So my roommate cancerously and I just got home from a special pre-screening of Big Hero 6 at Union Square. Alex and I have been studying social issues/representation in film for quite a while (her more the social issues, me more the film), so naturally when we walked into a movie where Tokyo was turned into “San Fransokyo” for no definable reason, we brought a bit of skepticism on how Disney was going to handle their POC lead characters.
I am incredibly happy to say that we were both VERY pleasantly surprised. Here’s a bullet pointed list of things addressing what you may be worrying about with Big Hero 6:
I’m gonna tl;dr it really quick; go see the movie. If you were worried about putting money towards a film that could potentially be a racist, sexist mess, you’re not. It’s worth giving your money to, so if you were waiting for something to indicate that, or if you were on the fence about seeing it at the premier, here you go. Now, onto the hop topics:
“San Fransokyo” is as bad as it gets, honest to god. There was no heavily forced mashup of Asian and American culture, literally the only thing that was trying to be an Americanized version of Tokyo was the actual architecture of the buildings in the city. The city itself was beautiful, and had an interesting amount of world building for the technologies it uses, but still. It wasn’t necessary, but it doesn’t end up being more than like 3% of the film.
Honey Lemon is latina. I know there was a lot of speculation about her nationality because she’s very white passing but played by a latina actress, but in the animation her skin is tan and she has an accent. While I personally feel like she could have been less white passing and been the same character, that needs to be said.
Which is because the next thing is about the white washing. While I do think the movie could have done just fine with the original, all asian cast, I understand Disney’s attempt to more diversify the cast to appeal to a more broad American audience (with Honey Lemon being confirmed latina, that brings the cast to 2 asian characters, 1 black character, 1 latina character and 1 white character).
The women aren’t devalued into love interests. As it turns out, Hiro is 14 while everyone else is college-age (I don’t want to give too much of the plot to tell how they end up on a team), so there’s no love plot to distract from the main story. I know people were worried that Gogo was gonna end up being the token matching nationality love interest, but that didn’t happen.
Baymax is NOT a mascot character. Where Frozen could have gone on perfectly without Olaf, Baymax is so central to the plot that the movie would have stopped dead in it’s track without his presence about 30 minutes in. Also, he’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. Baymax is a Disney treasure and must be protected at all costs.
The character models were incredibly individual from each other. Honey Lemon does not look like Rapunzel or the Frozen sisters. Hiro’s aunt is that model, however her, as well as all the other characters, are INCREDIBLY expressive, and with different height, body types, and facial structure, all the women stand alone from each other in both look and personality. (Hiro’s aunt is actually one of my favorite characters in the film).
And lastly, Big Hero 6, at it’s core, is a story about grieving. It’s a story about dealing with loss, and Disney does that perfectly. Where their Princess movies tend to be “LOOK AT THIS MORAL,THIS SURE IS A MORAL, WOW LOOK AT THAT” Big Hero 6 allows for a slower, more casual build of it’s theme and really hits it home by the end of it.
Oh, and there’s a Stan Lee cameo and an after-credits scene. Make sure you look out for both!
Overall, I cried no less than three times, and through the ENTIRETY of the last 10 minutes of the film. It’s incredible, so much better than we all thought it was going to be, beautifully animated, and overall an fantastic film. I write this post to tell you; go give it a shot.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
THE HYPE TRAIN HERE AT MY HOUSE IS AT WARP FUCKING SPEED
