No, Mr. Mudede. Did you not stay for the credits?

The reason Lotso's daycare is a failed utopia is because he runs a hierarchy based on seniority and utility (a technocratic socialism in that respect). After Lotso is deposed and replaced by the more benevolent Ken and Barbie, the daycare's socialism is perfected by apportioning unpleasant labor (playing with the little kids) not on the basis of seniority, force, and who you know/who you blow, but rather on a equal sharing of labor. Everyone takes a turn with the little kids, regardless of type of toy, who you are in the social order, or seniority. This is actually a communist, and particularly Maoist ideal: nobody is too good to work in the fields.

The lesson of the ownership society is that you might have a good kid or a bad kid (like the toy torturer from Toy Story), and your fate is your fate. But under a functional socialism, in the hands of Ken and Barbie, a stable paradise can thrive.

@1 beat me to it. Mudede's argument is flawed because it doesn't consider the final moments of the film.

the socialist utopia is in the credits! the fucking credits! you mean, i had to stay for the credits to see a socialist utopia! the credits are not the end of a film! they are after the end of the film! my fucking god!

Are you kidding? Often the only good things in a Pixar movie are in the credits.

It seems to me that anyone who actually values the proletariat would reflexively stay for the credits, given that it's where the laborers who made the film possible are given their due.

Just sayin' . . .

Given the first film's criticism of irresponsible ownership (thanks for reminding me of that, @1) and the second film's criticism of nostalgia and professional leisure, it's hard to take the third film seriously as anti-socialist propaganda, particularly in light of the continued narrative arc that plays out while Charles--apparently in too big a hurry to move on to spending his own capital elsewhere (don't get me wrong: I'm sure the bartender appreciates the visit)--walks out because, after all, they're just crediting the workers who made the film . . . because, erm, credit, of course, is a bourgeois concept in itself . . . or something.

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

Jesus. It's this kind of thing that made people stop taking socialism seriously. Go read "The Iron Heel" and get some perspective, for goodness sake.

Holy poop Charles Mudede!! Thank you for illustrating the limits of Marxist criticism. Talk about forcing the square peg into the round hole.

Make no mistake, Toy Story isn't about socialism or capitalism or ownership or whatever. All the Toy Story movies have been about mortality. TS1: Buzz accepts that he is a toy and that his life has meaning. TS2: Woody is offered the chance to live forever and rejects it. TS3: The toys reach the end of their lives and are faced with the question of "What happens after Andy?"

First they are shown a perfect world, not a communist utopia, but a kind of toy heaven on earth. But before they can enter the golden kingdom of the Butterfly room they must first do their time in the "purgatory" of the Caterpillar room. Woody chooses neither because he believes his time isn't up. His is a fear of death. He wants to return to his old life and spend a few more years with Andy, which leads to the toys ending up in the landfill. A miserable, cold and desolate place that can only be described as toy hell.

Here's a question, how does Charles' anti-socialist re-imagining account for the furnace? The movie's emotional climax when the toys hold each other's hand, all ready to face oblivion together? It doesn't, because human society isn't what this movie was about. TS3 is about death and the here-after; the big question. And according to the Pixar writers, the best answer is reincarnation. The toys are given to a new owner to start their lives over again.

I love most everything you write Chuck. But this article is so bad it makes me think you lost some kind of bet at the Stranger office.

@ lyamhound and ClowDog57, thanks for the insightful comments, and there I was all worked into a damn-the-man-mob-mentality frenzy...

(still am, but Pixar can stay)

Charles @4, ever since that shitty Look Who's Talking film (that people my age had to watch, as kids), the credits no longer mark the end of a film.

But yeah, I get it. they really squeezed the utopia ending in there. It's burried pretty deep.

"But this article is so bad it makes me think you lost some kind of bet at the Stranger office."

That is pretty much how I view all of his inane ramblings.

Haha, the whole time I was reading this, all I could think was "wow, he *clearly* didn't stay for the credits." Still a valid point though, as the protagonists choose to return to their old way of life.

Also, just to nitpick here, from Toy Story 2 we saw that Woody indeed had collector's value, though whether Andy was ever aware of that is unclear. Or maybe I'm taking your term to literally.

The credits were the best part of The Hangover as well.

Good feature animation aims to entertain both children and adults. TS3 themes were too adult for many kids to appreciate and as such too sophisticated for adults to accept as suitable childrens fare. It had some brilliant touches, but I wouldn't call its intellectual entertainment value worth repeat viewing.

"How to train your dragon" was a better animation feature. The old 'coming of age' 'ugly duckling becomes beautiful swan' 'son tries to live up to father's expectation' 'boy meets girl' story well done.

All internet-troll-impulses aside, the credits are an integral part of the film for many movie enthusiasts, even when they don't have gimmicky extra footage (though, the Pixar movie have made these more worthwile of late). One can gain perspective on the events presented through taking in the amount of people involved in a certain element, not to mention reprises of the soundtrack are often provided for your listening pleasure (the reason I stayed through Inception's credits).

More to the point of the article; not only does Sunnyside become a true communist utopia through the leadership of a male/female compromise (opposed to a revenge-oriented male dominance), the fact that the main toys go to a NEW owner, and imply that they will try to continue this pattern indefinitely, suggests an admittedly softer sort of socialism, one in which labor (attention, in this case) is provided to a source until such time as it is unnecessary, at which point the work in redistributed according to another recipient.

The point I'm making, Mr. Mudede, is that while I'm aware the Tea Party rise to prominence is indeed terrifying, you needn't believe that the whole of society, and much less the notoriously liberal staff of Pixar, is in on the madness.

Credits are part of the filmic text, included in each showing & reproduced in DVD and televised versions. They're not "after the end of the film," they're after the narrative climax &, sometimes, denouement. (More & more often these days, not even that.) To ignore the credits is to arbitrarily dismiss part of the text. Anyway, introducing the "socialist utopia" after the individual characters' storylines have concluded could be read as a Brechtian move, designed to remind viewers that our affection for the main characters, our narrative pleasure in the film's conclusion, are themselves distractions from the real issues the film presents.

You write about people who "are poor...are one check away from homelessness...are struggling to pay the mortgage" who are dissed by this film. But if I were doing a Marxist reading of this film, I think I'd start from the opposite direction. Lacking resources or income is exactly the problem the Toy Story characters *don't* face. What you identify as their use-value -- generating attention -- is also their payment or reward for that use. They're unhappy because they no one's paying attention to them & they can't do their job. A "Toy Story" toy who doesn't want to work and a toy inadequately compensated for work are equally inconceivable. In this film's world, fulfilling one's use-value is also a worker's deepest joy.

This portrayal of workers could be read as a mystification of the capitalist system -- workers do their work because they love it and were formed by their creator to do it, not because they have to get paid or they'll starve. It's a very deep justification of capitalism, & one that's probably very effective because it ties in to our desire to be good and contented workers (as well as our ancestral notions about the Great Chain of Being & so on).

That whole Stalin, Soviet Union, totalitarian, take-over-eastern-Europe phase the Russians went through?

Also anti-socialist propaganda.

I'm really enjoying the conversation about this article, and I actually can see where Charles is coming from. I'm surprised no one brought up another interpretation of the film, and the one that the creators themselves came up with: an exploration of the benefits of marriage vs. swingerdom.

Andy, of course, is the "spouse" to all the toys, and after they grow apart over the years (a natural, to-be-expected end of their relationship) the toys can expect to be divorced (trash bag), kept in the attic as a relic of their long years in the relationship, or shown off as evidence of success of the marriage (taken to college, but no longer enjoying the satisfaction of being played with). The alternative to marriage is the daycare center, where the kids just keep getting replaced by new kids as they grow up. No attachments but all the benefits of marriage, and no having to deal with growing apart.

Yet the toys don't find it all easy: their inexperience dumps them into the pool of shitty swinger partners while the more experienced toys aggressively hog all the good kids. Eventually they turn back to marriage as the ultimate form of happiness - and Andy, as a good former spouse, not only wishes them well but directly facilitates the toys building a new marriage.

So with this interpretation TS3 reasserts the place of marriage as the most important institution, but also proposes that such institutions have natural endings and that having a former marriage does not make a new one less fulfilling.

Sometimes a cigar...

Sometimes a cigar...

Sweet, double-post AND #7 was missed. I'm going to be banished by the Slog-gods!

Mudede not staying for the credits is classic evidence how Marxist intellectuals never give a shit about the workers.

Mudede says Lots'O was "lost or abandoned or something like that". Mudede's opinion was formed without really getting the whole story. Mudede IS Lots'O.

Oh wow. Here I thought Toy Story 3 was about my divorce. Is my face red.

Why was I crying through the whole movie? Because I see my husband dumping me for a younger woman as a choice between celebacy (the attic) and Internet Dating (being torn apart by the thoughtless, rough children), and because I long for the love and family I once had with my husband (Andy), but now must struggle to find with another, a million-to-one shot, at my age, with kids, I am sure (Andy happening to give all his old toys to the very appreciative younger child).

I cried for nothing! It was all about politics, not emotions and relationships!

@sahara29, just now read your post at 24. Almost the same idea as mine!

Let this be a lesson to you kids. This is what happens when you spend your summer months reading Marx. Suddenly there's a capitalist boogieman hiding in every kids film.

The children at the day care probably wouldn't even have toys to play with if not for capitalism in the first place. Go find some Romanian orphans and ask them what kind of toys they had. Probably a stick doll and a dead cockroach at best.

Also, privately owned property tends to be better cared for than communal property. When the cost for caring for the property is distributed to others, the incentive to take care of the property are removed. All one need do to verify this is look at the world around you.

Um, no, it's about the quality of leadership.

Woody is our model leader: community before self, he honors the needs and talents of every individual (from each according to his ability, thank you very much) plus - big plus - he believes that by working together they can control their collective destiny. They can do what toys have never done before.

(Contrast with the culture at Sid's house: heroically egalitarian, but no vision that they can change their circumstance. )

(Contrast with Lotso: an effective technocratic leader but without respect for the individual.)

(Contrast with Bonnie's toys - a fine young creative collective, but ill-equipped to cope with actual shit hitting fan.)

Can we also applaud the movie's nod to multi-culturalism? The toys represent American culture and society, having to adapt itself to a new generation of actual people, who are different than the previous generation, living in a changing world. Buz, we discover, can speak Spanish. He's the toy of the future.

[rage=on]
I'm so glad that others have already called out Chuck on his ridiculous bullshit interpretation of this movie. (Though I find some of the others surprising. Swinging, really? Wow.) Clearly he had no real interest in actually watching any of these films, as evidenced by a few things he writes:

"None of the toys have [collector's value]." THREE of the toys have collector's value: Jessie, Bullseye, and especially Woody. Did you never watch Toy Story 2? It was the entire plot! Jessie and Bullseye are part of Woody's franchise, which is a collection that one of the "villains" of the film is going to sell to a Japanese toy museum.

"Lotso...was accidentally lost or abandoned or something like that." This segment of the film is even NARRATED, so you don't need to interpret anything. The viewer is plainly TOLD that Lotso was inadvertently left behind on a family outing. Again, were you not even watching the film?

I completely agree with cubbybear @32: This is what happens when you read Marxist literature. Though I would argue it turns you into an insufferably pretentious twit.
[rage=off]

I take this article as smart, funny, and with an air of levity.
All of you who are taking this too seriously are the "insufferably pretentious twits." It's almost amusing the amount of reflexive vitriol Charles can get for espousing an ideology counter to that which you have been spoon-fed your whole lives and mistake for inalienable truths.
You have only one life, try to think about it a little more. Just because your middle school social studies teacher said "Marxism = Bad" does not make it so.

While the anti-Socialist pretenses of the film may have not been intentional (it's a Pixar kids movie, for chrissakes—there's no conspiracy), I think this is an accurate reflection of the spectacle. Quite literally here, the visual manifestation of capital. Beyond just being a Hollywood movie, we see the Capitalist undertones of our American cultural narratives manifested as image, hypnotizing and mesmerizing viewers for two hours (was this in 3D? I seem to remember it was, another manifestation of the spectacle).

Again, nothing intentional on the part of the movie-makers, but as Debord says (read that as being like "Confucius say," except more French and less racist), our social relations are also dominated by the spectacle. Perhaps this is the perfect example? The Capitalist biases of the spectacle infiltrated the basics of storytelling, and even though the writers were just making a kids movie, they are as entrenched in the spectacle as we are.

And as for the credit sequence, perhaps happiness is only achievable through the ultimate couple of the spectacle: Barbie and Ken. But then again I've never been much of a Maoist, so no love either way.

were you serious when you wrote this? i have to ask because this is some of the dumbest shit i have seen in a long time. if you are serious you lame ass boot licking communist fucktard , you need to taken out somewhere and shot. for fucks sake its a kids movie, little kids . but of course a non breeder commiecrat homo shit bag like your self wouldn't understand anything like that. at best if there was any message there was that when times are tough and all you have are your friends. hope to god they will back you up , and through mutual support stick together and help each other stay alive. but oh no you cant wait to find a place for our commie bullshit in this fish wrap of a news paper. you also forget the one thing we have learned from socialisim and communisim. the only ones who benefeit are the ones at the top, and the rest are all just equally fucked. just ask any russian immigrant how well that shit worked out for them. well you hippie fuck-tard ,i'd love to see you get your "utopia" just to see the look on your face when you get to the gulag with your pink triangle faggot patch on your striped pajamas ! what the fuck will ya do then? america is all that stands between you and the gulag dumb shit , and you can't wait to fuck it off. rot in hell you commie bastard.

Hahahahahahahahahaha awesome. Who says film and/or literature degrees are useless?

Perhaps the evil-dictator-is-damaged model results not from an inability to conceive of a functional socialist society (and really, virtually all non-agricultural societies are/were examples) but a commentary on those who actively seek power as opposed to being begrudgingly forced into it. It also wouldn't surprise me if the credits sequence was a self-conscious subversion of the themes underlying the (marketable-to-a-Western(ized)-audience) narrative. It is, after all, hard to create a compelling kids movie for a particular cultural context without invoking various tropes (ownership society, individualism, overextended monitoring/policing, etc.) that are enshrined in the culture to the point that children will be familiar with them.

We could even read the entire thing as a commentary against the easy dismissal of socialism that so often occurs. After all, we're only seeing the day care center through the eyes of the protagonist toys, who (like all of us) come from a a capitalist culture. To them (and us), the day care is a shocking nightmare of authoritarian overreach, so it is rejected, not simply as a problematic institution of a given social model, but as an unworkable set of organizing principles. The credits sequence shows us, however, that perhaps the rejection of the underlying principles was too hasty, and that a different leadership structure can make socialism practicable. The idea of this interpretation would be that we should all not be so quick to dismiss socialism out-of-hand because there have been a few problematic implementations, but that it might behoove us to examine exactly WHY those implementations were problematic and propose way to address those problems. It's not, after all, like our culture vilifies capitalism in it's entirety just because it's given us instances of institutionalized slavery, child labor, industrialized, managed production of human beings, unparalleled toxic pollution, or credit-default swaps.

@38: Oh god, the trolls have accounts now...

@ 38 - thanks for being un-PC! good comment.

@40 you are most welcome ! these guy's don't get it, they get filled with this shit from the goddam commie professors they listen to. professors with tenure and 6 figure incomes who would scream to the high heavens if you tried to take any of their little privledges away. they all write this shit to be cool posers to a narrow little group of freinds , but wait they get real jobs and start paying taxes , and bills. then they will wonder what the fuck is wrong with asshole like obama , and soros . why ah fuck it , they will never get real jobs or pay taxes. they are the future welfare bums on the corner with a cup in hand begging for shit because the world owes them a living .

@4 Charles I don't care about your interpretation of Toy Story 3 (who really cares what you think about this film, or any film for that matter), but I do have to correct you when you say "the credits are not the end of a film! they are after the end of the film!" Credit sequences may not always be a part of the story or narrative of the film, but they are always part of the film itself. The official running time attributed to all films always includes the length of the credit sequences.

However, in many cases, the credit sequence is a part of the story and plot of the film as well. The action that takes place during the credits of Toy Story 3 is definitely part of the films story and is in fact an integral part of the plot's resolution or denouement. Would you say that the original studio cut of TOUCH OF EVIL begins when Charleton Heston and Vivien Liegh cross the border into Mexico? Because that is when the opening credit sequence ends? If this is where the film begins, then what are we to make of that car blowing up? Strategic air strike maybe?

44 great comment from some one too lame to make an account to comment properly.

Hi Charles,

I just wanted to say that you are a IGNORANT hipster. You have no idea how lucky we all are to live in a free, unlimited democracy, where a COMMON person CAN work hard, get ahead, and make a great life. The very fact that you can get away with writting this sh*t is a testament to our great country. Try being a liberal as*hole in a socialist country like Vietnam or better yet Cambodia. You are like that stupid a*shole kid that wears a Che Guevara shirt but doesnt know the first thing about what they are representing.

Charles! Good news! The Onion called, and you got the job!

"Hilarious, vicious parody of overwrought Marxism. Excellent work!"

Congratulations.

Charles! Good news! The Onion called, and you got the job!

"Hilarious, vicious parody of overwrought Marxist twit. Excellent work!"

Congratulations.

Only the most frothing Objectivist or a terminallu ignorant Tea Partier would suggest that capitalism is perfect. Show me the working alternative! Show me an economic order that works better, that provides better material conditions of life. And of course, you can't. Capitalism is the worst form of economy, except for all the others. The best that can be hoped for is a robust social safety net, but as is on display on Europe, those safety nets are inctreasingly hard to maintain.

Wasn't anyone else as outraged as I that KEN AND BARBIE became the rich, white, liberal benevolent leaders? Isn't it just ALWAYS?

Then just send 'em to Chiapas, man. Clearly, that's all they need.

The toys didn't need "benevolent leaders." That was the problem in the first place.

How often does it happen that Comment #1 in a thread says everything that needs to be said in response to article? The posts that mentioned alternate paradigms for framing the action were interesting, but went in a different direction than the article. The thread could have been locked after the first comment and everything that needed to be said would have been said.

@1 FTW!

Seriously, Mudede?
Socialist Utopia?

This kind of shit is the reason why those Red State assholes are able to make inroads in the PacNW. The only system that is more FAILED than capitalism is socialism.

Strange that the ambitions and good intentions of one set of dead white men appeals to you more than those of another set of dead white men.

Marxism has only worked as a short term rallying-flag for oppressed post-colonial peoples. It has never manifested as it was prophesized. Marxism is as hopelessly deluded as Christianity regarding how it addresses the realities of the human animal and the social dynamic.