Monster, Inc. is about a city where monsters live, and their town is fueled on the screams of human children. Screams are becoming scarcer because children are becoming less afraid of monsters. Sulley (one of the monsters who scares children) comes upon a human child, and he tries to get her home. Through the process of getting her home, Sulley discovers that the owner of the scream company is trying to find new ways to get screams out of children. Sulley also discovers that children’s laughter is ten times as powerful as their screams. At the end of the movie, the scream company changes to making kids laugh; laughter now powers the city. The movie Monsters, Inc. (2001) illustrates what was happening in our culture when this movie was made. In Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” he argues that monsters always reveal something about the culture at the time the monster was popular (68, 69). In Cohen’s first thesis “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body,” he suggests that monsters embody and reveal powerful cultural anxieties (68, 69). What is the cultural significance of the movie Monsters, Inc.? There are two reasons why this movie is culturally significant. The most obvious one is that people are not always who you think they are. In the film, Sulley is a monster who is good; Cohen would argue that this monster is messing with binary norms that we are comfortable with. Another significant point is the cultural fear of running out of natural resources, and the corresponding desire to find alternative ways to supply America with the resources it needs. In the film, the town is fueled by screams, and since children are becoming less afraid the town is running out of fuel. The movie Monsters, Inc. has a lot of cultural significance: it challenges our view of monsters and challenges us to take the issue of scarce natural resources seriously. As such, it can illustrate what was happening in American culture in 2001.
Figure 1 is an image from the movie Monsters, Inc. Sulley (the large Blue monster) can be seen caring for Boo (little girl) Sulley is putting Boo to bed. This scene in the movie occurs when Sulley is leaving Boo in her home and saying goodbye to her forever. In the image Sulley’s eyes are focusing on Boo and are softer; this shows how much Sulley cares about Boo. They are also holding hands and smiling which shows that Boo is not afraid, and that they seem to have a friendly relationship. This friendly relationship between humans and monsters is not a normal relationship and some people are uncomfortable with monsters being considered good.
Can monsters be considered good? When most people think of monsters they think of bad, scary beings; however, in the movie Monsters, Inc. Sulley is definitely a good monster. This movie was made in November of 2001, right after 9/11, so according to Cohen it should reveal something about what was happening in our culture at that time. After 9/11 people in the US were skeptical of all Muslims even if though they did not know the person. Just like people judge monsters, many Americans were also judging Muslims. This film illustrates that like Muslims, some monsters are bad; however, most are not. Cohen also argues that monsters disrupt normal categories that we are comfortable with. Normally we put monsters into a scary category and assume that humans should be afraid of them. This movie messes with these categories because Sulley is a monster that humans are not afraid of and Sulley is concerned for the well-being of others. As an emotional response to 9/11, Muslims have been put into a category of terrorists who want to kill Americans. Like the monsters in the example above, Muslims cannot all be grouped into one category. One article by the Cultural Studies program at Laurier argues that Sulley is more of a human than a monster. They argue that Sulley has the personality of a human and the body of a monster. This author claims that Sulley shows emotions for Mike and Boo and that monsters do not have positive feelings towards others. They conclude that even though Sulley is a monster he should not be classified as a monster in the scary sense. This author helps to illustrate that Sulley disrupts the normal classification of a monster.
Figure 2 presents the main characters from the movie Monsters, Inc. In this image a small girl is interacting with the monsters in a friendly manner. These monsters hold a lot of emotional power, you can tell by the way that each of the monsters are positioned. For example Sulley (the big furry monster in the middle) is standing tall and proud, and he does not seem to be as scary. Boo (the little girl in the front) is smiling just like any little girl would be, she is not afraid of the monsters that surround her. Randall (the salamander on the right) has an unhappy look, and he seems to be scarier than the other monsters, just because of how he is positioned. These monsters disrupt the normal categories that we put monsters into. Monsters are normally viewed as bad and we do not expect them to be interacting with humans in a nice manner. In this picture we see a girl who seems to have no problem being with these monsters and some of them are smiling in a nice way. In this image the monsters are not all good which makes this image disrupt the category that monsters can be good. This image hints at the desire to be able to walk among monsters and not be scared. As we are often afraid of monsters, we naturally desire to no longer be afraid of them and this image fulfills that desire. In this image some of the monsters seem more likely to be friends than enemies. The larger message of this image is that while some monsters can be scary, others can be good and even help protect us. It is not adequate to group them all into one category.
The following scene is important because it illustrates the power of laughter (happiness) and how much better it is compared to screams (fear). In this scene, Boo is seen conquering her fear of monsters. At this time in America lots of studies were being done on fears in children. The article Inhibition of Vicariously Learned Fears in Children Using Positive Modeling and Prior Exposure explains that children were becoming less afraid because they were being introduced to positive stimuli at younger ages. This scene illustrates the power of laughter especially well. The scene begins with Sulley, Mike, and Boo running from Randal (the bad guy who is trying to extract screams) and they are trying to find Boo’s door. Each door leads to a different child’s room. They grab onto a random door and it takes them to where all the doors are stored. This place has rows and rows of different doors. They are flying on one door and Boo laughs; then some of the doors activate. This is important because this is the first time Mike and Sulley realize that they can use the laughter to their advantage. They were previously aware that laughter was powerful, but they did not realize how powerful it was. To get away from Randall Mike makes Boo laugh, and then all of the doors activate and they go inside one. They keep going inside different doors to try to get closer to Boo’s door. Then Randal grabs Boo and causes Mike and Sulley fall. Boo is afraid and becomes sad and some of the doors deactivate. This illustrates not only the strength of laughter but that it is even more powerful than fear. Sulley almost gets Boo back, but then Randall kicks Sulley. When Boo realizes that Sulley is about to die she stops being afraid of Randall; Boo attacks Randall. This shows that when children overcome their fear of monsters they feel empowered and their screams become even more scarce. Sulley, Mike, and Boo then send Randall into a door forever. Then they find Boo’s door; however, the power has run out. Mike tried to make Boo laugh, but before she laughs the door starts to move. Mr. Waternoose (the owner of the company) tries to get Boo, but before he can reach her, Sulley gets Boo to her door and puts her to bed.
In addition to challenging our view of monsters, the above scene also illustrates the problem of scarce natural resources. We can once again apply Cohen’s argument that a monster will reveal what is going on in a culture at the time the monster was created to the movie Monsters Inc. A direct comparison could be made between the monsters being completely dependent on the screams, and America’s dependency on oil. In the film, the city faces the problem of running out of fuel and this scares the monsters that live there. The same thing was happening in America. People were worried about oil connections being cut off because of 9/11. The Kitsapsun newspaper elaborated on peoples’ fears of rising gas prices. This article also states that people were stocking up on fuel because they were afraid that America would run out. In the film, the company that retrieves screams is worried about going out of business, so it decides to use technology to find additional ways to extract screams from children. This reflects what was happening in America. In Stephen Brown and Daniel Wolk’s article Natural Resource Scarcity and Technological Change, they illustrate the different ways in which new technologies were being used to extract natural resources. By using technology companies could get to natural resources that were not retrievable before. This article argues that while this may seem like a good thing, natural resources are finite and will eventually be used up. These authors believe that instead of finding new technologies to retrieve more natural resources people should be thinking of new ways to fuel the world we live in. Sulley and Mike did exactly this when they figured out how to use laughter for fuel. America has been a consumer country from the very beginning. However, in 2001 many Americans had become conservationists to help protect our world. My favorite quote by John Muir (the father of environmentalists) is “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.”
Monsters, Inc. is a movie that represents what was happening in the American culture in 2001. The first way this can be seen is when things may not be as they first seem. Sulley is classified as monster even though he is not bad; the same way Muslims were viewed after 9/11. Another culturally significant point is the cultural fear of running out of natural resources. In the film, the monsters are running out of fuel because children are less afraid of monsters. At this time people were worried about the oil supplies in America. Monsters, Inc. seems to be a perfect example of what was happening in America in 2001. Nick Sousanis believes that to truly understand something you must be able to see multiple sides of it at the same time without being biased. In his book, Unflattening, Sousanis describes unflattening as “a simultaneous engagement of multiple vantage points from which to engender new ways of seeing” (32). Throughout this paper this film has been looked at from multiple perspectives and now there is a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of the movie Monsters, Inc.
Works Cited
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Askew, Chris, et al. “Inhibition Of Vicariously Learned Fear In Children Using Positive Modeling And Prior Exposure.” Journal Of Abnormal Psychology 125.2 (2016): 279–291. PsycARTICLES. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Blackman, Sue Anne Batey, and William J. Baumol. “Natural Resources.” Library of Economics and Liberty. Liberty Fund Inc., 2008. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Brown, Stephen P. A., and Wolk, Daniel. “Natural Resource Scarcity And Technological Change.” Economic & Financial Review (2000): 2.Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2016
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Readings for Analytical Writing, Third Edition. Ed. Christine Farris, et al. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 68–86. Print.
Cultural Studies Program at Laurier. “James P. Sulley.” Monstrumclassicum. World Press, 2 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Monsters, Inc. Dir. Pete Doctor, David Silverman, and Lee Unkrich. Walt Disney Pixar, 2001. DVD.
Muir, John. “The American Forests.” Our National Parks. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901. Print.
Sousanis, Nick. Unflattening. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2015. Print.
