By: Jessily Jones

Although hidden images and messages have occurred in films throughout the decades, Pixar has become one of the most notable film companies to place eggs in all their films. While an easter egg such as the famous “A-113” has wedged its way into every Pixar film, there are plenty of obvious and obscure eggs that either allude to past films or unknowingly foretell to future films. Since fans of Pixar have caught onto these hidden treasures, many articles, websites, and videos have been  made to discover the easter eggs and their meanings. As long as Pixar continues to produce great films, loyal fans and simply interested audience will pay heed to the exciting little allusions Pixar creators sneak in their animations.

While the easter eggs are enjoyable for the audience to discover, the clever ideas and intricate placements of the eggs also convey the freedom and pride Pixar creators possess. Established in 1986, Pixar rose to fame in shy of a decade with Toy Story (1995), the first ever computer animated film. The film ranked second at international box office accumulating $364 million with a domestic share of 52%, an astonishing debut for Pixar. Although critics like M. Keith Booker may say Disney and Pixar include easter eggs out of pure profit, Pixar is meticulous with their work, and choose to create stories that are fresh and colorful rather than churning out unoriginal content for the sake of profit. Ed Catmull, Pixar’s first president, explain in the Harvard Business Review how the success of Pixar’s films comes from the system of foster creativity and encouraging ideas openly to create a successful environment to create their films. 

Amongst fans, Pixar’s easter eggs are meant to be discovered and brought to publicity for speculation. It creates theories on past, current, and future films that anticipate fans for upcoming films. To Pixar, these eggs symbolize not only a sense of relation with fans, but also a sense of community among the creators at the studio.

The first easter egg to appear in Pixar’s first film Toy Story, was “A-113.” A-113 refers to the classroom at California Institute of the Arts where Pixar executive John Lassester, director Brad Bird and others working for Pixar attended. A-113 has been featured in all Pixar films, and even in various other medias such as non-Pixar/Disney affiliated films, television shows, and video games. Below, is the A-113 easter eggs in Toy Story (1995, left), and in The Incredibles (2004, right). In the first few films of Pixar, this reference most likely would’ve went unnoticed, as it is a subtle joke amongst Pixar creators until fans had begun to wonder.

While A-113 is a consecutive easter egg among Pixar films, Pixar also likes to place easter eggs in films that either foresee a new film, or allude to a past film. To the left, in Monsters Inc. (2001), the little girl Boo shows Sully the monster a clownfish to toy after Sully enters her room for the first time. As we know now, this fish resembles Nemo from Finding Nemo, the film released in 2003 after Monsters Inc. While viewers from 2001 to prior the release of Finding Nemo were unaware of this easter egg, after the release of Finding Nemo, many fans began would begin to speculate what easter eggs could be hidden in Finding Nemo to hint at the next film, and so on.

Contrary to foretelling easter eggs in Pixar’s films, creators also liked to allude to past films in newer works. Here, in this frame from Toy Story 3 (2010), is an almost secret easter egg of a postcard written to Andy from Carl and Ellie Fredricksen, the main characters from Up (2009). Once again, unlike the foretelling easter egg from Monsters Inc. that predicted the future Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3’s easter egg had fans beginning to speculate whether Pixar’s movies were related somehow. Since this easter egg and the film provided no story upon how Andy knew the Fredricksens or what is written on the postcard, fans began to create theories online of how all the Pixar movies could be connected.

Because of the easter eggs, many fans of Pixar believe in the “Pixar Theory,” which is quite simply the theory of all the Pixar movies being connected in the same universe. Essentially, in a nutshell, the overall most two important points in the theory is: 1) The witch from Brave (2012) is Boo from Monsters Inc (2001) who time travels and 2) The use of the witch’s magic from Brave had made animals and machines become anthropomorphic throughout time, eventually conquering human kind. There are endless videos on YouTube.com and articles on websites about the theory, however author Jon Negroni has written a book on the theory attempting to connect the movies. However, due to newer Pixar movies coming out following the release of the book, which could alter the theories, Negroni also has the website www.pixartheory.com to update readers who follow the theory.

Though the easter eggs were initially developed as inside jokes within Pixar creators, the company began to see the benefits the Pixar Theory gave to the company. With Pixar’s easter eggs evolving into the Pixar Theory, due to the large and dedicated fan base, overall publicity has “strengthen the Pixar name,” skyrocketing the value of the company, according to Keith Booker. Booker is the author of “Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children’s Films (2009),” which considers the messages of consumerism and political ideas Disney conveys to children. In his book, Booker believes that Pixar’s easter eggs are straightforwardly for profit motivation, which is blanketed instead rather by “quest for quality and innovation.” However, despite this quite forward front, he also highly credits Pixar for creating films outside of Disney’s conventional stories and for introducing computer animation on a larger scale for audience. Continuing on about the success of Pixar, Booker adds that evidently by Pixar outshining its parent company Disney by winning eight Oscars for Best Animated Feature when Disney hadn’t won one until 2013, regardless, Disney still values Pixar as they lead the children’s film industry. In all honesty, although over time the eggs may have seemed to develop as a means of a successful publicity asset, featuring easter eggs in Pixar’s films is a small yet creative aspect that most likely derived from former Pixar President Ed Catmull’s ideas on how to foster creativity for success.

In September 2008, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) published Ed Catmull’s “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity,” where Catmull explains the creativity process at Pixar as the reason for their success in their films. Catmull had been the president of Pixar since 1986 after Steve Jobs bought the company from George Lucas. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar, where Catmull also became leader of  Disney Animation Studios. After decades of experience of computer animation, management and leadership, Catmull decided to retire in 2019 with Jim Morris (general manager of Pixar) acquiring the position in the summer.

In HBR, Catmull starts off with straight honesty: talent is rare. Catmull claims that Pixar is highly selective when recruiting workers, choosing only the most talented and focused people. When running a company in the risky film industry, Catmull expects workers to not only inspire great ideas for films, but to also be able to handle criticism and bounce back from failure. However, in order to create successful films, they have to be original, which is where the risk comes in. It’s scary to be original, unconventional, and without big mistakes. Yet, Catmull assures, “you have to accept the uncertainty, even when it’s uncomfortable, and have the capability to recover when your organization takes a big risk and fails.” Therefore, when working with talented people and potential projects and ideas, Catmull stresses in the HBR the most important factor for success: communication.

With plenty of bright people with innovative ideas work for the most popular animation company in the world, communication is vital when developing a project. Catmull explains that there are “tens of thousands of ideas,” that go into a movie, whether from basic movements of the character to lighting. With this in consideration, all ideas must be heard, evaluated and critiqued to ensure only the best ideas are developed correctly into a film. When it comes to presenting ideas, Catmull shares what makes his company different from others, is how everyone is free to communicate with each other, regardless of position. He also adds how managers “don’t always have to be the first to know” about what goes on, even if a meeting surprises them. Catmull believes in giving his workers freedom to innovate, while also guiding them with feedback along the way. By creators giving constructive feedback to one another in a helpful manner, this builds trust and community among them. When ideas of line performance, character ideas, or even easter eggs come into consideration at a meeting, Catmull ensures the importance of having the most talented people, and the right communication is what makes their films and company successful. 

Somewhere, sometime during the early production of Toy Story, John Lasseter and other creators thought of placing “A-113” as a tribute to their school for teaching them the world of animation. Eventually, as the company grew in people and wealth, so did the appearance of easter eggs in Pixar films. Whether these eggs were hidden cleverly or obvious in frame, we learned from Catmull how much consideration and agreement it can take for ideas to develop, so coyly place small notions that can be big news for fans. In Pixar, despite how little easter eggs can appear in Pixar films, behind every easter egg are great people accompanied with even greater ideas. 

Sources

• “Toy Story.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story.
• “Top 1995 Movies at the Worldwide Box Office.” The Numbers, http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1995.
• “A113.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A113#Pixar_films.
• “Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children’s Films.” Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children’s Films, by M. Keith. Booker, Praeger, 2009, pp. 76-112.
• Catmull, Ed. How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2008, dialogos.com/files/4114/4189/3028/How_Pixar_Fosters_Collective_Creativity-HBR.pdf. Pp. 2-8

By: Jessily Jones

In an interview promoting his new film Us, director Jordan Peele was asked, “What is the scariest thing about yourself?” When Peele replied, he reflected on his ‘privileged life’ of growing up financially stable, never being hungry, and receiving an education. He then turned to face the darker side of his reality, admitting that he has forgotten that the middle class life he lived was made at the expense of others’ sufferings. Peele really wanted this message in Us to be directed at the United States, whose “founding” and establishing came at the expense of Native Americans and African slaves. “We have an ability to cover up what is uncomfortable to face about ourselves,” Peele commented, referring to the country. Since then, the United States has had a knack of covering the ugly truths of history and today that us Americans wouldn’t be proud to admit. In Us, Peele has his viewers engage in a horror film where the main character, Adelaide Wilson, has her comfortable life flipped upside down from a truth the audience is unaware about, until the end, and she still manages to retain her lie, due to her privilege.

Class and privilege are two of many topics some Americans do not like to discuss, especially involving themselves. The more someone possesses of class and privilege, the more they stray away from those at the bottom, who have nothing – and these gaps between classes are substantial. Regardless of whichever class one comes from, they wouldn’t be able to understand either the luxury, or deprivation that the other classes experience, unless they changed their class. 

In Us, movie, Peele wanted to make apparent the theme of class and privilege that occurs in America by using the division of Adelaide and Red as an example. The scenes in Us that prevail the examples of the distinguishment is the final fight scene, and the deleted scene of the two dancing as teenagers. The reason for including the deleted scene in this analysis is to further show the difference between the women, as it only had few clips inserted in the middle of the final fight scene. The deleted scene is on YouTube, and the scene is recommended to watch for entertainment and for better understanding of this analysis.

After Adelaide makes her journey down the tunnel, she finds Red in a classroom with her back turned, holding scissors. In contrast to Adelaide gripping the bar in an attack position, Red begins to approach Adelaide in a very elegant fashion, slowly pacing, retaining eye contact with Adelaide. During this time, we began to see those clips of the deleted dance scene intertwined into this scene. It reflects back to their dance as teens, as they danced separately, with Adelaide in control of her body and Red’s. Then, as adults, as they face each other in rivalry rather than synchronicity, Adelaide is no longer in control of Red, “Two becoming one,” as Adelaide mentioned earlier in the movie is no more. After decades of Red being forced to live a life that wasn’t hers, now was her time to take back her power. This premise can be supported from Mary Pattillo, who said, “African Americans must compete solely on what each individual has been able to accomplish, and how each has performed.”  With the tethered population under her control, she had been able to rise from below and face her clone. Although they included bits of the deleted dance into the final fight, dancing is what brought them a somewhat common ground. As it taught Adelaide how to express herself in the new world, it kept Red’s remaining sanity and also taught her how to express herself, but rather express her pain. While these two scenes coincide, we’ll focus on the meaning behind the dance clips and the deleted now, then finish with the rest of the fight. 

“If it weren’t for you, I never would’ve danced at all,” Red croaked. As the scene opened, an adolescent Adelaide entered on a stage where down below, Red bear-crawls to the center of the hall. While Red performs in darkness, Adelaide has a single spotlight on her. While Adelaide, in her gorgeous tutu, dances elegantly with her hands in the air, Red has a ruffled tutu, a messier hair-bun, and dances such as a child taught themselves (which is true), to the point of dancing animalistically. Although both young women are expected the same performance, it is of no surprise that Adelaide’s costumes, choreography, and performance will always be better. In this deleted scene that managed to make clips into the final fight, Peele expresses through this scene the existence of privilege in America.

While many are aware what “white privilege” is, rather than bringing back the race theme from his previous film Get Out, Peele rather shows a general metaphorical privilege divide between the middle and lower class. While this theme is clearly present at other times throughout the film, it feels as if these scenes tell the most of how the Adelaide and Red’s switch between classes mostly affected their privileges. Since the switch of the two characters, they were reborn into a new life and new class, with Adelaide coming into a class of food, support, and freedom, she was able to lead a productive life, whereas Red was wrongfully placed in a life of the opposite, surrounded by dull, tether clones who feast on raw rabbits. When comparing this to separate classes between black Americans, according to “Class Differences in Racial Attitudes: A Divided Black America?,” the ones who received government efforts were able to “experience unprecedented upward mobility,” leading more successful more lives, making enough to move out of the harsher neighborhoods. However, the ones without the privileged aid, remained lacking of education and retaining lower paying jobs, remaining stuck in the cycle of poverty. From this information, matching the faceless dancers to their class value, we see that despite if the lower class works just as hard, or even more than the middle class, due to the given privileges of the middle class, and the neglected lower class, the middle class will shine over the lower class, who will continue to fall, as Red did at the end of their performances.

Returning back to their fight, as Red grapples Adelaide, she sits her down on a desk, scissor’s beneath Adelaide’s jaw. During the first chance to kill Adelaide, the lighting shows a light on Red’s face, and Adelaide’s face undetectable. From the position statement of the side frame, it looks as if Red is the teacher, and Adelaide is the student, suddenly learning of all the pain and insanity she brought Red, simply through the ferocious eye contact. After further physical exchanges, Red pushes Adelaide down and retreats out to the hall.

As Adelaide staggers to attack Red, she grunts, cries, and charges Red, opposite of her adolescent past being featured, who moves delicately. Red on the other hand, unlike her teenage self, moves delicately in the darkened hallway. In regards to the representing classes prior, it seems like Adelaide had too comfortable in her life above, that she reverts back to her true tether nature when brought back, while Red moves comfortably in her space she has grown accustomed to.

The end of the fight leads the women to a bunk room, where Adelaide impales Red with her bar. Settling her down against the foot of a head, Adelaide holds her rival’s face as Red spazzes uncontrollably. Looking glumly at Red, blood in her mouth, Red whistles the same tune as she did when entering the funhouse years ago. This could be her way of concluding the cycle of control and pain she endured for decades, while she lost her soul because of Adelaide years ago, she now loses her body. In sneering anger, Adelaide wraps her handcuffed wrists around Red, killing her, releasing a series of noises that transcend from screaming, to croaking, snarling, to grunting, turning inhuman for some moments. Upon unhandling the body, Adelaide maniacally laughs. With shadow covering her entire face, her laugh makes her look especially creepy, seeming like she’s the villain despite defeating the harm. When she hears a noise in the lockers, she flashes a stern look before approaching weakly. To her relief, she finds her son Jason, and escapes the lower class.

From this instant leads the ending scene, where the Wilsons escape Santa Cruz with Adelaide driving their new family car, an ambulance truck. In the last moments of the film, audiences discover the truth about Adelaide originally being the tether clone who switched herself for Red, the original Adelaide. Reminiscing on this dark history, she looks to her son, who stares strongly at her, almost in disgust at the truth he has come to piece together himself. Looking away from Jason, she once again celebrates another victory against Red, and the tethered life with a smirk, as Jason places his Chewbacca mask on his face, not only concealing himself, but also the horrid truth. Fading from his face, the camera shot follows the ambulance driving in the countryside, panning northwest eventually to all the tethered people in a line, hand in hand for miles. As this is the replication of the 1986 movement “Hands Across America,” despite Red’s intentions to make herself and her lower class seen and heard, the movement will ultimately provide no end to injustice, just as the original movement.

When reflecting upon the film, it is valid to feel sympathy for Red, and anger for Adelaide. Instead of replacing herself, Adelaide could’ve escaped and made herself a better life outside the underground, yet young Adelaide couldn’t understand the concept of duality, but of singularity. She had felt that in order for her to be successful, her counterpart had to suffer in her place, as she did previously. From this unsettling decision, Adelaide grew up in a supportive care system that led her to be successful, while Red remained at the bottom, forgotten. Jordan Peele said that his privilege as a middle class American had made him forget who suffers from his success, and those who look into Us beyond the red suits and rabbits, would also see who suffers when others are successful.

Sources

• Pattillo, Mary E. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. pp. 1.
• Hwang, Sean-Shong, Kevin M. Fitzpatrick, and David Helms. “Class Differences in Racial Attitudes: A Divided Black America?” Sociological Perspectives 41, no. 2 (1998): 367. doi:10.2307/1389482.