Analysis of Monsters Inc

While watching Monsters Inc I actually thought I was watching the six o’clock news, or sitting in a politics class. An animated film, a cartoon aimed at youth and young adults, did this? It certainly did, by reading between the lines.

It’s not a secret that many animated films and cartoons have hidden messages to condition the masses towards a certain agenda or way of thinking. Monsters Inc is a beautifully written and animated film about a Monster world that has a very crucial power source that they all depend on. Just like the human world depends on oil, the Monster world depends on children’s screams. That’s right folks, a handful of Monsters are employed to invade a child’s bedroom and scare them. Conveniently their screams are stored in a tank that they can then use like electricity to run their materialistic world.

Interestingly the logo of the Monster Inc company has one eye, just like the eye used on the American dollar bill that has come to be known as the all-seeing eye, used as a Masonic symbol, designed by Freemasons, which is discussed in Dan Brown’s bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Another accident or an intended political message? I believe it is the latter, especially seeing as Disney are a part of this production. Walt Disney was a Freemason who cunningly placed symbolic messages in cartoons such as The Little Mermaid, as Dan Brown reveals in his novel.

During the first five minutes of the film I thought I was watching a bunch of soldiers invading countries, taking their oil and storing them in a tank, to keep running their materialistic world. After a few blinks, I realised that the comparison was all too real. Monsters Inc was released in 2001 and in 2002 in some parts of the world, right after 9/11 and the war on terror starting with Afghanistan. A subliminal message of the sad current state the world is in, perhaps? And a way to introduce the complex, often distressing world of politics into a young child’s life.

Another all too real comparison is the competition between each monster to have the most screams (or oil if you want to keep with the comparison), which is shown in a league table on a huge screen next to the world map. A friendly monster, Sully, is at the top, while a sneaky monster with bad intentions is in second place. This league can symbolise the current oil league, where countries are the top distributors and those who are in second try their best to be on top, even if it means breaking all work ethics (or the Geneva and UN conventions).

The sneaky monster with bad intentions wants to kidnap his chosen human child so that he can use her on a new machine he has prepared alongside the boss (an inside job), which will suck out all the screams she has to offer. While she is in the torture chair, a pipe comes up to her mouth, ready to suck it all out. Of course this can be compared to the pipelines that have been placed to suck out all the oil from other countries. Now the friendly monsters protecting the human child have an enemy within their own ranks. Sound too familiar? It has happened in the political world, with many soldiers and politicians blowing the whistle on others within their own ranks because they do not agree with the terrible actions they have committed. Just to name one would be the horrific pictures of Iraqi prisoners tortured by soldiers, leaked to news agencies by those within their own ranks.

There is a further message in the animated film. Co-existing is actually not a scary thing. Just because two things are different doesn’t mean they can’t be civilised with each other. The monsters thought humans were scary, disgusting creatures they could catch a plague from. Humans thought monsters were terrorists. But Sully develops a bond with a human child and realises that though they don’t speak the same language, love and affection are more powerful than words. Perhaps this a message to the world to accept each others differences, to give each other a chance, to take time to understand each other, because the one language we are all able to understand and convey is the language of love.

This is what brings Sully to think of a brilliant idea for the company once his boss is busted by the film’s version of the CIA (they are called the CDA, Child Detection Agents). Instead of collecting children’s screams for an energy source, they could collect children’s laughter. Luckily for Sully, he discovered that a child’s laughter is ten times more powerful than a child’s scream, so at the end of the day everyone wins, monster and human. Surely the message here is staring at us right in the face; hopefully future generations will come up with something that is better than wars, invasion, hijacking people’s resources and scaring them to death. Perhaps one day we will all learn to co-exist and benefit from each other, with a positive, productive outcome.

It’s all in the hands of the youth to pick up the sharp pieces their elders left for them and turn the world into a better place, quite a challenge, but a rewarding one when all is good with the world, just as Sully smiles when he takes a step back and looks at the better world he has helped make.

Monsters Inc can be looked at as an innocent animated film with many thrills, laughter, fantastic animation, excellent acting and a believable story-line. But if you want to play the read between the lines game, you won’t be disappointed with what you discover. You also won’t look at another animated film the same way again. Especially if Disney has anything to do with it.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• I think i have totally lost my mind!- The point of true clarity.
• A Pixar Retrospective: Monsters, Inc.
• Cinematical Seven: Greatest Monsters in Kid Films
• The Human Face of Evil