Last weekend, I was lucky enough to steal a couple of my nieces and bring them home with me. For the last few days, they’ve been busy helping me out with the kids program I run at work, and in the evenings we’ve all been busy showing them around the bustling metropolis of Williams Lake. While I thought about skipping out on this week’s post altogether, I decided instead to write a quick post about the movie we watched last night.
Below, I’ve included 3 reasons why we think you should watch it.
1) The aliens are super cute
This was why my nieces loved this movie so much. The main group of aliens, called the Boov, change colour according to their mood and seem to be made up of a jelly-like consistency.
The main character, Oh, is considerably cuter than I thought he would be. When I first saw the commercial for Home, I assumed that Jim Parsons would play a cartoon version of his well-known character from the Big Bang Theory. It was a pleasant surprise to see him change things up a bit while playing an equally quirky character in Home. Oh, the alien played by Parsons seems considerably more fun to be around than Sheldon.
2) The film’s heroine is black
We talk about representation quite a bit here on the blog. Evan in particular, has written about race and representation in films like Thor: The Dark World, Fast Five, Fantastic Four and Big Hero 6. With all the whitewashing we see in films based on books and comics, it’s exciting to see a brand new protagonist who isn’t white. The film’s main character, Gratuity ‘Tip’ Tucci, is played by Rihanna. Tip, like Rihanna, moved to North America from Barbados when she was a little girl.
Everyone wants to see a reflection of themselves in the characters they admire. It’s exciting to see Dreamworks provide that opportunity to little girls who don’t look like Elsa or Rapunzel. For this movie, I’m not sure I could make a better argument for representation than the image I’ve included below.
3) Home makes a great commentary about colonization
In Home, the Boov have moved onto Earth to escape the Gorg, an Alien race that has been chasing them around the universe. When the Boov first arrived, they abducted all the humans and moved them to a massive compound. The leader of the Boov, Captain Smeck, tells the other Boov that the humans are an inferior race in need of guidance. As John and I watched this movie with the girls, we were consistently struck by the parallels between this silly, fictional version of alien colonization and our own history.
Captain Smeck, like colonial leaders before him, completely misunderstood human culture.
Ultimately, we all thought it was one of the best animated movies we had seen in a while. I hope you get the chance to check it out. If you do, let me know what you think.
Culture War Reporters 