I wrote this in 11th grade for English class. Up to this point, it's the only essay I've ever written that got an A, even though it's very flawed. We were assigned to write a personal essay, and could write about anything we wanted, and as soon as I got the approval, I immediately started writing. Normally, in this section, I would divulge every single detail I can remember about writing this, but this time, I'll let you, the reader, make those inferences if you wish. Today, I return home and my first year of college is concluding. I'm posting this completely unedited, as it was originally written when I first turned it in.
I’m a pessimistic person. It’s a known fact. I can recall maybe a few things of my childhood that are precious enough to exhibit on a photo album with Precious or Treasured Memories already printed on the cover, with the same elegant font. You would think companies like that wouldn’t switch it up every once in a while. My whole childhood does resonate in my mind frequently, but it’s a painful, killing motion just like firing a pistol in an enclosed space and hearing the booming noise of the Liberty Bell smacking against both sides of your brain. Don’t get me wrong, the whole freedom of being a child was certainly enjoyable(along with the occasional tantrum), but I seriously can’t find many defining moments in the past 17 years that would be worth mentioning casually at dinner. But…there have been some.
Toy Story is my favorite film of all time. Many would scoff at such a decision, same as I would scoff at them for laughing at the “funniest thing ever” only for that position to be usurped in a day. I can imagine the emperor, in the shape of a banana peel, choking and coughing on a drink served to him by “knock knock joke”. I still remember, vividly, when I was only 3 yrs. old, the family took out the new Nissan ‘95 model for a spin, which is no longer as magnificent and powerful as it once was. We drove to a Jons marketplace, though not the one close to where we live, my parents saw the cardboard standup of Buzz flying as high as his aspirations, with Sheriff Woody, tightly grabbing Buzz’s leg, and praying that he doesn’t fall. My parents just couldn’t resist that tempting cardboard and bought the movie, in Spanish. We came home, we turned on our television set, vrrrring then clicking to reveal the snow, turned on the VCR set, and then I fell in love. I was captivated by the characters, the colors, the humorous actors and situations, the wonderful music, and finally, the credits. The whole movie was absolutely perfect, and it was a position that I never challenged, even in my later years, as an obnoxious, pessimistic teenager. There are just too many classic moments to recall in that film: Woody’s meeting with the toys, the plastic army men performing an impressive espionage mission, and John Ratzenburger with his amazing voice, being supplied to the classic know-it-all, Hamm. It wasn’t just a small role for John. And who could forget ol’ Forrest Gump himself, Mister Tom Hanks? Tom is my favorite actor and though I’ve seen him in many movies, I hereby declare his career defining performance to being the voice of Sheriff Woody. I know some will disagree…I know many will disagree, but I can’t help but just want to state that as a fact, since it is a fact, a factual fact. Anyway, Toy Story is one of the few defining moments of my childhood. After seeing that movie, I began drawing and haven’t stopped yet. It’s become one of my most enthusiastic endeavors, alongside writing. My dream is to create as a story as beloved as Toy Story, and one that makes its permanent mark in the film industry and the world. Such high aspirations for such a low thinker.
Something happened upon re-watching Toy Story upon finally becoming seventeen. People claim that I obsess over the most ridiculous details. But one particular detail from the movie struck me like a harpoon, piercing the durable flesh off a whale in the middle of a thunderous storm. For much time, I enjoyed the joke that Etch N Sketch draws the lamp that Woody used to push Buzz out the window. Oh, wait. It’s not a lamp, is it? For most of my life, that’s what I wanted to imagine it was. Toy Story was a cute film with adorable characters that had problems that get resolved in the end like a fairy tale. Toy Story is also an unapologetic human drama that explores the rawest emotions that toys can develop. It was then, I realized but refused to accept, Etch N Sketch drew a noose, fit for the most bastardy scoundrel. Even the most wonderful part of my childhood had grown up. (There’s also a kiss ass joke and a vulgar joke but that doesn’t pertain here.)
Growing up is a challenge. That sentence has been written and typed by many people, in different ways, and can be considered as the eponymous statement of the century, but only since it’s true. For a long time I wanted to consider the noose as a lamp, not only due to its shape, but because it would just make more for sense for me as an ignorant 10 year old, who wanted to believe that everything was okay when his mother told him so, even when it clearly wasn’t. Toy Story is a film that has grown up alongside with me over time. I can now find different, sophisticated reasons to appreciate the wonders that this film delivers. However, the first time I found out that it was a noose, I laughed. Hard. At 11: 00 pm. With no one else around to ask me what the joke was. But after laughing, I started shivering. Shaking. I felt like my joke was macabre, offensive, as a badly worded Holocaust joke which for the record, I have tried on several occasions. I always get blank stares. When at one point, as a kid, I thought about how awesome the rocket scene in the movie was, now when I think of Toy Story, I thinking about Bo Peep saying, “why don’t I get someone else to watch the sheep tonight?” and then Woody laughs as awkwardly, yet as teasingly as he could. What a horn-dog. I can’t even blame that kind of thinking as simply being immature, now I’m challenging the logic of reproduction with these plastic figures. I can’t even believe I just typed that sentence.
It’s a difficult transition to go through in gaining such responsibility, a word I hereby nominate as severely overused. When, at an early age, you begin to draw outside the lines or play in the sandbox with the kid and his little red truck, suddenly you’re presented with explaining why you drew outside the lines and designing that same red truck or even improving its design. Much like my progression with the movie, it seems that many of the films choices are no longer adorable or frightening just because that’s how the movie was made, with no previous planning. Now, I realize the guys at Pixar are geniuses at what they do, but they fight and struggle with their choices as much as any other career does. The guys at Pixar are the same as the race car driver, the choreographer, or the scientist. Woody wasn’t the handsome cowboy we know and love at one point, originally he was a cynical, snarky, rude, short-tempered ventriloquist doll who looked frighteningly like Chucky. Also, my idol, director John Lasseter and his team went through hundreds of drafts for Woody’s first line in the movie. His first line! To think it must’ve taken weeks for them to come up with, “Pull my string. The birthday party’s today?” Geniuses. That’s the only way I can describe them. I’ve decided, half-heartedly, that I want to become an animator, but I’m still not absolutely confident I can pull such a thing off. Hell, it’s taken me 16 years to realize that I should write my thoughts down…on paper. Not just say it to people and hope they like it, but to…write…it…down. And it took me 17 years to finally understand what I’m supposed to be figuring out for essays, which is still such a struggle. In trying to articulate my thoughts as coherently as possible, I have taken the first step towards maturity. But if seeing those moments in Toy story makes me uncomfortable and even traumatic, am I capable of taking that step? Can I fathom what a drop that step will be? I predict it’ll be, at least, a 30,000 foot drop, with the cartoon smoke that always dooms Wile E. Coyote.
As a little kid, I found myself negatively obsessed with Toy Story. Now let me explain what that means. Just like any franchise, I found myself purchasing whatever product I could from the toy store that was about Toy story. I even bought the Luxo ball so that I could bounce on it, even though the weight distribution would prompt immediate death and a frightening squeal from the ball. I was as abusive as the psychosomatic maniac, Sid, when it came to the treatment of my “prized” Toy Story figures. I remember on a cloudy day, nothing like Andy’s room’s wallpaper, where if weather reflected emotions, it would be pitch black. For no impertinent reason, I walked to the middle of the driveway, holding my Buzz Lightyear with both hands, and shouting “To Infinity and Beyond!” hurling Buzz through the air almost 20 feet. He was a spaceman and had been trained to handle such intense forces of gravity, but he was also made of PLASTIC-Kkk and couldn’t survive the flight back down to cruel mother earth even he tried to. I was always careful, and when I knew I couldn’t catch the spaceman, I didn’t try to. I would be absolutely traumatized if I saw Buzz penetrating the rock-solid concrete at such a frightening speed, no one to help him as his carefully designed buttons and features would scatter across the place, cracking and breaking into indiscernible bits. I rarely swear in public if it’s only a stream of curse words with no subject, verb, or meaning. Saying it just for the sake of saying it, but I promise that I would frighten the poor bastard for daring to rape the integrity of that beautiful film by doing just as the film’s villain had, and not realizing the significance of these wonderful characters. Then again, I was 4. I wasn’t thinking about rape nor did it ever occur to me to type, write, or say the word. It even confounds me that such a word even exists or that it’s always thrown out in public like “the” or “and”. I’ve never heard of a conversation that didn’t contain either word, and can’t imagine anyone trying it, even for some kind of viral recognition. YouTube is making just too easy for anyone to become recognized, and that wouldn’t be a problem for me if the people being recognized were worthy of being recognized. Such random exposure to things like in YouTube would’ve confused and possibly annihilated the curiosity of a 4 years old toy torturer/space explorer that he would never want to think about anything else since he’d realize just how horrible and unapologetic any word, term, or phrase can be. What he had once thought as innocent, millions of others see as a destructive, poisonous force.
But I’m being pessimistic. The film, no doubt, has some of its morals intact, memorable life lessons that I will remember forever since people won’t stop repeating them. You can stop telling me to be myself; I learned that lesson a long time ago. Strangely enough, I can’t find myself to stop making the connections between Toy Story and A Streetcar named Desire. At first glance, yes this comparison is not worthy of being compared. The two movies have absolutely no possible way of being compared, and without even…Okay, I’ll stop now. Blanche Dubois was someone who didn’t want to let go of what her life had established, a reputation of a life that had no chance of evolving into this time period, a woman with her moth-like gestures trying to suck up as much of the spotlight as she can, yet not allowing it to consume her in a blanketed inferno that no soul would try to put out. I know that sounds confusing so…let’s try that again. Blanche is a misunderstood woman, living in a city she misunderstands, trying to find an explanation that justifies all of her torment. As it turns out, Blanche never finds this justification and is thrown into the mental institution, even though she was the sanest of the other characters. Arguably. Favorable spaceman Buzz Lightyear went through the same mental scenario; arriving in Andy’s room, he captures the attention of all but one toy, the most resilient one who won’t dare to move from his established position. Yes, Woody is Stanley Kowalski and better yet, Marlon Brando would’ve seen the connection as well. Heh, imagine if Woody shouted like Stan-oh wait… “YOU… ARE… A…TOY!!!” Brando would’ve been proud. Anyway, both Buzz and Blanche search for their identities without doing so, but are forced to confront reality when it is the most and only appropriate solution to their ongoing conflicts. Pixar took risks by placing Woody and Buzz in that dramatic and Oscar-worthy scene, where both on the toys “death row”, contemplate their previous actions and (realize what they had been missing all their lives). It’s truly a noteworthy scene that…well, I don’t remember if I did cry the first time I saw it, but I promise that it would make me emotional if I saw it today or even years or decades later. Woody is talking the whole time, but Buzz never looks up, even to relax his neck, just…thinking. Even the actors mention that Buzz is legitimately depressed at this moment and it seems that nothing can pull him out of it. This moment is Blanche’s moment at the very end of Streetcar, though not done quite as graphically, but just as emotionally, and on some days, I feel like I’ve been strapped onto that rocket, and I don’t care about how heavy or volatile the rocket may be, but all I know is that rocket is the only thing it takes for my life to end, in a fiery explosion, in a blocked out state of mind, in a reality that has lied to me for the last time. But…Pixar does what I can’t even do without some kind of help. They remind me that there is someone nearby who can help, a cowboy, sitting under a crate just a foot away, standing as the brightness of the morning sky clears away the thickest fog painted onto the window, pushing with all of the might his stuffy arms and delicate exterior can exact onto the crate. Woody pushes, the uplifting music joining him, pushes, pushes, and then Buzz joins him, and they push, and push, and then Woody is freed, and then Buzz keeps pushing and then… Classic movie moment. The moment is purely physical comedy, but it’s done with such finesse and nostalgic brilliance that I promise I will laugh at that sequence every single time it happens. Woody may be my favorite character, but you have to have to laugh at yourself every once in a while. Woody’s expression just as the toolbox falls on him is just classic. God, I love this movie!
Yes, I have been…a little pessimistic throughout the whereabouts of my life, and now that I think about it, I’ve been unfair to myself. But it hasn’t been my entire fault. Life has been a constant struggle that challenges me every day to do something worthwhile. Life can be pretty damn annoying in that sense. I mean, I can’t even take a 5 minute break without life telling me that I should stretch out my arms in order to get more comfortable. I just typed a…2, 637-ah, make that 8, word essay and life still wants me to keep working. At this point in time, I will freely admit that I have been disappointingly lazy, despite my sudden interest in everything except academics, so that could be a factor for not wanting to work. But, also, work can’t be the only factor of my life, and Pixar knows this. Their careers encapsulate everything I dream of accomplishing in the future, and my appreciation for their remarkable and ingenious contribution to films will be everlasting. But that’s not what my childhood was about. No, my childhood was about the story of two toys, which were different from one another, who learned to accept each other as individuals, and become lifelong friends. I will admit part of that sentence was said by Tom Hanks in a television interview, and I paraphrased it…a little, but I do respect Tom that much to confess, and to acknowledge that he explained the meaning of the film better than I could. All right, I give it another shot. Toy Story is about a group of toys that have an undying appreciation for their imaginative owner Andy; it’s also about human struggles, the search for oneself in an ever-changing world, and the complications that plague their lives constantly. It’s a wonderful, beautiful film that I cannot help, but look back on sometimes when I want a simplified explanation to life, and sadly, for this, the film no longer delivers. But that is my fault since my personal philosophy can be connected back to the movie (and Curb Your Enthusiasm), and everyone knows that philosophy tends to be complicated. What it does deliver is something that, even after all these years, I still can’t directly explain, gives me a renewed appreciation for the wonders of life, and reminds me of the imaginative potential that everyone is capable of. There are exceptions, small ones. It’s a movie that reminds me that toys are not just a product of commercialism as we’ve forced ourselves to believe in trying to seem mature, but that toys are the only aspect of our lives that we have an eternal connection to, a never-ending wire that can reach long and beyond the end of the universe, a cementation of our souls that we will always love, no matter how much more complicated the world becomes. I love Toy Story, and… will never forget the permanent influence it’s given me, for it is not simply a 76 minute long strand of film. Toy Story is me, and as far as I know, that’s a pretty good thing.
