Up

It's never to late to follow your dreams and you can almost accomplish anything. This message curiously permeates Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson's Up (a Disney/Pixar production) although it is examined from competing patriarchal conceptions of the aged caucasian male. The hero: Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner and Jeremy Leary) and his wife Ellie (Elie Doctor) have dreamed of following Charles Muntz's footsteps and travelling to South America's Paradise Falls since they met. But during their marriage they could never find the funds or the time to do so. After Ellie dies and Carl unfortunately assaults a construction worker, he decides it's time to live their dream and turns their house into a flying machine propelled by thousands of balloons. Accidentally along for the ride is young boy scout Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is working on his helping the elderly badge. The villain: Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) has been living in Paradise Falls for decades trying to capture a rare bird after having been accused of fabricating its existence by the scientific community. While unable to trap the bird, he has created a collar which allows dogs to speak and attached one to each of the "hounds" in his pack. After Carl and Russell reach the area surrounding Paradise Falls, the bird in question takes a liking to Russell's candy bar and begins following them to Mr. Fredricksen's chagrin. Only after Russell helps Carl to discover that Muntz will likely kill the bird after capture does he begin to snap out of his self-possessed fantasy and start fighting back against his childhood hero.

On the one hand we have the old-school conception of the traditional white patriarch, Charles Muntz, for whom nature is a resource to be sequestered and conquered. Obviously possessing an extremely gifted intellect, he cannot overcome the slander attached to his good name and rather than finding other ways to positively contribute to society lives out his days in the wilderness adhesively clutching the past. In the beginning, Carl too wishes to hold on to the past and live out the rest of his life in what he and his wife always dreamed would be paradise. However, young Russell's influence inspires him to stand up and take a side (the child being the teacher of the man) and he embraces the revolutionary environmentalist point of view, disregards his possessions, and decides that it's time the traditional patriarchal male destabilizes his historical stereotype by overtly challenging the forces of imperialism. Thus, the child helps the old man to recognize the horrific dimension of his fantasy and he is then able to develop a confident voice of his own which he uses to reinvigorate his reality. It's no coincidence that the incomprehensible chocolate loving bird is female and that Carl would have never embarked on his journey had he not callously assaulted a worker.