Muppet Treasure Island Review

Because we are allowed to choose any movie for the blog this week, I felt it necessary that my favorite childhood movie (and its genre!) be represented in my last post. I wore the living hell out of my VHS of Muppet Treasure Island as a child- more so than Toy Story or Space Jam, Jim Henson's classic was and still is my favorite kids movie. Here is one of the reasons why.

Recently, as a genre, children's movies have seemed to enjoy a level of respect (from critics) that would normally be difficult to ascertain given their simple subject manner. In the last twenty years, companies like DreamWorks and Pixar have developed sophisticated characters and plot lines in animated films such as Up and Ratatouille. Although Muppet Treasure Island is surely not as complex as the aforementioned films, it has the unique charm that graces all of the Muppet catalogue. It is naturally funny- I remember laughing at that movie harder than any others mostly because my parents were also in tears every time we watched it. Personally, I think that this is the most impressive thing that a kid's movie can do; I've rewatched enough of my childhood shows and movies to know that their humor is usually not applicable to the adult palette. This leads me to a few questions, however: first, how do some children's movies accomplish this level of sophistication? And, why can't they all be that good?

Some of the highest-rated movies in the past year (on RottenTomatoes.com, at least) have been children's movies. Normally, it would seem unfair to judge a movie that is intended for kids alongside movies that have an older demographic, but I think that exactly what lies in the nature of that distinction can be used as an explanation for the incredible reviews that some of the "best" kids movies have received. The reason why kids movies should me judged less harshly is that they have the unique goal and requirement of displaying their plot in a simple manner. Because the mind of the intended audience has not been fully developed, different ways of representing ideas and themes must be used on-screen, in order for the viewer to gain the most from the movie. In order for a film to fulfill this requirement and successfully entertain adults as well, it must be doing at least one of two things: the movie is either loaded with jokes and situations that have double-meanings or it has portrayed such a deep and abstract concept (e.g.: love, loss, heartbreak) in such simple and graspable terms and pictures that that representation is simply beautiful in itself. Muppet treasure island certainly seems to accomplish both of these goals.

One concept that I have kept going back to all year is Freud's "uncanny." We learned about the "uncanny" during our section on horror, but I'm not altogether convinced that it does not apply to all "good" cinema in general. I wrote a paper on Music for my Aesthetics class last semester with Grady; the paper asserted that the beauty of music is found in its truth-giving quality- something I believe rings true with all forms of art. Could cinema's truth be grounded in the feeling of the uncanny? While literature, music, and stationary visual art all are felt in both the mind and through one or two sensory experiences (be it, sound, sight, etc.), movies combine dialogue, music, and complex visuals to display whole worlds on the screen. It may be that the very experience of watching a movie is one that is uncanny; one has the familiar experience of seeing a world, however, that experience is paired with the unfamiliar feeling of not being able to affect any part of that world- a true outsider experience.

Other manifestations of the "uncanny" can be found in children's movies, which are often parodies of classic works of art. Muppet Treasure Island, for example, is a parody of Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island, a book that has been treasured (get it? aaaahahahaha) since its publication in 1883. Aside from the anthropomorphic nature of a puppet itself (which seems like another instance of the uncanny), watching puppets of animals and other creatures act out a story that was written with human characters has familiar and unfamiliar characteristics as well.

Do you all see the connection between the Uncanny in children's movies, and do you agree with my claim that Freud's term applies to all "good" cinema? Let me know your thoughts! It's been a pleasure reading your blog posts and I hope that we can put a dropbox together so I can see some of the papers that you all have written. This has been by far the best blogging experience that I have had- thank you all for making it a more-than-bearable experience!