One in a 'Minion'

One in a 'Minion'

The latest Minions story board holds the same themes of course: team work and family spirit as well as 'good' vs relatively 'evil'. Friends work together as one to overcome obstacles and to save the day. Such are the themes of most animated films geared towards audiences of all ages but with a specifically younger audience in mind, relaying the message of good overcoming a likable enough evil, a 'not too scary evil' that is.

I say 'a not too scary evil' because the personalities say for example of Scarlet and Mr Despicable, although overwhelming loud and able to street fight; flying high and dropping low unharmed, are still likable because of their adorable sense of humour and because of other redeeming traits such as affection towards a select few for instance. In the case of Scarlet, her affection is for her 'baby' as she calls him, referring to her husband, as my 5 year old niece aptly pointed out to me.
Scarlet's hubby is her redeeming relationship since she obviously cares for him and he for her. He is grungy, cool, a sassy new age hippy and lovable himself despite being a 'baddy'.

The setting is versatile and colourful; New York, India, Australia, and with the usual props we grew fond of along side the Minions characters: the jeans outfits, the unusual extravagant weapons and the very colourful background scenery.

These genre descriptions all seem to be quite fitting of any animated feature film with the differences between films being a variation in the characters presented and their portrayal.

So what exactly makes the Minions special? Is it their yellow colour and high pitched voices reminiscent of C Beebies and their lovable cuddly personalities? And if so why do these vocal tones and colours make them close to our hearts? Instinctively perhaps the brighter the colours the higher the voice pitch, the cleaner and clearer the characters in terms of their bright outlook and sunny personalities; happy and fun, emotionally positive, rather than the dark and evil characters projected usually with the deep low voices of the lower realms.

But what makes the minions stand out perhaps more than all of this, is their particular universal language which unites them and us in its 'a small world after all' way. The lingo seems to be a melange of English, French, Italian and 'Espagnol' -as my young nephew pointed out ('they are speaking 'Espagnol'' he says in his usual adorable way). This mosaic of languages reinforces the idea that the world is one, the masses, the people are all the same everywhere. Despite our differences we are all united in our little yellow uniform shapes and jeans wearing forms (metaphorically of course); human beings one and all looking for friendship and a 'niche' to belong to.

But the messages in the film are not just about similarities and differences.
Some of the humour is hidden adult humour (watch out for a few short background scenes -flashing fast- of adult messages hidden in how fast they appear in the background but overt otherwise in that they are obvious) and the messages too are for the more mature in that they are about social class, equality and unison.

The queen's crown as well as the sword in the stone are symbols of royalty and nobility but they are all made accessible (including the queen herself) to the minions as masses. The minion can be a a knight noble and crowned, and the queen can have a drink in the pub with the rest of us.Such is the social message of unity presented here.

This is a noble ideology in itself for both young learning minds and old cynical ones, but taking this a minion step further, or a million steps further in fact, we can also see the concept of a minion as a follower to a boss or a leader being questioned here: the minions look for a leader but they also lead themselves and they have a choice whom to follow. There is almost a political dimension as well as a social one here.

We as people in this big mass of life may be different to one another in some ways, unique too in others, but we are similar in that the different languages we require to communicate and our sex be it female or male as well as our skin colour matter not at all; even our voices can be heard in a similar fashion. What is important are the choices we make, whom we chose to follow and what ideals we select.

We can all be leaders at different times of our lives just like the minions, but it is also absolutely fine to be a follower too and to be a minion as long as we follow the right path for each of us individually.
One a in a million can also be one in a minion. It's two sides of the same coin of human nature.

Keep Calm and Minion!