let your destructive-ass cousin play with a toy that YOU PAID FOR with like...three weeks worth of your own allowance, seeing them get a bit too familiar with how they were handling it, and rightfully taking it back before they can do anything destructive. But because they started crying, your parents have to force YOU to apologize for taking back your shit
Am I saying that the character of 22 is bad? Absolutely not. But because of the way the narrative is written, not only does Joe’s overall development only happen BECAUSE of 22, but the movie’s various decisions with the narrative -- including the ones involving 22 -- sacrificed the potential for Joe to properly resonate with a lot of people who watched the movie.
/So much so, that if the way 22 was depicted in the theatrical version of Soul was in fact the intended way of going about it, the movie -- and as a result, Joe’s overall journey of discovering what it means to live life -- would’ve resonated with me and others who feel the same way that I do a lot more, if 22 wasn’t even in this story and Joe experienced this whole journey of what it means to live by himself./
And before you say it, no. This WASN’T the only way Joe could’ve learned these morals according to what we’ve seen beforehand that played around with this same premise.
As a matter of fact, there’s a perfectly good animated movie that can be used as an example of the main character being front and center of his own narrative, learning these same aspects about life on his own accord.
/And that animated movie is Don Bluth’s “All Dogs Go To Heaven.”/
Now am I saying that I’ve come up with a better way for the narrative to let Joe experience the moral of Soul without having to do so by watching 22 experience life’s simplicities through his body? No. And honestly, in order for my opinion about the movie’s narrative to be validated, I shouldn’t really HAVE to.
Especially considering that ever since its Christmas 2020 release -- and even BEFORE that, I should mention -- I realized I wasn't alone with the critiques I had surrounding Soul’s one-two combo of disassociating the African American main character with their proper physical manifestation for over half the movie’s run time...
And forcing us to show sympathy for another character at the expense of the ACTUAL main character’s merit in order for him to learn the lessons of the movie when there are clearly better avenues of going about it.
/I’m not gonna say that the movie has no soul whatsoever. For me, I just wish it had a bit more./
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what you thought of Disney-Pixar’s Soul if you’ve seen it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, another way you thought the movie should’ve gone about getting its message across without sacrificing the integrity of Joe Gardner.
Whichever you decide to answer, I’d LOVE to know your thoughts.
