Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Who Says You Can’t Learn Anything From Toys?

It’s easy to dismiss Toy Story as a comparatively shallow Pixar film. A simple story of friendship pushed along by a lot of colorful action, the movie’s virtues seem to pale in comparison to the complexities and subtle implications of Pixar’s latter films—The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL•E. Yet in Toy Story’s basic themes, I find a level of sophistication and wisdom, an insight sharp enough to find pertinence in the life of someone way beyond the film’s target demographic.

The timing of Toy Story’s theatrical re-release couldn’t have been better. That very week, my perennial lunchmate—a female, and one of my few real friends at work—did the kind, welcoming thing, becoming quick friends with the new employee at our small company. Consider me a grown man who has yet to outgrow many of his childhood insecurities, as the new friendship made me nervous. This person was now joining us for lunch, throwing me into full panic mode. To make matters much worse, the shiny new friend happens to be everything I am and more.

Good sense of humor, a writer, loves books and music, knows a few things about good cinema. Plus, she’s a female.

Why the heck would my old friend want to lunch with me when Version 2.0 is already inviting her out to movies after just one week on the job?

That weekend, myself and a group—including this old friend—caught the Toy Story 3D double feature. It’d been easily over a decade since I’d seen the first film, so I was surprised to see the movie’s plot closely mirror my own circumstances. Woody, his owner Andy’s favorite toy, finds himself jealous of the shiny new toy in the room, Buzz Lightyear. As the new object of Andy’s affection, Buzz seems to be everything Woody is and so much more. As the sheriff points out, “Why would Andy ever want to play with me when he’s got you?”

Is this sounding familiar?

I find it easy to look back at the film and remember it as a pleasant movie about accepting new friends. Woody’s resentment for Buzz only subsides after he’s spent time in the trenches with the new toy, eventually finding a willingness to accept him into the family known as Andy’s Toys.

Yet isn’t Woody’s insecurity in his relationship with Andy the true problem, rather than how he feels about Buzz? Buzz Lightyear could’ve been any toy as long as Woody felt he could challenge him for the top spot in Andy’s heart. Woody’s jealousy stems from his over-protectiveness of his friendship with Andy, to wit, his special position as the boy’s best friend. He isn’t exhibiting unfriendliness and stubborness so much as he’s exhibiting greed, possessiveness, and mistrust. He comes right out and says it to Buzz’s face: “You stay away from Andy. He’s mine, and no one is taking him away from me.” After all these years, Woody still isn’t secure in his relationship with Andy, despite all his reassuring talk.

Bo Peep reminds the cowboy that Andy will always carry a special place for him, but the words aren’t good enough for Woody because he doesn’t believe them in his heart; he doesn’t believe them because he doesn’t know that his true value lies in his friendship. Instead, Woody bases his self-worth and identity on his previously unchallenged “status” as Andy’s favorite toy—a shaky foundation for one’s self-image.

I had no issues with this new person at my job; I too thought she was great. No, in reality, I feared losing the friendship and “status” I had with my old friend, which immediately indicates that, like Woody, I didn’t know my own worth and lacked that essential trust with my buddy that I assumed I had. If I had it, there’d be no need to feel threatened, regardless of who came along.

Toy Story’s solution to Woody’s issues gets a little confusing. At a basic level, the film teaches you that simply making friends with the one you feel threatened by alleviates your insecurities. When Woody finally befriends Buzz and accepts him as one of the gang, the animosity disappears. But wait, how does that make sense? Woody can “accept” Buzz all he wants, but the problem still exists in the Woody-Andy relationship, not necessarily in the Woody-Buzz one.

Ah, but the epiphanies strike early on in Toy Story. By the end of the film, one can forget that the opening scenes and song focused on the rock-solid lifetime friendship between Woody and Andy. Furthermore, the defining moment unexpectedly arrives when Woody sheepishly looks at the bottom of his boot to see his owner’s faded Sharpie branding, which seems to pale in comparison to Buzz’s freshly inked label. However, this is the very moment I realized, Buzz Lightyear or no Buzz Lightyear, there will always be an “Andy and Woody.”

Couple that with Buzz’s eventual realization that he’s more than a worthless toy because he’s Andy’s toy (finding value not in his “status” as a Space Ranger, but in the importance of his friendship), and together, these insights exhibit Toy Story’s unexpected wisdom, revealing to me truths I admittedly should have known by now. The new friend at work hadn’t done anything wrong, but her presence exposed a flaw in my relationship that needed fixing. Instead of creating a solid, trusting friendship, I unknowingly built one partially around possessiveness and mistrust, and got away with it because there was no one there to expose me. That is, until Woody and Buzz came along.