The World, Animated: From Ashoka to Autism
Born in the mid-1990s (at the tail-end of 1995 specifically), or as I like to call it, the Golden Age of Disney, it’s safe to say that I believe much of what I know about life I learned from animation.
I was born the year after The Lion King came out and in the year of Pocahontas. I was two years old when Mulan was released and four years old when the world changed forever because of Woody, Buzz, Bo-Peep, Slink and the gang in Toy Story. The same year I experienced the greatest Disney soundtrack ever made, or even one of the greatest soundtracks written for any film. I was three, that was Tarzan (by Phil Collins) and the year was 1999. It is only now I’m realising how much animation meant to be as a kid.
That for someone who felt like a square peg in a round hole, animation allowed me to make sense of a world that never made sense to me. I have had a lot of conversations about Disney’s problematic history but it means so much to me despite that. Yet, animation as a whole; from Scooby Doo to Looney Tunes, that ability to create a world in which this lonely child who felt like he was born on the wrong planet could see himself in. The legacy of Scooby Doo, Buzz Lightyear and even Ash Ketchum is something I will take to the grave.
To someone who has spent most of his life lonely, animation is happiness. The silly songs, stories and voices complete me. That even in a global pandemic, if it wasn’t for animation, my mental health would likely have deteriorated. I love storytelling and have watched / read stories in almost every medium possible, but animation is the only one that leaves me with a smile on my face. That as much I love to watch dramas, or westerns, or film noir and the classic pictures of Old Hollywood, they don’t leave me as happy as animation does. I only survived childhood due to animation because of Daphne Blake, and Team Rocket, blasting off again.
Whilst I love live-action storytelling, you can’t beat animation, as it leaves me content afterwards. You can’t beat Chicken Run, Spirit or Kubo and the Two Strings
As a kid, going to my grandparents’ in the West Midlands it was there I became besotted with animation. Particularly Disney. I’d watch them on repeat. I’m twenty-five this year, I’d still sooner go to see the latest Disney film than anything else, because it will leave me happy in a world that moves too fast where most people hate their lives. A world with bright lights and pungent smells and voices and sounds louder than what is comfortable. Today, with my love for film, particularly animation, I often feel that I am happier than many of the people I came up with. More spiritually fulfilled. Mainly because most of what I learned about life, and know, has come from the uncomplicated backlog of Disney characters going way way back to 1939.
Yet, it was in 2008, when the game changed again, with the release of Star Wars: Clone Wars. When its first season aired, I was thirteen years old. This was in the tint of growing up with both the Original Trilogy and the dreaded Prequel Trilogy. In addition, the Lego Star Wars videogames which I played on PlayStation until my thumbs hurt. There must be a reason why so many of my aspie colleagues enjoy Star Wars. One of the things that strikes me is the diversity of characters in the universe and no character is too strange for society. From Jar Jar Binks to the Hutt Clans to someone as solitary as Master Quinlan Vos. From the peoples who want to remain pacifists in the middle of a war, who would sooner die than defend themselves against separatist invasion — to the Night Sisters on Dathomir to the worse criminals in the underworlds of Coruscant, to pirates like Hondo. In a society that accepts Nabooian Jar Jar Binks , despite his quirks, that’s a world I can certainly get along with.
So, there must be a reason why so many people I know on the spectrum love fantasy and science fiction. Maybe it’s because lots of these stories, including another of my greatest loves, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, were written by people who made sense of their world through a fictional one. Be it Middle Earth; be it Narnia; be it Westeros or even ones of Jedi, Sith, force and midichlorians. But I know for every one of my colleagues on the spectrum that partake in Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft, there are many that enjoy other things. We are not all like Sheldon, in The Big Bang Theory.
Yet, in those worlds of force-wielders, magic, seers, dragons, hobbits, dwarves, warriors and mythical beasts, these stories told boy me it was okay to be different. And yet, with Star Wars, I often relate to Jedi like Master Yoda, because they see the world different, through what is felt and not always with what is seen. And the Star Wars animated shows in particular delved into these stories. In Lord of the Rings, I related to the elves. Who often moved slow at the best of times. In Narnia, I saw myself in Aslan. Characters who moved slow, characters who felt the world, in a different way to everyone else.
And in Clone Wars, I had a deep deep understanding with Ahsoka Tano, one of the greatest characters ever written
Even shows such as Disney Avengers Assemble, a fun show (which my best friend hates), I physically can’t bring myself to dislike it. Of course, there are animations which I dislike (Rick and Morty) but animation is my addiction. Film is an addiction. Storytelling is. Over these past twenty-odd years, I have fallen in love with worlds, completely smitten with the lands of Sinnoh, Mowgli, and Pride Rock. Stories that comment on social political issues, like Bug’s Life really being about how the proletarians do all the work and the bourgeoisie get rich. In this time of COVID-19, in light of PM Boris Johnson’s address, is that not A Bug’s Life simply in our present plane of existence?
I was boy just like other boys. But I wanted to stay in Neverland forever. I still think like that, I simply added Fox and Warner Bros to my repertoire, along with Game of Thrones and House of Cards. This is how I made sense of the world. I wanted to stay with Bagheera and Wendy forever. The fact my introduction to friendship was through Disney dialogue, with Mowgli and Baloo; Timone and Pumba; Lilo and Stitch: free from the complicated nuanced worldview of society, I was able cut through all that white noise.
I have been scared my whole life of growing up because everything I knew about emotion and relationships came out of one of those uncomplicated Disney films; so why would I be in any rush to start being an adult, when people don’t say what they mean and there are so many Jafars?
