The Pirate Review - Boundin': An Animated Allegory

Sure nice to know there are jackalopes around.

Spoilers

You probably saw The Incredibles this summer, or you're about to see it when it comes out on DVD. It was frankly a fantastic movie, and I've got to get off my lazy duff and write a review of it soon. But for now I'd rather focus on the short film that preceded The Incredibles during its theatrical run: a Pixar short called Boundin'.

The first time I saw Boundin', I wasn't terribly impressed. I've seen nearly every short film Pixar Animation Studios has ever made, from Luxo Jr. to Geri's Game, and there's been something fun and playful and unexpected about each one. But Boundin' was... well... I dunno, a bit more pedestrian than what I'd expected. It was somewhat amusing, but it didn't have the same sense of play or comedic snap that I'd seen in the others. Rather than displaying the genius for comedic timing that Pixar's shorts have demonstrated in the past, it was merely serviceable—an innocuous way of warming up the audience before the main event.

I didn't think too much about Boundin', in fact, until I saw it again. We have enough nieces and nephews that it was only a matter of time before we saw The Incredibles a second time in theaters. While I was waiting for the curtain to rise, I began to consider why Pixar had made this frankly-not-up-to-snuff short. It couldn't be because the Pixar animation team had run out of steam—otherwise I would expect The Incredibles to be similarly lackluster, and it wasn't. On the contrary, it was one of the best movies Pixar has produced to date. So what was the point of Boundin'? Perhaps there was something about the little film that I'd missed.

And the second time I saw Boundin', I recognized it for what it was. This Pixar short is an allegory.

The much-vaunted Disney-Pixar deal fell apart, publicly and messily, in 2004. From what I've been able to discern, Disney CEO Michael Eisner felt Pixar was getting the better of the deal between the two companies; further, that Pixar head Steve Jobs was just a leetle too cocky for Eisner's tastes. (I need not make further comment about Mr. Eisner's personality conflicts with every known creative talent Disney has taken on since about 1986, because my husband has already done a great job covering that issue.) Boundin' was completed in 2003, in the thick of the nastiest exchanges between Disney and Pixar, and it does seem to reflect the psychically-bludgeoned state of Pixar Animation Studios at the time.

The short film is set in the desert of the American Southwest, similar to some of Disney's live-action True-Life Adventures of the 1950s. Our hero is a young Merino lamb with wool of such "remarkable sheen" that he has become quite vain, and breaks out in high-steppin' dance (a great Michael Flatley parody, and one of the few really funny things in the short). His neighbors—prairie dogs, a burrowing owl and a rattlesnake—are similarly impressed with his terpsichorean talents. Then one day, some farmers—represented by a rickety old truck backing down the slope—grab the lustrous lamb, shave his wool off and dump him unceremoniously back on the lone prairie. Scrawny and pathetic without his glorious wool, the shorn lamb is downhearted, miserable, and mocked by his neighbors. Then along comes a great American jackalope with a bit of sage advice—don't let the farmers get you down, it's time to jump up and "bound, bound, bound and rebound." The lamb takes this advice to heart and learns to shrug off his yearly shearing.

So what does this mean? Well, from an allegorical standpoint, our hero the vain little lamb is none other than Pixar itself—originally a young, small company with remarkable talents, appreciated and praised by its fellow tech companies for its ability to produce fantastic entertainment. (And yes, perhaps a little cocky too.) Then the farmer arrives—the doddering Disney empire, represented by an abused and rickety old farm truck. Reduced to "farming out" work rather than nurturing creative talent of its own, the Disney company proceeds to "fleece" Pixar of its creative output. Feeling abused and unappreciated, the Pixar lamb is left out in the rain to generate more fleece to be shorn, while Disney enjoys the financial gain of Pixar films, DVD releases, associated toys, games and other branded paraphernalia. The former friends of the small company, instead of rallying to Pixar's defense, giggle at the company's misfortune.

Then along comes the jackalope, a mythological marvel of the desert. This creature could actually represent a lot of people, but for my money he represents the spirit of a unique American original, a man who was well-acquainted with the ups and downs of public acclaim, a creative talent who didn't like to have restraints placed on him, who was once quoted as saying, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible"—Walter Elias Disney. Walt the Jackalope reminds little Pixar that even when you get fleeced, that doesn't change who you are inside. You still have your talents, you still have the power to entertain, and if you keep that in mind then you're going to rebound just fine. And I suspect Pixar is going to do just that; they haven't lost any significant creative talent to the Disney corporation, and they'll be free to make their own movies very, very soon.

The amazing thing about this little short isn't that it is both mildly entertaining and a powerful allegory of the Disney-Pixar relationship. The amazing thing is that the creative talents at Pixar apparently got the Disney suits to sign off on Boundin', an allegorical slam of Pixar's parent company, without anyone at Disney recognizing it for what it really was. They managed to screen a fairly potent "Kiss us goodbye, we'll be fine without you" statement about Disney, under the banner of the very company that inspired the statement in the first place.

Yeah, those Pixar folks are pretty sharp. Expect big things from them in future.