Deconstructing the Movie "Up"

The Pixar movie "Up" was the first kid movie I've seen in the theater in a long, long time. I took Consuelo, my mentee, to see it because it got excellent reviews and it was not about violence. (You try picking an appropriate movie to take a 13-year-old girl to see; it's tough. Holy bursting bombs, Batman.)

On the face of it, it's not your typical superhero movie. An old white guy with a big schnoz and a little round Asian-American kid were the heroes. The evil crazy guy was white. The little girl likes to pretend she's a pilot. The dopey dog is the one who finds the treasure. In the end, the old white guy ends up subbing as the Asian-American kid's dad, so it's obviously pro-nontraditional family.

But this is how privilege works. On the surface, it's fighting a lot of the stereotypes. So hooray for them, right? But then I started thinking about it, and I found a dozen reinforcements of the messages of privilege. Hmm, let's see:

-The bad, evil dog is black. How obvious can you get?
-The black dog gets his comeuppance and is put in his place in the end.
-The little kid is fat and is portrayed as weak because of it.
-The kid doesn't have a mom and a dad, because how could a person of color have a happy family?
-Not being able to have children causes the white couple much sadness, because it's not normal for couples not to have children.
-The little girl who wanted to be a pilot and an adventurer ends up being a housewife.
-Only boys are adventurers.
-The fat kid can't control himself when it comes to eating. (Well, duh, because that's why all fat people are fat, right? They eat too much chocolate.)
-The old guys either get fat and ugly or mean and crazy.
-The bird, who is different from everyone else, is hunted her whole life.
-Marriage is between a man and a woman.
-Heroes are able-bodied and able-minded.

I'm sure there are many more that I didn't catch because I'm too immersed in the social messaging associated with my privilege. But scrutinizing what seems OK at first and realizing that it's maybe not so OK after all helps me to not perpetuate and support the status quo. I do wonder, though, what messages Consuelo took from it. We'll have to discuss.