Finding Independence (Success Begins With Two Words, I’ll Try…)

So two weeks ago I had the chance to watch Finding Dory and, once again Pixar has delivered another masterpiece and most importantly, something blog worthy. So without spoiling anything, Finding Dory center’s around Nemo’s friend Dory who is very scatter brained and is notorious for short term memory issues. The movie takes a look back at her childhood and how she got separated from her family in the first place. A series of events causes Dory to remember her family thus begins yet another journey that makes for an epic Pixar film. Their adventure brings them to an aquarium that specializes in rehabilitating injured aquatic animals. Now, where the film truly succeeds is how it tackles living with a disability. A lot of this movie’s important characters including Dory all have some sort of disability that has an adverse affect on how they live their lives. From a visually impaired whale shark named Destiny to a Dolphin named Bailey who is unable to use his echo location abilities, a cognitively impaired loon named Becky and of course Dory, this film stresses not only how people live and function in this world with disabilities but, it also explores the topic of ableism which can be a huge problem for those of us with disabilities. Continue reading

Smile Empty Soul (Depression Through The Looking Glass)

It you haven’t seen the recent Pixar movie “Inside Out”, y’all need to watch that ASAP!!!!! That movie will change your life in ways you couldn’t imagine. Now the movie follows a girl through her life and a major transition that will rattle her emotions. Her core emotions (anger, fear, joy, sadness, and disgust) are presented in a personified form and you get to witness how each of these emotions work to manage through a tough time in the main character’s life. The basic premise of the film is that you have a girl who has grown accustom to her life in Minnesota. One day you find out that her father has gotten a new job in San Francisco and they movie across the country which sends her emotions and her entire nervous system which is represented by a control center into complete chaos. Each emotion handles each new situation in their own unique fashion with the emotion Joy trying to keep everything together. Certain events in the film cause the emotions Joy and Sadness to get separated from the rest of the crew and the rest are left to manage the best they can. Continue reading