From Rugrats to The Simpsons, at some point in our lives we’ve devoted time to watching cartoons. Whether you have been depriving your inner child of animation for who-knows-how long or are an active Disney/Nickelodeon/comic strip-phile like I am, this is an inside look into something you may not know about animation. Enjoy this free issue of the Toon Times.
It has been a few days since Mother’s Day and in a month fathers everywhere will be opening up boxes with newly purchased ties and questionably-scented cologne. But for some of us, myself included, these days are more than just celebrations of family – they can also count as days of self-reflection on life and loss.
Most of the time I try not to think about when I lost my mom four years ago. Living day-to-day becomes simpler once the feelings of loss no longer weigh down on you, but it takes a while to get to that point of acceptance. For me, and perhaps me alone, it took a lot of film watching, especially of animated films.
Some of life’s greatest lessons are present in childhood fairytale movies. From messages of hope (“When You Wish Upon a Star”) to stories of perseverance (“Almost There”), we can’t help but be informed by what we watch. But in the last 75 years of animated film, the question of why so many characters are parentless or have only a father or a mother have pervaded animated film-watching. It’s hard to find rhyme or reason in this decision on the part of screenwriters and animated film directors. That is, until you take a closer look.
“If you were with me now, I’d find myself in you”
Not many people have heard of the film Quest for Camelot, but when I was young it was chief among my most watched animated films. In the film, Kayley – the female protagonist – has lost her father in a brutal scuffle while he is performing his duties as a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table. Kayley sings “On My Father’s Wings,” spelling out her endeavor to become a knight herself. As she sings in the song, "If you were with me now, I'd find myself in you." When she’s grown up, 10 years after her father passed away, she goes on an adventure to prove her worthiness by returning the stolen sword of Excalibur to King Arthur.
The concept of the “heroic journey” is one that permeates all folklore, and is especially present in animated film. Giving characters something to discover and something to search for is one of the most often-used techniques for motivating a character into pursuing a journey of self-discovery.
With Kayley, this was a exploration of her personal worth. For characters in other films, it’s often a search for family itself. In the case of Anastasia and Tangled, the protagonists (Anastasia and Rapunzel, respectively) have lost all memory of their families and use their journey as a path of understanding where they came from. For boys to identify with, there’s Simba from The Lion King, who manages to oust his evil uncle Scar to become the king of Pride Rock and to avenge his father who was killed by Scar’s hand – or rather, his paw.
In the end, all of these characters meet unique ends, but what they have in common is personal growth either in setting goals for themselves or locating the familial love that they’ve longed for all their lives. Getting lost in these films, I'm reminded of my own journey after losing my mom. In the years following her passing, I've set goals for myself with her voice in the back of my mind, bringing me strength and guidance - letting me find myself in her.
“And I can feel his heart beat still”
A loss of a parent may remind a character of their own personal ambitions, but it can also be a source of bringing the still-living parental figure closer to their child. As in reality, the loss of a parent ideally results in the parent who remains becoming a source of love and support to their grieving child. Though the subject of the deceased doesn’t often make much of an appearance, the relationships between existing characters always exude a particular fondness.
In Beauty and the Beast, Belle and her father Maurice are so intrinsically linked that when he is imprisoned by the Beast in his castle, Belle comes to his rescue and offers that the Beast take away her freedom instead. But the relationship isn’t limited to fathers and daughters. One of the most interesting and emotional relationships in all animated cinema takes place in Finding Nemo as Marlin sets out across the ocean to find his son Nemo, teaching them both the value of their father-son relationship. And when Tarzan is separated from his parents and raised by Kala, an incredibly loving and maternal gorilla, the link between mothers and sons becomes integral to his development in the film.
The way these relationships are characterized in these films, we're shown that being raised by a single parent draws a strong bond between the parent who lives on and the child they're caring for. For me, this induced an exploration of my own relationship with my father, who has functioned as both parents for me - with the caring emotions of a mother and the stalwart strength of a father. I see myself and him reflected in these characters, their relationships strengthened by tragedy and reliance on one another. It's true of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons and fathers and sons, but it seems Disney often leaves out one type of relationship.
“I will do great things”
In the early years of Disney animation specifically, mother-daughter relationships were not brought to the screen in a tangible, palatable fashion. Instead, we were shown characters like the Evil Stepmother from Cinderella or the Wicked Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
These “motherly” figures were brought to us as foils for the beautiful, faultless heroines, showing that purity and strength could vanquish evil even if the villain came in the form of a stepmother. It became a sort of Electra complex-esque battle wherein the daughters would be innocently awarded feminine supremacy while their adult female counterparts vied to defeat the onset of old age and irrelevance.
As the years went on, the Greek paradoxical rivalries subsided, making way for a few more realistic female relationships. Nani and Lilo’s relationship in Lilo & Stitch, however not between a mother and daughter, emulates the kind of closeness that is afforded by the loss of a parent as the two sisters who lost both of their parents face alien forces to maintain the meaning of “ohana” (the meaning is ‘family,’ in case you forgot). And in The Princess and the Frog, Tiana’s scenes with her mother indicate a relationship that has stood the test of time and the loss of Tiana’s father.
Until returning back to the Electra prototype with Mother Gothel and Rapunzel in Tangled – as Gothel tries to maintain her youth with the use of Rapunzel’s magic-ridden hair – the mother-daughter relationship seemed to be on the road to being righted. Since I grew up incredibly close to my mother, being without her has made me consciously aware of the lack of a female role model in my life, and the principle of girl-on-mother fighting has never quite appealed to me as much as the strong maternal figure who shows the protagonist that she can, like Kayley in Quest for Camelot, do great things.
“On my father’s wings”
The greatest gift an animated film can give to its audience, young and old, is something to connect with. We watch to see ourselves reflected back at us – to relate to the characters. This doesn’t mean that we have to be in the same position as them per se. I do not simply associate with Ariel and Belle because they both have strong relationships with their fathers and alternatively, I would hope other viewers don’t avoid association with them for this reason.
But giving animated protagonists a grounding in reality is something that isn’t necessarily brought through in their painless fairy tale stories. Giving them some form of tragedy – even if it's jammed into the recesses of the story like a missing parent – makes them more relatable, more real.
Whether a character is trying to discover something about his or herself, finding the family to which they belong or even proving that familial relationships have more (sometimes detrimental) depth than they appear to have on the surface, the message behind may be guarded but it always has a logical precedent. Many animated films with single or missing parents carry similarities in theme: the search for strength (Quest for Camelot, The Lion King, The Princess and the Frog) and the search for family (Tangled, Anastasia, Finding Nemo).
In the end we’re left with a message about how quality of character is often shaped by the harshest situations – even if we do not see the intricacies of those situations play out on screen. For those who have lost parents, it’s easy to understand the depth of so many animated protagonists. For those who haven’t, it’s possible to bask in the complexity of these characters on a purely human level. And no matter who you are, you can understand that need to fly on your father’s (or mother’s) wings.