The Disney company’s MO is crawling the earth for children’s’ folktales and turning them into Hollywood standard animated movies. The stories usually revolve around young royalties in distress or a down-on-luck characters who have to battle some villain to win their birthright. But in the recent past Disney has taken a dark road that explores death and afterlife mythologies. Their animations come off as interesting for children who get to learn more about the dark subject that most parents would never likely talk of. The parents are easily drawn into these movies as Disney has perfected the art of making their productions equally attractive to adults by hiding in plain sight within the animations some adult content.
before disney or any tv/film, the dorobo taught younglins the belief that the soul as being an immutable entity that enters the world via a womb and exits to an afterlife. conditions of this afterlife are dictated by the person’s life’s deeds. Those who lived virtuous and heroic lives continue to dwell near human habitations where they watch over the descendants in exchange for reverence (Does this explain why the dorobo are ever reluctant to vacate our forest homelands). Looking outwards, Dorobo beliefs being ancient and therefore seminal are corroborated by other cultures across Africa and even across continents.
The 2017 animated movie “coco” and “soul” of 2020 are highly rated death-themed movies that are drawn from diverse cultures (a spoiler alert is hereby provided to those who have never watched). Coco uses many Latino death concepts and practices drawn from the indigenous people of that area - seems very Aztec flavoured. There are some Catholic references eg saint veneration and the idea of purgatory. There is a dose of African beliefs in there like the food offerings to the dead. Africans offer food or drinks to ancestors in a ritual known as libation. The story is set maybe late 19th/early 20th century in rural mexico and stars a smart preadolescent boy named coco who accidentally strays into the world of the dead while still mortal. The boy uses the opportunity to untangle some family issues before returning home whole and wiser.
Soul is set in modern New York and is about a middle aged neer-do-well negro bachelor. He dies in a road accident and begins the seeming irreversible journey to the afterlife. However his soul is so racked with midlife crisis he is able to identify and exploit a cosmic loophole to return to life on earth. The loophole that gave opportunity was chancing upon a personality-granting academy for pre-life souls that operates an earth-bound portal for its graduates. Though it’s an urban negro-themed movie (where to this extent the title soul has a double meaning), the after-life concepts are doubtlessly intellectually-driven Judeo-Christian beliefs. A key feature of this is the angelic entities that run the after-life show. Another feature is the stairway/escalator used by souls of the freshly departed to reach a big white light. This light may be considered as an entry to heaven. Also, this animation upholds the belief that the dead and the living are permanently separate. Another side to this is the writers of soul may have been referring to a universe modeled as a matrix, in every way as the cult 1999 movie of that name. The world is a post-apocalyptic computer network in which runs a super software. Human brains are linked to this network using some sort of neural interface. The software developer has defined what is life and death and this movie sought to show just that. The angels that seem to control movements in and out of earth are the Mr Smiths – especially the one that counts the dead. The middle aged negro may have been neo. His resurrection was evidence of such. His mother was Matrix’s Oracle. Morpheus was a sign-spinning crackpot who had however had ability to move in and out of the matrix. etc.
There are however some digressions that come as commonalities with coco. Both stars are musicians and this can be interpreted as shamanism. A shaman is a mganga, a human who is able to communicate with other-worldly beings, adept at psychological tricks and can get super-natural aid to heal other humans of physical and mental ailments. Both seem to stumble on this shamanism gift and use it to devastating effect. Both movies feature common pets as being able to play supporting roles for the shaman. This corresponds with dorobo traditions of sentient forest beasts that can perceive and communicate with human souls on either side of the death/life divide. However coco has this other category of grotesque animal-like beings that can be equated to djinns of Swahili/Arabic folklore. Coco movie also shows that the jump from one dimension to another takes place on some altar. An altar is flat raised structure made of either stone or wood that can serve as a gateway to other dimensions according to prescribed rites. In the case of coco, the altars were atop Aztec or Olmec (or earlier civilization’s) pyramids. This suggested the true purpose of the ubiquitous pyramids as a tool for inter-dimensional travel and communication. In Soul, the altars seem random but are always close to underground train stations. If you google ‘most haunted places in New York’, some underground stations feature top on the list. This may indicate that prior to the construction of the stations, some ancient altars may have been in operation in the same grounds. Nevertheless, New York has many pyramid-themed structures and their construction may not simply have been for aesthetic purposes. In all, both movies have tried to reach out deeper into human origins and projected far to the future to attempt explain our dual physical/spiritual existence.
Any modern parent will have to answer many questions from children about death. So far Disney has done many shy parents a service by introducing their children to this dark concept. Such knowledge can help the young to process grief in case of bereavement, depending on which viewpoint one could adopt. The death talk has to be interwoven with hopes of immortality. How we could humanly attain this is through virtue and valor. But there is need for Africans to research on their own death myths and folklore, polish and rephrase for this generation of kids and tell it when the occasion is right.
hehe, I recommend elders who enjoy watching animation movies to try Coco. @Jimit najua hupendi cartoons but hii animation ukipata time unaweza icheki. Very funny.
The other dimensions exists and modern organised religion is just a diluted version. Each human being has a portal in the peneal gland at the center of the brain.