For
blog 5 I have chose the Disney film, The
Emperors New Groove. This is a film about a self centered, gold spoon-fed;
know it all king that rules all of the lands. Through his rein as king he does
what he wants when he wants with no one to tell him otherwise. This is what in
modern day times we call, only child syndrome. That aside, Kuzco (the king) one day calls upon a visitor
who lives up on a mountaintop that he intends on building a structure on. He
asks the lowly peasant which side of the mountain has the best sunlight; Pacha
(peasant) goes into great detail of which side shows the amazing light and
beauty of the sun. Only moments later to be told his family and life will be
ripped away because King Kuzco will be building a structure there and his
family is not welcome. This is the first of many selfish acts that are to be
portrayed as evil and not good behavior. This is film is almost shown as a
“reap what you sow,” style film. When we see Kuzco making all of these horrible
decisions that are ruining peoples lives, as a side story going on there are
people plotting to kill the king and take his throne.
Kuzco is later turned into a llama and forced
to go on a journey with the man he kicked out of his own land. This is the
point unto which the morals of the story being to really set in. Pacha is a man
of honor, honesty, hard work, and a true man of love. He has a loving wife, two
kids, and a third on the way. He is portrayed in the movie as happy and having
everything he needs in his life under his own roof. The moral that Disney was
trying to help along is, as long as you are true to yourself, honest to others,
and work hard for what you have, life will in return reward you in mysterious
ways. “Virtually every movie presents us
with role models, ideal ways of behaving, negative traits, and an implied
morality based on the filmmakers sense of right and wrong." (Understanding
movies) We can clearly see in this movie Disney is pushing for kids to understand
and learn the ideal of true, honest, hard work. Most Disney movies of past have
shown how “easy” it is to just be in the correct place at the correct time,
that’s just not ideal, or even right in my opinion. Little girls need to have
the dream of being a princess and little boys need to have the dream of slaying
the dragon and saving the princess as well. But what they don’t understand, and
this movie does a WONDERFUL job of portraying this, is that those princes and
princesses had a whole lot of work to get where they are. And to get to the top, have no regrets, or hurt other people in the process we need to be more
like Pacha.
At the end of this movie (spoiler alert) Kuzco having been on
this long journey realizes that hurting others to get what you want isn’t a
good thing. Pacha then entire time knowing the cruel intentions of King Kuzco
still proceeded to help out the lost and awful king. He could not bear to
witness another man have to live horribly, his heart and will were too strong
to break so he helped out even the lowest of lows. Back to the reap what you
sow thing, at the end when Pacha saves the day and Kuzco has his moment of
realization and befriends Pacha, the evil woman trying to kill Kuzco gets what
she deserves and all is well in the kingdom again. "...Because the
characters don’t talk at length about what they believe in, we've got to dig
beneath the surface and construct their value system basis of what their goals
are..." (Understanding movies) Pacha would love this quote, because of it’s
meaning, and that is actions speak much louder than words. We watch Pacha and
learn what true character is.
Hands down one of the best movies for a clear good message and none of the comedy or integrity of the movie is taken away.
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