Inside Out

This week I’ve been watching Inside Out

In 2014 Kevin Brook’s The Bunker Diary was award the Carnegie Medal for children’s literature. Dealing as it does with the topic of child abduction and imprisonment, the book was met with hostility by the conservative press; the Telegraph even opined: ‘why wish this book on a child?’

Brook, however, is no anomaly. You only have to look at the success of Darwinist dystopia, The Hunger Games and courtship with cancer drama, The Fault In Our Stars to acknowledge the predilection of writers to present stark and dark worlds to children is becoming more and more prevalent. In fact with children growing more and more intrigued by death, we are now in the quite farcical position where those who have done the most reading, and are most prepared for it, are those who must wait longest for it.

The success of these books begs such questions as: is the young’s fascination with mortality new? Is it healthy? If not, should we be like the catcher in the rye, doing what we can to stop children from falling into experience by holding onto their innocence for dear life?

The answers are no, yes and maybe. Children have always thought about mortality from a young age: they have mourned pets for millennia; grieved grandparents for aeons; and faced up to the reality that, with Zayn leaving, One Direction aren’t going to last forever. Therefore, it is entirely healthy children ask questions about these big topics, and parents should feel relieved there are great books and films that make the task of answering them a little easier. So no, it’s no bad thing children are consuming these themes as long as they’re handled sensitively.

Zayn, how could you?

This brings me to Pixar.

Pixar, the American computer animation studio, have been making movies for children that cover themes of loneliness, fear and death for nearly twenty years. And these haven’t been aimed at teens like the aforementioned books, rather children just in school. The bravery in addressing these issues head on can be seen through three of their films: Finding Nemo, Up and Inside Out. Within the first moment of Nemo, Nemo’s mother, Coral, is dead. In Up the death scene is prolonged to five minutes: the first four document the bud and bloom of Carl and Ellie’s love, whereas the last shows Ellie’s demise and Carl’s subsequent loneliness. Significantly, Up shows human death on screen: something typically avoided in children’s animation. We all remember Bambi’s mother being killed by a deer-hunter, and Mufasa being fed to the wildebeests but these deaths were couched in the comfort blanket of animals. Death was something that happened to deers; something that befell lions; it didn’t touch humans. Up was a film that said death is human, that it is tremendously sad, that salvation only comes in allowing others to share that grief. It was a beautifully wrought piece of cinema.

Inside Out goes one step further by making the character who goes through the big questions the same age as its target audience. Riley is the central protagonist: a well mannered, eleven-year old from the Midwest, beloved by her friends and family. All of this changes though when she is uprooted from her home and moved 2000 miles west to San Francisco. “The City by the Bay” though is only a secondary setting: the main setting is Riley’s brain, stationed and manned by her five principal emotions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and Anger. With the setting being an internal landscape and the characters being abstract concepts, this children’s movie could be described as 'Inception meets Fifteenth Century Morality Play.' (As disappointed as I am Pixar didn’t opt for this tagline, I understand why they went for the child-friendly: ‘Everyday is full of emotions.’)

Why didn't they go for my tagline?

To make a children’s movie about the ego and subconscious could only ever be achieved by a studio renowned for its innovation and daring. Pete Docter, the co-writer and director, explained how the idea for the film came to him when he noticed how difficult his daughter found the transition to high school: she had gone from being outgoing to reclusive, unable to communicate why. The desire to get into a child’s head to understand their concerns must be one all parents share; the frustration in this being unachievable can be all too difficult to bear. So Docter achieved in art what was impossible in life and got into the head of a child: the results on screen are staggering.

The film begins in the beginning with Riley’s birth. Joy’s voiceover beautifully and succinctly shows how happinesses monopoly is short-lived; that it isn’t long before the market is opened up and other emotions move in.

[Joy makes Riley laugh for the first time]

Joy: [voiceover] It was amazing! Just Riley and me, forever.
[Riley suddenly starts crying]Joy: [voiceover] Um, for thirty-three seconds.
[Joy looks down, and sees Sadness operating Riley's control panel]Sadness: I'm Sadness.
Joy: Oh, hello! Uh, I'm Joy. So, could I just... If you could... I just wanna fix that. Thanks.
[Joy nudges Sadness aside and tries to push the button, only for Sadness to nudge back and push the button again]Joy: [voiceover] And that was just the beginning! Headquarters only got more crowded from there.

The power struggle between Joy and Sadness is the central conflict of the movie. Joy wants desperately for Riley to be happy at all times, loading up positive memories whenever sadness threatens her. Sadness, on the other hand, feels compelled to fulfil her duty and make Riley experience melancholy’s rain cloud. Although the other characters are used more as a foil for the other two, there is a hilarious scene where they all come together to elucidate the mystery of the high chair tantrum:

Disgust: Okay, caution, there is a dangerous smell people. Hold on, what is that? That is not brightly colored or shaped like a dinosaur, hold on guys... it's... broccoli![presses buttons]Riley: Yukee!
[flips bowl of broccoli on dad]Disgust: Well, I just saved our lives. Yeah, you're welcome.
Dad: Riley, if you don't eat your dinner you're not gonna get any desert.
Anger: Wait, did he just say we couldn't have dessert?
[paces angrily]Anger: So that's how you wanna play it old man? No dessert? Oh sure, we'll eat our dinner, right after you eat THIS!
[presses buttons]Riley: [Starts crying and screaming]
Dad: Riley, Riley, here comes an airplane.
Anger: Oh, airplane. We got an airplane everybody.
Joy: Ooooh!
[Riley eats broccoli]

The way the emotions are colourful and distinguishable makes the film accessible and enjoyable to young people, and the observational humour of getting children to take their greens is one that obviously appeals to adults. Some may criticise Pixar for making films so geared to parents but given half the audience is likely to be adults I think it’s only right they have a few laughs too. Perhaps, a fairer criticism would be: is this particular film too geared to adults? 

Riley's brain.

Following a workplace disaster, Sadness and Joy find themselves outside the main control room, forced to walk the hinterland of Riley’s subconscious; here they learn the only way back is via the locomotive ‘Train of Thought’ which can only be accessed via worlds as colourful as ‘Imagination’ and dense as ‘Abstract Thought.’ Clearly, an adult is going to get more from this trawl around the brain than a child; however, where the young might miss out on the minutiae of psychology, they enjoy the spectacle of seeing two characters – like Buzz and Woody – trying to get home. More than that, the film goes between the inner and outer world of Riley, meaning children will find it very easy to follow Riley’s external world- introducing herself to her new class, sitting alone at break, struggling to adapt to her new room – even if they find the internal setting quite complex. (Parents who read the blog and watch the film, feel free to write a comment and say how your child felt watching it; it would be interesting to know whether Pixar succeeded in making its animated lecture- ‘Moving school: the psychological impact of forced displacement’ enjoyable for both you and your child.)

To conclude, I think our great writers and filmmakers know what they're doing when it comes to presenting challenging material to young audiences. But if Pixar release a feature length on a self-harming giraffe then ignore everything I've said: childhood is over; Pixar is to blame.

Inside Out is in all good - and bad - cinemas now.

Community

This week I’ve been watching Community.

Simon Pegg sits down for yet another media interview. He’s in town to promote another Mission Impossible movie, executive produced by friend and epidural-denier, Tom Cruise. After answering questions on what it’s like to be Cruise’s rent-a-geek, he’s asked about Spaced, the 90’s sitcom that put him on the path to stardom. In creating Spaced with co-writer Jessica Hynes and director Edgar Wright, Pegg re-wrote the sitcom, packing in more pop-culture references than you could shake a dick at. Re-watching the sitcom this week I noted allusions to The King and I, The Shining and The Terminator in the first episode alone. This cut and paste approach to movie history demonstrated a love for cinema, a love that made for a unique televisual experience. It is no wonder then when Pegg works the media carousel they ask him about Spaced: What became of Tim and Daisy? Will there ever be a third season? Will he revive the fading fortunes of BAFTA winner, Jessica Hynes, and Hollywood director, Edgar Wright, to take back the sitcom crown? No is the answer. He doesn’t need to because another sitcom has beaten him to it.

Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes as their characters Tim and Daisy

Community is the sitcom that Hynes and Pegg never wrote. It invokes Spaced’s way with intertextuality and directorial innovation without ever copying it. Like Spaced, there are zombie horror parodies, spaghetti western pastiches and action movie caricatures; however where Spaced put its coat on the floor and danced around these genres, Community dives straight into them, dedicating whole episodes to these homages, spinning the comforting regularity of sitcom tone and setting on its head.

Community, not wishing to alienate its viewers, starts like many others by playfully conforming to sitcom conventions. Its opening scene involves the hapless Dean introducing the ethos of Community College to his students – only one of his cue cards is missing:

 PELTON: What is Community College? Well, you’ve heard all kinds of things. You’ve heard it’s “loser college” for young people who couldn’t make the cut at a university. It’s “halfway school” for twentysomething dropouts, crawling back to society with unskilled tails between their legs. A tax-funded self esteem workshop for newly divorced housewives piecing together shattered identities, That’s what you’ve heard. However I wish you luck. Wait - Confused, Pelton flips through his cards as the slightly deflated students resume their activity. Pelton calls out to them. PELTON (CONT’D) There was... a middle part of that speech, if you see a card...

As the Dean references each demographic (young people/twentysomething/newly divorced housewives), the camera cuts to the relevant persona, meaning within seconds the viewer has the background information for each character. Troy and Annie are the young people who didn’t make the cut at university; Britta is the university dropout and Shirley is the divorced housewife looking to re-build after a broken marriage. The only three main characters we’re yet to be introduced to is Abed, an autistic case study; Pierce, an OAP of expensive wealth and cheaper taste; and Jeff, a silver-tongued lawyer, forced to re-enrol in college when his golden legal qualifications are exposed as bogus.

All seven characters are brought together when Jeff, ever the opportunist, learns Britta needs help with her Spanish, so invites her to attend a ‘study group’ under the pretext of seducing her. Britta, however, pours cold water on Jeff’s erection by inviting members of her Spanish class to attend; thus the seven characters form the ‘community’ that the show will revolve around.

These characters aren’t remarkable in their construction: they have been seen before in other sitcoms. Abed as autistic has become a popular type off the back of Big Bang Theory’s success; Troy as handsome idiot isn’t a world away from Joey Tribiani; Jeff as the calm wave in a sea of idiots isn’t far removed from George Michael Sr. in Arrested Development. What is different is how the characters acknowledge the types and tropes of sitcoms in their asides to cameras. In one episode Abed is surprised to be paired on screen with Annie explaining: “I figured we were more like Chandler and Phoebe: they never really had stories together.” Each episode often ends like Scrubs with some grandstanding moralising from Jeff, a fact that Abed references in later episodes. For some this kind of self-referential humour could be smug and annoying but for people all to familiar with the conventions of comedy it is fun to have Abed, the meta double agent, destroying the practises from within.

Yes that's Chevy Chase in the top left hand corner. No, that's not a bad thing. He's great in the show.

And what about those movie pastiches then? In a Halloween episode Batman, like a rotisserie bird, is skewered and flamed when Abed clad as the cape crusader comes to the rescue of his friends; later delivering a stream of non-sequiturs ridiculing Nolan’s earnest superhero:

“If I stay, there can be no party. I must be out there in the night, staying vigilant. Whenever a party needs to be saved, I’m there. But sometimes I’m not cause I’m out in the night, staying vigilant. Watching. Lurking. Running. Jumping. Hurtling. Sleeping. No, I can’t sleep. You sleep. I’m awake.”

At other times the pastiches are more loving like the Goodfellas one in ‘Contemporary American Poultry.’ Here, the gang unhappy at the cafeteria selling out of chicken wings orchestrate a plot to get Abed a job there, so he can control the chicken supply and make an empire out of bootleg poultry. Hearing Jeff mimicking the mobster voice-over with his own cut-throat narration is a thing of beauty: “To us lines were for suckers, hacks. Sheep. We were wolves and we had the chicken to prove it.” Show creator, Dan Harmon did the clever thing in playing the comedy straight early, allowing us to be introduced to the group’s quirks and characters; later, with a loyal following secured, he subverts the sitcom, taking his characters out of the commonplace, putting them in the extraordinary, making the show more bold, more daring, as he fits his creations into Dawn of the Dead, Apollo 13 and Goodfellas tributes. In doing this, Harmon does sometimes over-reach himself: jokes are lost to indulgence; character drowned in genre, but even when the show isn’t hitting the high gag quota of Season One, it is still thrilling to see a maverick at play.

And Spaced fans: there’s not just one paintball episode, but three. So while Pegg puts the sitcom on permanent hiatus, why don’t you pick up the remote and give Community a go. Come on, it’s what Tim and Daisy would have wanted.

Community Season 1-5 is available on Netflix

Gypsy

Up until last year the only musical I had been to was Avenue Q, a cuddly- if irreverent - parody of Sesame Street. Up until that point, I thought musical theatre was all wavy hands and whitened teeth, a cheeseboard of sugar and schmaltz. However, watching Avenue Q slice and dice a kids show via songs on racism, pornography and schadenfreude challenged my preconceptions and made me acknowledge the genre may be broader than I thought.

I think the reason for my prejudice dates back to a story a friend told me about his date with an ex-girlfriend. Wanting to impress, he agreed to go to the theatre with her. The theatre wasn’t usually his thing, but we all do things when we’re first courting - pull out chairs, open doors, shower, go outside to fart – so he thought he’d give it a go. Anyway, it would be nice to do something different: to play at sophistication by hobnobbing London's suits and dresses. When he arrived though he did not see anyone dressed to impress; instead his eyes alighted on what can only be described as a fashion wreckage: pulled from the cultural rubble was a debris of people all wearing Steps tour t-shirts. Why was everyone wearing the football kit of a defunct 90’s pop band? Was it the West End’s answer to East End irony? How could this monstrosity be explained?

And then above him, he saw them: posters huge, posters high; on them, teeth sparkling, teeth whitening; a totalitarian rally re-imagined by Colgate. H from Steps was here. H from Steps was here to perform? In a leading role? Doing solos? Singing live? Without backing track? With musicians?  It’s a wonder my friend didn’t break up with the girl there and then, citing musical differences. But ever the hero, he sensed an anecdote for a friend’s future blog, so heroically he journeyed into the underworld, suffering a barrage of botched notes and auditory torment, and returned home, clutching a ‘you weren’t there man’ Vietnam vet' story.

"The horror. The horror."

I hold that ‘H from Steps’ anecdote responsible for my ignorant opinion of musical theatre. I didn’t always view musical theatre as ‘the boards’ bastard child; I know I didn’t because as a child my favourite film was Oliver. I would watch it all the time, particularly at Christmas when it would become as much a part of the holiday season as mince pies and cream. Dickens' books were larger than life and the musical showcased this with effervescent choreography and sing-a-long choruses. I still know all the words and actions to ‘Food, Glorious Food,’ ‘Pick a Pocket or Two’ and ‘I’ll Do Anything’ and can be found performing them to my girlfriend free of charge. (She prefers my rendition of ‘I’ll Do Anything,’ enjoying the love at all costs sentiment; she does not like my ‘Pick a Pocket’: so brilliant is my sleight of hand re-enactment of it, she wrongly spends her afternoon turning up the sofa, only to find me beaming back at her, revealing her ‘lost’ Pandora bracelet.) Oh, what larks!

"Please mum, can I watch Oliver again."

My girlfriend has a love of musical theatre that is partly down to her friend being a genuine star of it. In a previous blog I wrote about Clare playing the leading role in the Paris revival of Singin’ in the Rain. Watching her tackle a triumvirate of challenges in the artistic triathlon that is singing, acting and dancing re-awakened the little Oliver within me (I know that phrase sounds suspect) and made me truly appreciate musical theatre. This week we went to see Clare perform again; this time playing youngest daughter, June in Gypsy.

Normally before I go and see anything I’ll research the hell out of it, reading online reviews, customer appraisals, Wikipedia entries and actor’s interviews, rendering my actual going a pointless activity in confirming what I’ve already heard. For once though, I forgot to do my research. I knew next to nothing about Gypsy. I knew it was about a pushy mother. I knew the lyrics were written by musical legend, Stephen Sondheim, but other than that I knew nowt. I can now say that Gyspy is one of my all-time favourite theatre experiences, owing in part to the career-defining performance of Imelda Staunton. Although I haven’t seen Spacey at The Old Vic, McKellen in Waiting For Godot, Olivier’s Hamlet; I believe last Saturday I saw a genius at work.

BAFTA winning, Imelda Staunton.

Staunton plays Rose Lee, a small woman harbouring a monstrous ambition. Her goal is to turn her youngest into a star of the Vaudeville. Occupying a Seattle creak and leak apartment and having no material wealth would typically make some people believe fame and fortune weren’t for them, but Rose Lee isn’t Some Person:  having nothing only makes her more determined to be the one who ghostwrites her daughter’s rags to riches story. Gypsy then is a tale of what happens when dreams become obsessions, and what happens when obsessions become someone’s undoing. It is utterly enthralling- full of wit, verve and pathos, a world away from the jazz hands and smiles that wrongly caricature the genre.

Rose Lee is an enduring character of stage and screen because for all her grotesquerie, she is magnificently real. There isn’t a person in the land whom hasn’t met a parent – or been a parent – who lives vicariously through their child. It is natural to want your child to have a better life than you, but where Rose goes too far - and gets it wrong- is she confuses aspiration for love; this is a parent’s perennial fear, and a good reason why many older people watch with uneasy recognition.

The musical is so called because it is based on the real-life memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. In Act 1 of the show Gyspy does not exist – or she does, but in the form of Louise Lee, Rose’s eldest daughter. Louise lives in the shadow of her sister’s spotlight: where June is pigtails and curls, Louise is tomboy and crop; where June is vacuous and flighty; Louise is thoughtful and headstrong. It isn’t until her sister cuts the apron strings and kicks out of town that Rose considers her eldest. Unwilling to give up on a dream and desperate to scrape a living, Rose waves her magic wand and morphs her put-upon daughter into the Burlesque queen, Ms Gypsy Lee. Previously Rose was dismissive of Burlesque, seeing it as no art form whatsoever; her about-face then is done out of need, not want. With Rose’s 'project stardom' realised, it’s not long before she sets about dismantling it, chastising her daughter for being a star in the wrong sky.

The final number in Gyspy is ‘Rose’s Song,’ a lament on what Rose believes is owed to her. Negotiating the contradictions of this pitiful-defiant howl requires an actress who through inflection and genuflection can achieve the impossible task of making a hero out of a villain, a beast out of a heroine. Staunton manages it. Her performance is big and bursting, filling the capacious environs of the Savoy Theatre with ease; it is also an exercise in tone and gesture, reminding the audience, however huge the character may be this is a person raging against the dying of the spotlight. On hitting the final note, the auditorium rose to their feet to celebrate what was a tour-de-force performance. Britain’s Got Talent and political party conferences have made a mockery out of the ancient art of vertical adulation, but the audience of The Savoy were right to raise themselves that night because what we saw was something special. I urge you to do the same.