![\"A](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-117-fall16\/files\/2016\/11\/Carl-boy-300x155.jpg\")
A young Carl is enraptured by the adventurer Charles Muntz<\/p><\/div>\n
The film first mimics the repressive social structure of our own society by taking us through Carl and Ellie\u2019s life together. Through the years, they build a house, open a zoo, and try to have a baby (but are not successful due to a miscarriage)\u2014perfectly normal decisions to make as serious adults. But at the same time, their dream of becoming adventurers like Muntz and placing their house by Paradise Falls is never fulfilled. Their childhood visions gradually slip away as everyday distractions of adult life occupy their time and exhaust their savings. What happened to their fervor for adventure, for an imaginary world, that they held onto so tightly as children? The mundane tasks of life inevitably overcame this dream, a common occurrence reflected in our own lives.<\/p>\n
Here, the movie introduces a utopian solution that appeals to us\u2014an alternative to the nonstop work that takes over our lives. Ellie\u2019s death catalyzes a painful transition for Carl, who believes that by letting go of their childhood fantasy, he and Ellie did not have the chance to live up to their expectations and dreams. Ellie\u2019s death painfully reminds Carl of his broken promise, causing the fantasy to resurface. As Carl wakes up one typical morning, his bored facial expression and dreary surroundings point to the repetitiveness of his life. He eats bran cereal, cleans the house, and goes out to sit on the porch, void of any excitement or expression. The tune of \u201cHabanera\u201d from Carmen<\/em> plays in the background, whose unheard lyrics sing of fickle love that \u201ccomes, goes, then it returns \/ you think you hold it fast, it flees.\u201d This scene in particular, plays with the utopian desire to \u201cfly away\u201d from the passive, structured life that engulfs everyone around Carl\u2014the construction workers, the shoppers in the city, and the window cleaner. Carl surprises everyone who only thought of him as a senile old man by doing the unexpected: he leaves this modern age and travels, figuratively, back in time to the nostalgic era of exploration and of Charles Muntz.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JRAfm5glLFY<\/a><\/p>\n In our society today, capitalism has taken over our practical desires, but we still have innate impulses to do the unexpected and escape the rigidity and passivity of mass consumerism. Russell, a young Asian American boy who joins Carl in his adventure in order to earn his \u201cAssisting the Elderly\u201d badge, has never camped outdoors and does not even know how to build a tent despite being a Wilderness Explorer. Russell\u2019s inexperience with the wilderness suggests our capitalist society\u2019s detachment from nature. Matthew Arnold believed that reading about agrarian society such as poems on nature cultivates us towards the natural world that is not focused on commercialization, thus \u201cthrough this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow stanchly but mechanically\u201d (Arnold 5). Similarly, when Carl decides to fly his house to a far-away land untouched by civilization, the film inspires utopian fantasies to revert back to a time when we were not entirely entrenched in commercialism. The grand depiction of thousands of colorful balloons rippling across the sky contrasts with the gray, static metropolitan society, encouraging utopian hopes and an alternative to the culture industry.<\/p>\n Although the audience is presented with this utopian vision of freedom through Carl and Russell\u2019s crash-landing in South America after enduring a thunderstorm, this dream is slowly but surely deconstructed as they continue on their journey to Paradise Falls. Carl indeed fulfills his promise to his late wife when he lands his house, which he affectionately calls \u201cEllie,\u201d next to Paradise Falls, but it is a very melancholy achievement. A worn-down Carl enters his house, now in shambles from the bumpy journey, and sits down in silence in the chair that once offered comfort and joy. In a desperate attempt to save the house and preserve the promise to his wife, he relinquishes the human values of family, interdependence, and collectivity by giving Kevin, the \u201cMonster of Paradise Falls\u201d indigenous bird that Russell effectively adopted, over to Muntz. Carl reverts to the individualistic, isolated character that he was at the start of the adventure. In our own society, capitalism prioritizes individualistic gains and tendencies, and we lose sight of communal ideals. The sense of isolation that Carl faces is reflected in us, and we are thus drawn towards the film\u2019s utopian solution of social bonds. Carl ultimately realizes his dream of moving to Paradise Falls is unsatisfactory and worthless compared to the danger of losing his friends, and abandons his imperial fantasy.<\/p>\n Carl finally achieves his dream, but is more broken than before<\/p><\/div>\n In \u201cReification and Utopia in Mass Culture,\u201d literary critic Fredric Jameson argues: \u201cthe works of mass culture cannot be ideological without at one and the same time being implicitly or explicitly Utopian as well: they cannot manipulate unless they offer some genuine shred of content as a fantasy bribe to the public about to be so manipulated\u201d (144). Ideology or utopia cannot exist without the other, for utopian solutions are needed to manipulate the audience into complacency with existing conditions. Indeed, Up<\/em> initially leads the viewers to cheer for Carl\u2019s initiative to embark on an imperialistic adventure under the cover of a utopian alternative to the culture industry. At this point, the film manipulates our desire for adventure and spontaneity in order to portray imperialism in a positive light. However, the film diverges from Jameson\u2019s argument that \u201cmass culture [is] a transformational work on social and political anxieties and fantasies which must then have some effective presence in the mass cultural text in order subsequently to be “managed” or \u201crepressed\u201d (141) when the communal ideals overcome the film\u2019s initial support of imperialism. Not only does Carl leave his beloved house behind on Paradise Falls, the movie also portrays Muntz, an embodiment of the imperialistic spirit, as ruthless and single-minded. When Carl finally meets his hero, he learns that Muntz\u2019s search for Kevin, the bird that he has been accused of fabricating, has driven him mad; Muntz has been killing off explorers who come to Paradise Falls, thinking they are trying to steal the elusive bird from him. The audience is supposed to root for Muntz\u2019s demise, for he stands against Carl\u2019s utopian values.<\/p>\n It is also important to note the rejection of the elementary family throughout the film, and especially after Carl embraces social bonds over his childhood dream. The elementary family consists of a man and woman who are married to each other, and their biological children. This family structure has been historically touted as bringing stability to society, especially after the advent of industrialization and early capitalism (“Traditions and Encounters\u201d). Carl and Ellie live happy lives even though they are not able to have children, and Carl\u2019s family ultimately consists of an old white man, an Asian American boy, a talking dog, and a South American bird. This utopian alternative to the patriarchal, monocultural idea of family is made attractive to us because Muntz, whom the film portrays as the antagonist, tries to break apart this family. The film thus reflects our own desires for social progress.<\/p>\n Carl’s non-elemental family<\/p><\/div>\n Entertainment provides both an ideology and a utopian solution in order to contrast the two, but it does not mean that the utopian values are used as a cover-up for unsettling ideology that manipulates us into obedience towards the status quo. The film stimulates our longing for social bonds and acceptance, directly opposing the pro-imperialism sentiment at the beginning of the film, which was supported by the utopian desire to rebel against the culture industry. What is even more important to remember is what actually sparked Carl\u2019s imperialistic fantasy in the first place\u2014the cinema. As a boy, he took in the cinema\u2019s portrayal of the imperialistic Muntz as a righteous and patriotic adventurer who promises to regain his honor after being denounced as a fraud by bringing back the \u201cMonster of Paradise Falls.\u201d By actively choosing to leave behind this fantasy generated by the media, Carl refuses to let his desires be controlled by the culture industry. Instead of manipulating us to be satisfied with our current social structure, Up<\/em> leaves us with an anti-culture industry stand only made possible through the utopian feelings of interpersonal relationships.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Arnold, Matthew. Oxford World’s Classics: Culture and Anarchy. Oxford, GB: OUP Oxford, 2006. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 18 November 2016.<\/p>\n Booker, M. Keith. Disney, Pixar, and the hidden messages of children’s films<\/em>. ABC-CLIO, 2010.<\/p>\n Jameson, Fredric. \u201cReification and Utopia in Mass Culture.\u201d\u00a0Social Text<\/em>, no. 1, 1979, pp. 130\u2013148. www.jstor.org\/stable\/466409<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Traditions and Encounters; a Brief Global History.”\u00a0Reference and Research Book News<\/em>\u00a022.1 (2007) ProQuest.\u00a0<\/em>Web. 20 Nov. 2016.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pictures were screenshot from DVD<\/p>\n Video clip:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JRAfm5glLFY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Carl](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-117-fall16\/files\/2016\/11\/sad-carl-300x155.jpg\")
![\"up-fam\"](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-117-fall16\/files\/2016\/11\/up-fam-300x205.jpg\")