A(nother) American Tale

When I first saw Pixar’s Elemental, I was underwhelmed. My original reaction was “got it, Zootopia meets Inside Out but with fire.” I left wanting more explicit discussion of the politics of inequality (just one sentence where someone just SAYS “it doesn’t need to be a bad guy, the structural inequality that ignores the fire people is the real life villain every day!?”).

I liked Bernie and Ember. So often (too often) we’re taught that we have earn a father’s love. Boys especially get this awful message, and Bernie never got his dad’s approval. But, my guy Bernie broke the generational trauma when he reminded Ember that she was the dream, she was the hope, and that she could live her own life. She never had to earn her family’s love, she just had to see it.

Other than that, I thought one of the worst things I can think about a Pixar movie: it was fine.

But something about it stuck in my head. I heard Lauv’s “Steal the Show” and my mind raced with the beautiful animation, and I wanted to see it again to unpack what it was that was drawing me back to the fire.

So, I took my oldest to a double feature like my dad used to do when I was a kid. Elemental and then Barbie. I walked out the movie the first time feeling meh. I walked out the second time, consuming 1000 extra calories (why does the theatre need a Ben and Jerry’s!), and I wanted to see it six more times. I just took my youngest today. It was her first movie theatre visit.

So, what happened?

That thought stuck with me as I watched criticism after criticism of Elemental being too niche or too unoriginal. The same people who watched An American Tale (Fievel) or West Side Story or the Godfather and said things like, “this is the story of our people and how we all became American” are the same people who complained about the foreignness of Elemental, Turning Red, and Encanto.

I finally realized what charmed me about Elemental was not its foreignness but its familiarity. The stories my grandmother told about her father living in the tenements and about her working in the mills. It was the story of finding your place in a new land. About working hard for your dreams. It’s the story every American gets to pass down to their children, regardless of nation of origin.

I didn’t need a shouty line about the inequality, it was there in the mural in the train station showing all the waves of elements becoming part of “us” but leaving out the newest ones.

When Bernie and Cinder were given new names, my oldest child was horrified. I realized that kids today don’t really learn about Ellis Island, and I got to take a moment and tell her the story of our people, whose names were changed when they came “from the old country” because Polish has too many consonants.

So, when my husband asked me what Elemental was about, I told him what my Eastern European grandmother would say when we watched Fievel, “It’s the story of our people.”

Now, I have to go show my kids An American Tale.