Over this semester, a group of friends at my college (for simplicity's sake, let's call this group "No Shame"...a random totally-non-college affiliated name that sprung from the top of my head just now) found that we enjoyed watching animated movies together. Such movies include the traditional Disney film to the newer, cutting edge Pixar studio flick. What we decided, after a time, is that any movie is more enjoyable if you spend the duration of the film with a character that is "you". I'm not gonna lie, I found this quite fun (and I still do), but I have realized several things from this "animated labeling". For educational purposes, I figured that I should share this with the world (aka...the 20ish people or so who take time from their busy summer days filled with work, chores, and overall laziness to read this blog...hey, no shame friends).
1. My friends are predictable
No Shame (that randomly named group of college pals) is encompassed with a variety of personalities, oddities, and quirks that make this group stand out from the other cliche and boring social circles found on campus. Yes, we are an army of awesome. Literally...an army (on a good day, there's like 27 of us). Anyway, these random crazy people, whom I love, are from all walks of life and make our group extremely diverse. However, that's not the point.
Even in their loud and shameless personalities, they are quite predictable. In movies, we can usually find characters that describe a major quirk that makes each of us...well, us. We have the dramatic theatre guru (usually speaking a monologue and sporting a British accent), the romantic couple (usually mature characters who are obviously gonna get together), a few comedic-relief characters (often because of ill-timing, but guaranteed to make the audience/5 year-olds everywhere wet their pants in glee), and a villain (not gonna lie...again, but this usually has to do with mannerisms and overall appearance). While this is the simplified way in which we cast roles, we also take into account the dynamic of certain friends, bone-structure, blood type, the weather in Fiji, and whether one's socks are white or chartreuse on that particular day. Yes, it's a science.
2. Movies are formulaic
If No Shame is predictable, and yet most of us are the same-ish characters in all of these movie...what does that say about children's films these days? Just saying, I feel like these animated miracles, while wonderful to watch, have children/college student attention spans down to a science. A little comedic relief, a villain, the romantic protagonist couple fated to be together, some random extras, and some mildly funny secondary characters that further the plot along with their occasional 1-sentenced lines. But hey, we don't discriminate, and we watch each movie with that wide-eyed sense of wonder found predominately in 6-8 year-olds...ok, maybe not. But we always have a good time at movie nights.
3. I'm stupid/sometimes a dude
This is more of a personal revelation of mine. In EVERY movie we watch I am comedic relief, or to put it more plainly...I'm that stupid character that you remember because while you were laughing with the other characters, you were laughing at mine. Hey, I'm not ashamed of this. I'm just as predictable as the rest of my friends, which I take to mean that I know them almost as well as myself. So far, I have been expertly cast as a Mexican Chihuahua (kind of redundant putting both of those words there), a hyena that didn't understand the "golden rule" (if you had to ask what rule that is, you too probably can't follow it), an oafish midget (wonder what "LeFou" could possibly mean...), and a pig who's sole purpose is to hold your loose change. Hey, at least I was a chick once, even if that "chick" was Whoppi Goldberg (wait, does that even count?).
4. I take movies personally
After I've been cast in a movie, I often find myself focusing in on my character. While this is to be expected I suppose, I also start taking (usually) his actions personally. Of course I laugh, but it's a split between thinking, "I can't believe I just did that" and "I would do that". What can I say, I get caught-up in how realistic animated movies can be with their life-like toys, talking animals, and well-rehearsed musical selections. Cause what's more realistic than a group of animals breaking out in song? Obviously it's an animated group of talking animals incorporating their own dance number into to film to further the plot along. Duh.
While I have been a bit cynical and sarcastic when watching these movies (I know, pretty out of character for me), I must admit that I absolutely love me some good animation. (If all you took away from that last sentence was my grammar, please note that I did that on purpose you Yankees) I love this group of friends that God has blessed me with this semester. The fact that we can all get together and hang out, doing college-aged appropriate activities like watching children's movies, speaks volumes to our crazy-awesome group dynamic. Where else can you find English (liars), Religion (saved), Nursing (loving), Graphic Design (artsy), Education (patient), History (brilliant), and Computer Science (why would you do that to yourself?) majors enjoying each others company? If you answered a cafeteria, classroom, duck pond, movie theater, Applebee's, beach, or foul-smelling lounge...then you are correct. Basically, (oh gosh, here comes the child-friendly message) hanging out with some wonderful people while enjoying some formulaic children's movies is nothing to scoff at. You scoffers are just jealous, and might I add, simply overrated.
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