I Had Power, I Was Respected

Today Rebecca texted me saying that she was watching Frozen for the first time at work and that she was really enjoying it and was surprised by the emotional gravity that sneaks into the movie. This entire post is about how somebody actually didn't see Frozen in the last two years.

But actually, the film does seem to resonate with this generations children, specifically young girls. That's because it touches on the matter of sisterhood, which is relatively rare in film, but also because both Elsa and Anna are positive female role models. Rather than conforming to what society wants from her, Elsa does her own thing and that works out for her. You could read this a variety of ways, for example as a metaphor for being queer, but really it applies to almost anything. That type of character arc doesn't happen to female characters nearly as much as it should in popular media.

The main way that Frozen communicates the emotions tied to the film's events is through song, a Disney staple. In case you lead a life similar to Patrick Star, you know that "Let It Go" was the "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", or "A Whole New World" or "Under the Sea", etc. of the film. My favourite, personally, was "Love Is an Open Door", which Rebecca echoed. Look at us, too cool to pick the one that everyone likes.

What this did was remind me of one of my all-time favourite movies, Toy Story, and not only how good that movie is, but also how good its soundtrack is. Hearing the three original songs from the Toy Story soundtrack by Randy Newman just destroys me. The first time I saw the movie I was six and since then it has come to mean a lot of different things to me and represented different feelings. I could probably write a dissertation on how the movie has stayed with me through the years, but I can barely finish the one I'm already working on, so I'll stick to just the music.

When I was young I loved the songs, but that was mainly because they were the songs in a movie I enjoyed. I didn't think about the content in the songs or what the words meant, I just knew them as the sounds that complimented parts of a movie I really liked. But the songs do have a very strong emotional core to them and when paired with the visual elements of the movie, they come across as emotionally devastating. I subconsciously knew the emotions tied to the songs because of the movie, but I couldn't articulate those thoughts yet because I was a six year-old boy.

I always liked the movie, but I sort of re-discovered its appeal in high school. When I was younger I liked it because I played with toys all the time and the thought of my toys being sentient seemed like the coolest thing in the world. In high school I understood the greater themes of the movie and seeing Andy's attachment to his toys triggered very strong nostalgia in me towards the bond that I used to have with my toys. I think I even got out my Lego and played with it again.

I went through another re-discovery of the movie during university when my friends and I went through a phase of watching Disney movies at our house. I constantly said how Toy Story was one of my favourite movies and probably annoyed the hell out of everyone around me. This time, the main thing that stuck out to me was how well-crafted the songs were. Now when I listened to "You've Got a Friend in Me" I thought about my friendship with Brian and how I felt what the lyrics in the song said. This wasn't a "Oh yeah, it's that song from my childhood." it was "Holy fuck, this song."

My dad is a huge Randy Newman fan and when I was talking about the movie one day, he got out all of his old Randy Newman records. He's a really cool guy (you get to choose who I'm referring to) and his records are all very satirical and cynical, which isn't exactly what you would expect from him if you, like me, were introduced to him via the Toy Story soundtrack.

For example, from "Money (Is What I Love)"

"I don't love the mountains
And I don't love the sea
And I don't love Jesus
He never done a thing for me
I ain't pretty like my sister
Or smart like my dad
Or good like my mama
It's money that I love"

I think he's trying to say something!

I won't lie and say that I'm all that familiar with Newman's music, or that I'm even familiar enough to approach it critically, but he means something to me through my relationship with my dad and I think it's pretty lame that everybody my age only knows him through that fucking stupid Family Guy sketch.

Anyways, back to the songs he made for the Toy Story soundtrack. "You've Got a Friend in Me" was the biggest song, and deservedly so, as it's the catchiest one and has a very family-friendly sentiment, but the one I really want to talk about is "Strange Things", which plays in the movie when Buzz Lightyear is starting to occupy more of Andy's time and Woody is becoming jealous.




There's a panning shot of Woody's astonished expression while the "Straaaaange things are happenin' ta me" plays and that kills me every time.

I think that this is the best song on the soundtrack. It seems like whenever I get back into a "Toy Story is the best" frame of mind, I'm at a point of change or transition in my life and I suppose that this songs really resonates for that reason. But I think that the case is really that your life is always in transition and always changing, so this song really just applies all the time.

I high school it was about me packing and moving to university, in university it was about me learning how to grow up and move on from a break-up, during the summer at Ontario Place it was about me entering the last year of my undergrad and not being sure about what I would do and now, as I'm sitting in a bachelor kitchen, it's about me looking the end of my thesis in the face.

This means that the song can apply to me at more or less any point in my life and it's probably that way for a lot of other people to. In reality, strange things are always happening to you, so this song has nailed down transcendental truth of human existence, which is the mark of a truly great song.

I'm not really sure how to end this, as typing it out has brought up some pretty strong emotions in me, so I guess just next time you feel weird about shit put on this jammer.

And then after that put on "You've Got a Friend in Me" and think about your best friend.