Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Pinocchio

Welcome back to this new retrospective that I have affectionately decided to call “Deep Dive Disney,” a series where I watch old Disney films, many of which I haven’t watched since childhood and analyze them with adult eyes. The subject of today’s topic, Pinocchio. Based on the 1883 children’s novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian writer Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio tells the story of a little wooden puppet brought to life. While in any other context this would probably be the setup for a horror movie, and in some cases the story has indeed been adapted as such, in this specific case the terrifying affront to nature that is this sentient human shaped block of wood known as Pinocchio simply longs to be a real boy, but can only do so if he can be good and avoid temptation with the help of his conscience, a talking cricket in a with the fashion sense of Oswald Cobblepot named Jiminy. Along the way, Pinocchio and Jiminy find themselves in all sorts of unusual and at times scary situations, culminating in them getting swallowed by a whale the size of an aircraft carrier. I personally have not watched this film since I was five years old so re-experiencing it was interesting to say the least. What say we dive right into this sucker and see what’s up with Disney’s Pinocchio. As always, we’ll be evaluating the film on Seven Key Factors: Main Character, Villain, Side Characters, Songs, Memorable Scenes, Story and my favorite, The Dark Disney Factor. Let’s Go!

Main Character:

While in Cololdi’s book, as I’ve been given to understand since I’ve never read it, Pinocchio was a prankster and a brat, here, the little puppet is a bit more wholesome and innocent. While he still gets into trouble, it’s less out of any kind of mischievousness, and more just from being naïve and gullible. Unlike with Snow White last time, Pinocchio’s naivety actually makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, Snow White had reason to be naïve as well. She did, after all, live her entire life in a castle and knew very little of the outside world. However, she was warned by all Seven Dwarfs not to let anyone in the house and was well aware that there was an evil witch after her life and she still let the Queen in. That’s not naivety, that’s just outright stupidity. With Pinocchio, his gullibility fits the character and the story. After all, by the time the Fox and the Cat get ahold of him, he’s literally only been alive for about twelve hours at most and simply doesn’t know any better. He also has no reason to believe that someone’s trying to kill him but enough about Snow White. Pinocchio obviously wants to be good to achieve his goal of being a real boy, but is easily influenced by those around him simply because knowing innately what’s right and what’s wrong takes longer than a few hours to learn, hence why he needs an external conscience to guide him. Other than that, there’s not much too Pinocchio. He’s just a precocious little fellow with a good heart but is nonetheless easily lead astray. However, something I would like to comment on is something that I had an odd conversation about on Twitter while live tweeting the film. Does Pinocchio have lungs? It seems like such an odd and inconsequential thing to get hung up on, but surprisingly, it actually comes up more than you'd think. Given that he’s made of wood, one would think he doesn’t. But then later in the film, Pinocchio is seen smoking and clearly being affected by it, which would seem to imply that he does indeed have lungs. However, still later in the film, Pinocchio doesn’t appear to have to breath underwater, again implying that he doesn’t need lungs, but then at the end, he almost drowns, so which is it? Am I overthinking this, most definitely, but it was driving me crazy for like, half the movie!

Villain:

Pinocchio is kind of a weird one when it comes to this category. Not that it doesn’t have a villain, it’s just not quite sure who its villain even is, often jumping from one to other when it gets bored like the movie has some kind of weird villain ADHD. (For the record, before you start up a “Cancel Wes” hashtag, I have ADHD and will make as many jokes about it as I damn well please.) At first glance one would think the villains are the Fox and the Cat, but when you think about it, all they really do is lead Pinocchio to people who are even worse. They’re conniving to be sure but they tend to fill the role of henchmen more so than that of main villains. Most might say that the main villain is the Puppeteer, Stromboli. Not a bad choice in that he’s a memorable character. He’s a deeply unfortunate and problematic caricature of Italians, but still a memorable character nonetheless. Stromboli is certainly a bad dude as he threatens to enslave Pinocchio and plans on chopping the poor little puppet into firewood once his novelty wears off. That said though, he’s by no means the primary antagonistic force in the film. He just lasts long enough to menace Pinocchio and then promptly fucks off once the movie is done with him. There is of course Monstro the Whale, but aside from being the worst level in Kingdom Hearts and making me fight Parasite Cage, he barely qualifies as a villain. He’s big and terrifying to be sure, but he’s not malevolent. At the end of the day, Monstro is just a huge monster whale doing what huge monster whales do. He’s no more a villain than the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. The villain that no one seems to discuss is the Evil Coachman, something I find baffling since he may very well be the creepiest and most sinister thing in the entire film. Seriously, I’m not entirely convinced that this creep isn’t the Devil himself or at least some kind of demon. It would certainly explain that nightmare fuel face he makes. The dude’s entire goal is rounding up small children, turning them into Donkeys with what I assume to be black magic and selling them for labor. This is as close to a child molester as it gets in a G-Rated film. Yikes! That actually brings me to the one thing that ties all the villains together, and it might just be the most unnerving things in the film. The Fox & Cat, Stromboli, The Coachman, not one of them receives any kind of comeuppance for their actions. Sure, Stromboli loses Pinocchio, but considering he enslaved a sentient being and planned to burn them alive when he was done with them, he gets off pretty easy all things considered. The Fox and The Cat aren’t seen after they lead Pinocchio to The Coachman, Monstro just keeps on being Monstro and The Coachman pretty much completely gets away with his evil plan. Sure, Pinocchio got away, but all those other kids who got turned into donkeys, they’re screwed. What the shit Disney? Let’s move on the next category please.

Side Characters:

Let’s start with Geppetto. Not much to say about him, he’s just a kindly old man who’s a bit lonely and has his kindness rewarded by having his wish for a son granted. He’s a fine character, despite being kind of a dick to his cat. That’s pretty much all I have to say about old Geppetto. Moving on to The Blue Fairy, again, not much to say about her. She’s also very kind and clearly believes that selflessness should be rewarded. I appreciate that she has a more realistic design while all the other characters look more cartoony. It helps her stand out and make her seem otherworldly, like she exists outside of this world somehow.

But let’s get to the real MVP of the film, Jiminy Cricket. While I find it a bit unnerving that Jiminy is constantly making sex eyes at the Blue Fairy, he is still a very likable character. You could almost argue that Jiminy is a more memorable character than Pinocchio himself. At times, he can be seen as just as much a mascot for Disney as Mickey Mouse. I do like that in many ways this is just as much his movie as it is Pinocchio’s. At the beginning of the film, Jiminy is just some vagabond taking shelter at Geppetto’s place, but being assigned as Pinocchio’s conscience gives him a sense of purpose that he was lacking in life. He gets plenty of laughs in the movie and while he’s not perfect at this job, he still exhibits the qualities necessary for his role as an external conscience.

Songs:

There are plenty of songs in the movie but only two I feel are worth discussing. First is No Strings On Me. It’s an iconic number to be sure. The scene itself is a lot of fun, one of the most memorable in the movie, and... *sigh* contains more ethnic stereotypes than a Street Fighter game. Actually, at one point, Pinocchio does Ryu’s Hurricane Kick so maybe it IS a Street Fighter game. The song is, of course, ironic in that having no strings would imply freedom, which is exactly what Stromboli wishes to deprive him of. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how seventy-five years later, Avengers: Age of Ultron would make this song absolutely terrifying in its trailer. The second song we should discuss is When You Wish Upon a Star. Arguably one of the most iconic songs in all of Disney’s history and the unofficial theme song of Disney itself. It’s a nice little song about dreams coming true, which is pretty standard for Disney. Both songs are great, but neither are anything I’d actively seek out.

Memorable Scenes:

I’m going to keep this one brief since most of the scenes worth mentioning have either already been discussed or overlap into the dark Disney factor. The only one left I want to talk about here is the nose growing scene. Ask anyone what the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Pinocchio the character and odds are they’ll bring up his nose growing when he lies. Well, you may be surprised to learn that it only ever comes up once in the entire film. Not sure why that’s everyone’s big takeaway, aside from the fact that it spawned an unfortunately large amount of juvenile erection jokes. I mean, it’s an important scene and helps demonstrate the value of honesty for young Pinocchio, but with all the other stuff going on, it’s hard to believe that this is what everyone remembers.

Story:

I touched on this in the villains section, but the movie doesn’t really have a consistent narrative all the way through. The film kind of jumps from story to story. At first you think it’s about Pinocchio getting hooked up with Stromboli, but that doesn’t last all that long. Then, we quickly shift to the pleasure island plot with all the Donkey’s but that ends without any real resolution or comeuppance for the bad guy. And once that’s over, suddenly Geppetto is swallowed by a whale and that’s now our main plot. See what I mean? The whole production just seems a little unfocused. However, there is one aspect to the story I found particularly interesting was the nature of how Geppetto’s wish was granted, something I feel ties into the theme of the film. Note, Geppetto wishes for Pinocchio to become a real boy, but the Blue Fairy doesn’t actually grant that wish, not entirely. She grants half the wish, but the rest must be earned by Pinocchio himself. I think that’s a surprisingly mature message for small children. Yes, Disney has always advertised itself as the place where dreams and wishes come true and all that, but what this movie seems to be saying is that, yes, wishes CAN come true, but not without effort on your part. If Pinocchio had become a real boy from the get-go, he wouldn’t have appreciated the gift of life thrust upon him, but with hard-work, good deeds and self-sacrifice, not only does he get his wish, but also now appreciates it more than perhaps he would have otherwise. I actually thought that was really clever. Nice job Disney.

The Dark Disney Factor:

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Snow White had its fair share of dark moments, but, OH MAMA, Disney upped its game for this sucker. Even Geppetto’s workshop, though entirely harmless, is a little creepy since everything there has a face. However, that’s small potatoes compared to Stromboli showing Pinocchio a chopped-up puppet in the fireplace. Yes, this particular puppet isn’t a living being, but the implications that this is Pinocchio’s eventual fate if he doesn’t escape Stromboli are pretty disturbing in and of themselves. Oh, and did I mention, this is the second movie in a row where the main character is killed off and brought back. Mind you, the fake out death is way more obvious this time around, but you still see the body and Geppetto uses the word dead. However, let’s get to what you all want me to talk about, the pleasure island scene. First, why don't we talk a bit more about the Demonic Coachman. And yes, I do mean Demonic because, well, LOOK AT THAT FACE!! I am convinced that this dude is sent straight from hell. It would certainly explain how he’s able to turn the children into Donkeys. Speaking of, let’s talk about how ungodly fucked up that all that Donkey business is. When we first see the transformed kids, they’re already in cages trying desperately to yell for help, but unable to because they no longer possess the power of speech. Any who still show signs of humanity are locked away in a pen while those who have fully transformed are caged and sent away to work in salt mines. Then there’s Lampwick’s transformation. At first it’s played for laughs, but once Lampwick realizes what’s up, the mood changes, and Lampwick screams for help until finally, his hands contort into hooves and his body follows. The transformation is done in shadows which makes it even creepier. And like I said, even though Pinocchio gets away, the Coachman still gets away with his evil plan. No one is coming to save those children. They’re doomed to be Donkeys forever. This movie shows you that dreams come true, but I guess so do Nightmares.

Final Thoughts: While Pinocchio did not carry the same nostalgia factor that Snow White did, I nonetheless enjoyed re-watching and dissecting this Disney Classic. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly deeper than I expected. Next time, we’ll be covering a film that I certainly watched plenty of times as a very young child when Deep Dive Disney looks at Dumbo.