Of All the Worlds...

Naruto: Harry Potter with Ninjas

2012-05-14T13:19:00.001-04:00

The popular anime series Naruto is, perhaps, a tribute to the influence of J.K. Rowling's internationally popular Harry Potter series. In both series, the hero has a mark on his body that represents an evil entity that empowers him while it also causes him some torment. He is an orphan. He is a boy with extraordinary potential for power. He doesn't listen to authority figures and is often belligerent and rude. He finds himself in a sort of love triangle with his two closest friends. Of course, these two series have many differences as well, but Naruto, much like Harry Potter, creates a fantasy world and focuses largely on the special education of a group of teenagers within that world. Though Naruto's world is inhabited by ninjas, these ninjas have powers much like the wizards of the Harry Potter universe. Naruto began its life as a manga series, written a couple of years after Rowling began the Harry Potter series. Both worlds share a lightheartedness, but also aren't afraid of delving into darker territory. Naruto, at its best, is a joy to watch, just as Harry Potter is a joy to read.

The show is currently available on Netflix Instant Watch, and it comprises of four seasons and 220 episodes. It is available only in Japanese with subtitles, but the Japanese voice actors are much better than the English ones, in my opinion. I would recommend only the first three seasons, however, as the final season is made up entirely of filler episodes that have nothing to do with the main story, and they are mostly not very good. The conclusion of the final season also steals the spotlight from Naruto and moves it onto a less deserving character, which left me frustrated.

Other than this, Naruto is a remarkable show, with engaging characters and fight scenes that, surprisingly, are not boring. Part of the joy comes from the main character himself, Naruto Uzumaki. He is impatient, arrogant, and bull-headed, and often at odds with classmates and adults, and this leads to some very comical moments. However, he is also caring and makes close friends with some of his classmates, such as Sakura and Sasuke (who is also his rival). Naruto begins life as an inept ninja, but gradually learns lessons along the way. Sometimes, frustratingly, these lessons are forgotten and thus his growth is made to be just an illusion, but when he does grow stronger the moment is exhilarating. While these details make it sound like many other anime shows out there, the storytelling of Naruto is superior.

The opening describes a beast called the Nine-Tailed Fox, which once terrorized the Leaf Village. This beast is sealed in the belly of a child, Naruto, by the Fourth Hokage, who dies as a result. This fusion of the demon fox with Naruto creates a powerful energy force within him that, if he learns how to harness it, he can use to make himself incredibly strong. It also makes him an outcast in the village. Some despise him for serving as a reminder of the sacrifice of the Fourth Hokage, and some fear him for having the powerful beast sealed inside him. He befriends Sasuke Uchiha, another loner who has a power called Sharingan passed down his family lines. Sasuke is destined to be one of the most powerful ninjas of his class, but he, unlike Naruto, despises the attention of his classmates. We learn later that Sasuke's family suffered a horrible tragedy at the hands of his older brother, Itachi, and Sasuke vows vengeance. A third character, Sakura, also befriends the two, and the obligatory love triangle pops up: Sakura loves Sasuke, Sasuke could care less, Naruto loves Sakura, and Sakura doesn't want attention from a loser. There are plenty of other characters, all of them with unique character traits, traits that run deeper than appearance or a simple habit that distinguishes them, and this is part of the joy of Naruto. Its world is populated with very interesting, complex, and varied characters.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are partnered and placed under the mentorship of Kakashi Sensei, a copy ninja who also has the Sharingan ability, though to a lesser extent than Sasuke. Kakashi's aloofness creates for some funny situations, and his contrast with another mentor ninja, Guy Sensei, who takes himself very seriously, makes for even more funny moments. Kakashi trains his three students, and it is clear early on that Naruto is the least gifted of them, mainly due to his recklessness. Perhaps my favorite part of the series is the quest to hunt down an assassin who uses powers of the mist. The scenes are exciting because the characters have human qualities. Too many anime shows feature smug main heroes with incredible power and little to no humanity. In Naruto's first encounter with bad guys, his fear freezes him. Despite all he has trained for, he can't act. Neither can Sakura. Only Sasuke keeps a cool head, already having experienced violence in such a way Naruto and the others can't imagine. The battle with the mist assassin itself is exciting. The battles are more chess match than hack and slash. Each ninja makes a move that bests the move performed by the other. Each attack and each defense, every power used, has a strategy behind it, and the payoff comes after this strategy is revealed. None of the later fight scenes duplicate this process as well as the fight with the mist assassin, though they're not without their excitement.

The show provides some very compelling villains as well. Orochimaru (pictured above left), one of the three Legendary Sannin (a distinction given to the most powerful ninjas), was a Leaf shinobi, a very talented one, whose mind was driven by absolute power. His philosophy to power is to learn every skill he can, even those forbidden to shinobi to use, and he commits unforgivable acts in the process. Orochimaru is a terrifying villain and one of the most effective characters in the show. He thirsts for Sasuke because Sasuke's Sharingan ability would increase his own power greatly. Another compelling villain is Gaara of the desert (pictured above right). Gaara comes from the Sand village, and he has a powerful demon residing within him, like Naruto, except his demon has a horrible influence over him, unlike Naruto's. We first meet Gaara when ninjas from all of the lands gather in the Leaf village for a competition that allows the young Genin ninjas to become the next ninja rank: Chunin. While Gaara is frightening at first, the show unfortunately feels the need to explain how he came to be who he is through flashbacks, and it attempts to convince us he is haunted by these past occurrences. This leads to an unconvincing change in Gaara from villain to hero later on, and Gaara, by series end, steals the show from Naruto. Other prominent villains, who make only a brief appearance, are Itachi Uchiha and his organization, the Akatsuki, which seek the Nine-Tailed Fox within Naruto. Like with Orochimaru, the show fortunately does not describe why Itachi is so evil, but some back story involving an evil act he committed serves to provide psychological turmoil for Sasuke, his younger brother. The show does not develop the Akatsuki plot line very far, however, perhaps desiring to keep it for the next series, Naruto: Shippuden, unseen by me.

Another important character I should mention is Jiraiya, the second of the three Sannin. He is a comical character, though not entirely original. He is a lecher who likes to gamble, drink, and shirk his duties. Fans of Dragon Ball will likely recognize Master Roche in this description, though I think Jiraiya is more likeable. He is a master of toads, and one of his first lessons is to teach Naruto how to summon a very powerful toad. His methods try Naruto's patience, but they're ultimately effective, if questionable. He flings Naruto off a cliff in the hopes it will inspire him to summon the large toad. It works, to Naruto's surprise and delight, but Jiraiya leaves the difficult task of taming the toad to his pupil. Jiraiya adds some fun to the show, but some of the scenes involving him and Naruto are creepy. Naruto has an ability, used mainly as a prank, to transform himself into a naked woman, with her naked parts covered by clouds. As Jiraiya has an uncontrollable fondness for beautiful women, Naruto uses this power to influence his master, who finds the transformation very seductive. The thought of pedophilia never seems to have entered into the minds of the show's creators, either that or the Japanese just have a strange sense of humor.

As I've stated, the show suffers from too many filler episodes. Flashbacks are repeated far too many times, some of the fight scenes drag on, and the side stories later on have no connection with the main story. You will find a few entertaining filler episodes, such as one about postal ninjas and another about a strange creature that clings to Naruto's back. I also have a problem with anime aimed at young adults in their use of what I call pity parties. These generally involve a character recalling a terrible incident and reeling in melodramatic anguish. Or we find a character who believes him or herself undeserving of rescue and asking the noble hero, usually a male, "Why me?" These are obviously meant to tug on the heartstrings, and they are so obvious as to be insulting. Naruto, fortunately, does not use these pity parties to the extent that other anime shows do, some to such an extent as to drown in them.

Another weakness of the show is its use of women. With an exception of the third Sannin, Lady Tsunade (pictured below), the female shinobi are inferior to the men. Sakura (pictured left), for one, is a dull character who is unable to grow as strong as Naruto or Sasuke, and she ends up feeling sorry for herself. During a tournament between the ninjas, she fights her best friend, another girl, which is the least exciting and least interesting of the fights. I could imagine the spectators yawning, as neither girl had the extraordinary powers of the other ninjas. Her sole purpose, it seems, is to be in love with Sasuke and to be an object of desire for Naruto. Even in those episodes that promise tremendous growth for Sakura nothing very extraordinary happens. This is a problem with many anime shows aimed at young adults. Girls are made to be desirable even by the audience, and their fragile nature serves to make them more desirable because we pity them and feel an instinct to reach out and help.

Still, Naruto towers above many other anime shows largely in its character development and storytelling. Each character is a joy to watch in his or her own way. The show is very creative, and its actions scenes are entertaining. You will be surprised by its depth and how much detail goes into the creation of its world. Had the show been shorter, by about 100 episodes, it would have been just about perfect, but as it stands it is superb. Very few shows touch it at its best, but it's such a shame that so much of it is not worth watching.

The Book that Took Forty Years to Write

2010-05-04T12:11:00.000-04:00

Cecilia Valdes

By Cirilo Villaverde

Though it may be Cuba's counterpart to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cecilia Valdes nonetheless stands apart as its own work with its own agendas. More than forty years after publishing Cecilia Valdes as a short story, Cirilo Villaverde, in 1882, published it as a novel - a very large novel. Villaverde confesses that the length of time it took to finish the novel, including how little he could dedicate to it at extended periods of time, accounts for the novel's unevenness, which includes long stretches of unnecessary detail and other such disruptive passages. Most disruptive of all is the one hundred page trip to a Cuban slave plantation, which damages the novel beyond repair. One has to wonder how much better the novel could have been, had Villaverde had the chance to write this novel without interruption (he faced many political conflicts, which led to his exile to the United States). This isn't to say it's not a great novel, in many ways it is, but it's not, in the end, a successful novel. The fatal flaw, as I've already said, is the lengthy scene, three hundred pages in, at the plantation. The novel never recovers from it. Wikipedia describes the ending accurately: "as if [the] author h[ad] lost interest in his story and wanted to finish it as fast as possible." For scholars on slavery and race, Cecilia Valdes is a crucial read, but for the rest of us, it just breaks our hearts to see the novel crumble before our eyes.

Does that mean you shouldn't read it? No. As a matter of fact this novel does many things very well. You could even say that an excellent book was ruined by one hundred pages of poor writing, but those first three hundred pages aren't any worse for it. The book's downfall, it seems, can easily be explained by Villaverde's politics. While the book is essentially an anti-slavery novel, it is only in a very complicated way. For one, the novel provides hints that, though Villaverde may have truly been against slavery, he was nonetheless a racist. His stance against slavery was owing to the fact that abolishing slavery would abolish Spanish rule in Cuba, which is what Villaverde wanted. There is evidence that he was pro-slavery up until he learned that slavery was what kept Spain in Cuba, and it is at this point I imagine he decided to take the anti-slavery route that Stowe made very popular. Three hundred pages into the writing of his book he decides to insert an agenda that turns out to be ruinous.

But first I want to show why these ruinous pages are so heartbreaking.

Though the novel has a somewhat slow start it quickly proves to be an enjoyable read. We meet with some intriguing characters and the set-up for potential conflicts. An early character Villaverde introduces us to is the musician Jose Dolores Pimienta, who unfortunately plays a very minor role the rest of the way. As a mulatto, he helps establish the race politics of the novel. The mulatto in Cuba inhabited a space between whites, which were the highest class/race, and blacks, which were the lowest. Pimienta, we learn, is in love with the "Little Bronze Virgin," Cecilia Valdes. If you couldn't tell, she is also a mulatto. However, race politics play against the union of the two mulattoes because a mulatto woman, especially a very attractive and desirable one like Cecillia, would rather marry a white man because she would elevate her status. A black woman, too, would like to marry white, but she doesn't have the same opportunities as a mulatto, who can pass as white. This is key because a white man wouldn't want to shame his family by marrying a colored woman. But don't let this description fool you into believing that this is simply a tale about a mulatto woman tricking a white man into marrying her because he thinks she's white.

Like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cecilia Valdes doesn't give its title character the leading role. This role goes to Leonardo Gamboa, the man who has captured Cecilia's heart. This is okay because Leonardo makes for a very nice character study. He is likably unlikable. He has as many women, if not more, enamored with him as Cecilia has men enamored with her. Leonardo is fickle, inconstant, and spoiled. He has a very close relationship with his mother, who does the spoiling, but a distant one with his father, who warns Leonardo's mother that her babying him will lead him to ruin. He beats the horse-carriage servant because his father finds out from the servant that Leonardo had been out late carousing with women instead of studying. Why is he likable, you ask? Villaverde sets up a contrast early on that helps color the reader's judgment of him. Before we really get to meet Leonardo, we learn a lot about him from his own father, who has many negative things to say about his laziness and his tendency to party rather than do anything useful. Trusting the father's judgment, we already have a disliking for this young man. But when we do finally meet him, things change. His law school teacher calls on him to answer a question, and Leonardo says, "I'll be damned if I've studied the lesson." He then follows up with a brilliant explanation that reveals him to be imaginative and funny, if not hardworking. Of course, I know many people who truly don't like Leonardo, but I don't think that is Villaverde's intent. If you like him by this point of the novel, I can safely say you'll likely be forgiving of him for his many flaws.

His character develops in interesting ways through his relations with others. With Cecilia he's inconstant, a lover who makes promises, breaks them, and then persuasively promises to make up for the broken promises. His charm wins her over nine times out of ten, though sometimes Leonardo has to wait for her jealousy to burn off first. Although Leonardo would never admit it, she is rightly jealous. Leonardo has another lady love who has a much better shot at him than Cecilia. This is Isabel Ilincheta, and though she doesn't have Cecilia's looks or charms, she holds one very important advantage over the Little Bronze Virgin: she's white. This is the central romantic conflict of the novel, though, of course, I won't say how it concludes.

Leonardo has a mixed relationship with his family. He's closest with his mother, in an Oedipal kind of way. Dona Rosa wants the best for her son and mistakenly believes spoiling him will provide that. She does take her husband's warnings into consideration, but her instincts as a mother beat out her good judgment almost every time. One of the novel's most memorable moments, and perhaps the most telling of her character, is when Dona Rosa gives into Leonardo's rather obvious hints about a new watch he wants. Just as she's about to give him the watch her conscience kicks in and she's left wavering, caught in a battle with herself as to whether she should give him the watch or hold onto it. The decision she ends up making is the only one that could clear her troubled conscience - and I'm sure it's not too difficult to guess what it is. Such are the torments of the wealthy.

Leonardo's father is another important character. He isn't like fathers of today's literature or movies, who serve solely to resist their children's wishes before finally realizing their errors. Don Candido has good reason for being hard on Leonardo, not that this means his being hard on him is very helpful. However, he is very distant from his family. A quiet dinner scene is very revealing, as the family only relaxes when Don Candido leaves the dinner table. Don Candido also acts as the novel's main connection to slavery. He's the owner of several large slave plantations, though Villaverde doesn't use this detail to turn him into a villain. Owning a business that does vile things doesn't make one necessarily evil, but it doesn't mean their hands are clean of the vileness, either. When Don Candido mistreats his domestic slaves the reader can pity them without Villaverde turning Don Candido into a monster. It was the way of life for the wealthy in Cuba at this time, and Villaverde depicts it truthfully. He is much more successful in this novel when his agenda doesn't get in the way of his human drama.

When Villaverde's agenda does get in the way of his human drama is when his characters visit one of Don Candido's slave plantations. The plantation episode essentially brings the story to a halt. It comes between an exciting series of events whose outcome we must await until a one-hundred page break, by which time you'll likely forget what happened previously. Not only does the plantation episode halt the story, it transforms Villaverde's well-developed, well-rounded characters into one-dimensional monsters or saints. Isabel, whose father owns a plantation, becomes an Eva character (from Uncle Tom's Cabin), whose slaves love her so much because she treats them so well that they cry when she has to leave for a few weeks. That such a scenario ironically suggests that the slave is better off with a kind master than no master at all never seemed to cross the minds of the likes of Stowe, but that's a separate discussion. Isabel serves as the novel's saint, while the Gamboas are transformed into monsters who laugh at the sight of their slaves being whipped. They lose the humanity Villaverde worked so painstakingly hard to infuse them with, and the novel's magic has vanished.

Try as he might, Villaverde never can get the novel back on track. The harder he tries the more everything gets bogged down. New characters are introduced who only muddle up the plot, including one character who offers a lengthy explanation of events the reader already knows. The ending is a mess; as Wikipedia (above) states: the conclusion is rushed; everything happens hastily and erratically. Some outcomes are inevitable, and others are just forced. Had the novel been allowed space to develop the story instead of visit Don Candido's slave plantation, perhaps it would have had a more deserved ending. What happens at the end isn't believable because the character motivation isn't sufficiently there. What we have by the time we reach the last page is a masterpiece of literature that could have been.

Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Proslavery Adventure

2010-03-22T21:32:00.007-04:00

The Musical

*Spoilers aplenty--I will discuss the entire movie

In 1977, the beloved Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls came out in their own animated musical adventure, directed by Richard Williams. Beneath the innocent facade of Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure lie some rather dark themes. I think it's enough to say that, had this movie been released two-hundred years ago (imagining there were movies that far back), we would be viewing it through a much different lens. The images and dialogue of the movie conjure themes of slavery, suicide, and eroticism. Perhaps this is accidental on the part of the director, but it's too pervasive, too well conceived to ignore.

Raggedy Ann and Andy takes up a concept that was later made popular in Pixar's first full-length film, Toy Story. This concept, of course, involves toys coming to life when their owners are absent. While this is a very imaginative idea, I don't believe the implications of staging what turn out to be living, rational beings as pieces of property has been widely considered, if at all. I'm talking about implications of slavery. In Toy Story, favorite toys are branded with the first letter of their owner's name, they oversee the working order of the toys in the absence of said owner, and they come face-to-face with one cruel toy owner no toy wants to be sold to. Toys are, in many ways, the perfect symbol for slaves. In the eyes of their owners, they're nothing but hunks of plastic incapable of intellectual or rational thought. But when these human owners leave the room the toys come to life and speak and behave intelligently. To compare, slave-owners viewed Africans as brutes who lacked the requisite degrees of humanity to make them equal to their white owners. It was simply unthinkable that the slave could have the intellectual capacities to plan a revolution, much less a successful one, and inconceivable, as well, that they would even want to revolt. However, the slaves did plan revolts, but only when their owners weren't looking. The most successful one was the Haitian Revolution, during which the black slaves wrestled Haiti, formerly St. Domingue, from the French. Toy Story, as well, stages a revolution, in escaping the maniacal and cruel Sid, and the toys use to their advantage that Sid couldn't conceive of them being able to act on their own.

The little girl who owns Raggedy Ann, Marcella, falls somewhere between toy owners Andy and Sid. She's more like a clueless, less sadistic version of the latter, in carrying Raggedy Ann by the ankle and letting her head knock against the stairs. And after one look at the toys in her bedroom you might be inclined to think she's walked into Sid's bedroom. Why a little girl would own such toys is beyond me. Raggedy Ann has a privileged position among Marcella's toys. Not only was she taken on a journey into the outside world, but she receives a seat on a chair that elevates her above the other toys. Raggedy Ann is something of a leader character, and this becomes more apparent when the toys become animated. All the toys gather around Raggedy Ann as she tells of her adventures with Marcella, hardly distressed that the bumps to her head require stitches. The stitching is done not by a human, but a large woman doll reminiscent of an Aunt Chloe or Aunt Jemina figure (the harmless, family-oriented slave). The toys are all happy despite Raggedy Ann's beating. It's like the myth of the submissive slave, which states that blacks are naturally submissive, thus naturally composed for slavery. Raggedy Ann and company offer evidence that this myth is true. But, wait! They're toys...

In another plot device you might recognize from Pixar's classic film, Marcella receives as a birthday gift--gasp!--a new doll. A French doll named Babette. The choice of France is interesting, especially when considering that the French were the ones who fought against the slaves in Haiti. France will play a role later in the movie.

Babette's arrival, as it will turn out, has excited the attention of an unexpected party. Trapped inside a snow globe is a pirate captain and his loyal parrot. We first meet him ogling Babette with the aid of a spyglass. He falls in love with her busty figure and puts his feelings to song and dance (a very suggestive hip-thrusting dance). Many questions might arise, especially to that viewer currently enrolled in a class about slavery, such as, but certainly not limited to, why include a pirate ship captain? Go backwards a couple of hundred years, when the slave trade was not yet abolished, and we discover a precedent for this captain's lust. It was quite common that a slave ship captain would lust for one of the female slaves and take her into his quarters. Thus it shouldn't surprise us that, as soon as the captain is free from his glass globe prison, he kidnaps Babette, enslaves her to his ship, and takes her out to sea. Now the plot begins. Bondage, suicide, and pedophilia ensue.

At sight of Babette's kidnapping (a reminder, perhaps, that slaves were kidnapped from their homeland), Raggedy Ann is horror-struck. Not because this must be terrifying for Babette, but, as she says herself, because Babette is the little girl's gift--her property. In other words, the kidnapping of Babette is only morally repugnant because Babette belongs to somebody. Raggedy Ann and Andy's adventure into the dark scary world outside is driven by a sense of duty towards their owner rather than concern for Babette's health and safety.

I would like to take a break here to take a look at another possible interpretation, not necessarily related to slavery. I wonder, why include such images of kidnapping and themes of ownership/property in a children's movie? If we consider the toy as an extension of the child then the interpretation changes. Dolls are, essentially, pretend children sold to real children for parenting practice. Perhaps we can view the kidnapping in the movie as connected more so to the kidnapping of children than of slaves, and the movie could feasibly play out as a warning to parents and children. However, this interpretation is complicated by many other features in the movie.

Raggedy Ann and Andy make their way through the dark, scary outdoors world, sing a song about candy hearts and paper flowers, and then meet a camel. This camel is depressed because his owner has cast him away and now he's lost and alone, ownerless. Complications arise, for our interpretation of the movie as a warning for children and parents, when the camel has visions of what appear to be camel ghosts, perhaps ancestors, commanding him in eery, singsong voices to go home. They don't specify what home is, but the exotic music makes it sound like someplace further than his owner's house. Enslaved Africans believed that in death they would return home, to Africa. They often threw themselves overboard the slave ship in order to escape enslavement and return to their ancestral homeland. In a psychedelic vision, the camel chases after his ancestors and throws himself off a cliff. Though the camel is gloomy because, so it seems, his owner has tossed him away, the home he pines for is in a faraway land, not where he was recently evicted from. In other words, the home he desires to return to is not his human home. If the toy needs to be with its owner, then why does the camel throw himself off a cliff?

He, along with Raggedy Ann and Andy, land on top of a blob creature that has a constant hunger for candy. Remember kids, don't accept candy from a stranger. The trio escapes from their first villain and find themselves in the company of a stature-deficient king, a la Napoleon, who wants to be larger so he can conquer the world. King Koo Koo, as he's named, even cracks a joke about Napoleon. This comparison takes us yet again to eighteenth/nineteenth century France, when Napoleon sent an army to Haiti to quell the slave rebellion and force the blacks to make him lots of money as slaves. But King Koo Koo isn't simply a symbolic emblem for a king who profited off of slavery, he's also a pedophile. Allow me to explain. King Koo Koo grows larger when he laughs, but his laughter must last long enough if he wishes to achieve maximum size. His goal is to "be big enough long enough," which sounds oddly like a Viagra commercial, and he has a particular liking for Raggedy Andy. When the dolls try to escape King Koo Koo doesn't want them to get away because Andy "makes [him] expand real good." Our Raggedy dolls are now being threatened sexually.

Pursued by a pedophile, Raggedy Ann and company make their way for the sea. The audience rushes ahead to see the conditions aboard the ship, and everything appears in working order: pirates singing and dancing and cheerfully carrying out their duties. But, a second glance reveals something's amiss. The one donning the captain's outfit isn't the same captain who kidnapped Babette, but Babette herself, wielding a whip. In the viewer's absence she has re-enacted a slave insurrection and risen up against her captor. She sings about Paris, the place she wants to be, while the pirates drool over her (literally). The crew, enamored by her sexual appeal, will happily take her to France--her home. Again with the theme of going home. However, Babette's home has more meaning than just home: since France, just before Napoleon took power, was the site of a successful revolution, it is also a symbol for freedom. Babette's goal, then, is freedom. But why head for freedom if she's supposed to be happy, like Raggedy Ann and Andy, with her owner? That Babette so desires to return to France may be testimony to the condition of ownership. She'd rather be free.

Raggedy Ann, when the escape plans go horribly awry, cures Babette of her desire for freedom by admonishing her: "See what you've done!" As though it's Babette's fault she was kidnapped. Raggedy Ann blames Babette for causing this gigantic mess. Logically the blame should fall upon the pirate ship captain who kidnapped Babette in the first place. Raggedy Ann fails to take this into consideration, however. She's upset that Babette would try and go home. Readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin might recall the titular hero, Uncle Tom, chastising the likes of Cassy, who wishes to escape enslavement through violence. Why shouldn't the slaves use violence to get out a system they were violently forced into and violently subdued by? If Cassy had pursued her violent plan and caused a violent uprising, Uncle Tom undoubtedly have played the role of Raggedy Ann: "See what you've done!" Raggedy Ann and Uncle Tom fail to realize that the slave shouldn't be the one to take the blame; it wasn't the slave who started it, it was the person who decided to keep the slave as property and the system that made it possible to do so. For a Raggedy Ann and an Uncle Tom, life is much simpler if you don't question things and don't ponder rights or try to stand up for them. And everybody else should do the same. It will turn out okay in the end.

The slavery interpretation, admittedly, is complicated by the presence of nasty villains, one a pedophile and another obsessed with candy. These villains seem to serve as a warning to parents and children: beware of the dangerous outside world. Child sex slavery, as well, is pervasive in many third world countries. What complicates this interpretation, however, is that the camel and Babette have a desire to return home, a home that's far away, just as the Africans desired to return to a home across the sea. Does that mean the home their owners live in isn't really a home? This would place Marcella, and the camel's previous owner, as kidnappers. Am I looking too deep? I don't think so. The movie placed these elements in the movie and these elements happen to raise questions of property and home.

The big question is, how does this movie view the questions of ownership in the world it has created? How about Toy Story? Neither movie really allows the toys the philosophical space to ask themselves about their rights. It is their duty to serve their owners, and that's all. The viewer can see it as nothing more than imaginative fun. They're just toys, anyway. Children play with their toys all the time. But these toys have consciences and feelings and intellects. The owner of the toy only sees the toy, but the viewer sees the person behind the toy. Similarly, slave owners saw their slaves as something less than human, instruments for their own use, who they could punish and sexually exploit as they pleased, and it was a very rare person who could see the slave as a person, as most people do today. Maybe we can tolerate Toy Story and Raggedy Ann because the toys are treated well by their owners (though in Raggedy Ann this is questionable). The viewer can see Sid as a bad owner, and it's justified when the toys do the unthinkable and revolt against him. But the toys under good owners aren't seen as lacking liberties. It is their duty as toys to live loyally as toys, as things owned and played with by a child. Perhaps the fact that viewers today fail to regard these toys as extensions of slaves reflects how people regarded blacks during a time the blacks were enslaved by the whites: they weren't people, per se, but instruments. Property. The movie that conjures up a toy revolution against their masters and views these toys as heroes might shock a nation raised on Raggedy Ann and Toy Story. Just as slave revolts shocked a nation many, many years ago.