The newest Pixar movie, Soul begins with an uninspired New York City school band teacher named Joe Gardner, voiced by Jamie Foxx. Joe is wildly unsatisfied with his current life and dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician. In a breakthrough audition, Joe lands a big-time gig with Dorothea Williams, a highly respected famous saxophone player. This is where the movie takes an unexpected turn.
Joe falls down a manhole and awakens in a magical land that resembles some kind of afterlife. Unsatisfied with dying right before his dream was fulfilled, Joe sets out on a journey to get back to his body.
All ages can enjoy Soul’s digestible philosophy, as the movie contains fairly complex and existential themes considering the target audience. On his journey, Joe questions his life, destiny, and his passion.
Soul builds a completely original and unique spiritual world. There are two aspects to the afterlife in Soul, those who died back on Earth either go into “the great beyond” an escalator to an unknown destination or become a mentor for unborn souls to develop personality traits.
This concept offers a story in and of itself and allows some funny flashbacks to historical figures attempting to mentor Tina Fey’s character, Twenty-Two.
Soul features some of the best animation in a feature-length film to date. As technology improves, so does the quality of animation in Pixar movies. For instance, Joe’s hair is extremely detailed and dynamic, which juxtaposes the cartoon aspects of his face with realistic human hair.
While the film certainly is entertaining, as Pixar advertises its first black protagonist, the move towards representation falls flat because it follows the problematic trope of placing black characters into magical situations where they are barely in their black body.
For the majority of the movie, Joe is either in a spiritual characterization of his soul or the body of a cat that he accidentally possesses in an attempt to get back to his body. Since Joe is not in his body for the climax and end of the movie, the audience doesn’t actually see someone black performing these heroic actions, distancing blackness from heroism. This isn’t an exception for Disney produced films. In The Princess and the Frog, for the majority of the movie, Tiana, the film’s main character and first black Disney Princess, is a frog.
Despite the surprising quality of the movie, this can be a cautionary tale in promoting representation without considering the quality of that representation.
