No, I think this is actually a really good point. It's always been one of the defining...tenets, I suppose, of good Sci Fi and Fantasy that it takes the reader out of the everyday world in order to comment on the everyday world. For example, The Mikado is patently not about Japan -- it is about then-contemporary England. It was set in Japan so that Gilbert and Sullivan could satirize and criticize England more harshly without getting lynched.
I think that in a lot of ways, that sort of symbolism and parallel is what makes great works of fiction great. Labyrinth isn't just a cult classic because of David Bowie's pants -- it's a highly symbolic and sophisticated bildungsroman that is worth watching over and over. (Or maybe I'm just trying to justify it to myself.)
I think that's the key to the success behind Pixar too. Luxo Jr. isn't really about a desk lamp; it's about a little kid -- or at least, that's how people respond to it emotionally. They just kind of disguise the little kid as a desk lamp. For all the talk about AppleGrant's aliens, I think the most important aspect is that we emotionally recognize them. Their societies have all existed on Earth, to some degree (well, the Taxxons are a bit of a stretch, but in AC we get a look at their inner workings as well, and I certainly sympathized a lot more).
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 04:15 am (UTC)I think that in a lot of ways, that sort of symbolism and parallel is what makes great works of fiction great. Labyrinth isn't just a cult classic because of David Bowie's pants -- it's a highly symbolic and sophisticated bildungsroman that is worth watching over and over. (Or maybe I'm just trying to justify it to myself.)
I think that's the key to the success behind Pixar too. Luxo Jr. isn't really about a desk lamp; it's about a little kid -- or at least, that's how people respond to it emotionally. They just kind of disguise the little kid as a desk lamp. For all the talk about AppleGrant's aliens, I think the most important aspect is that we emotionally recognize them. Their societies have all existed on Earth, to some degree (well, the Taxxons are a bit of a stretch, but in AC we get a look at their inner workings as well, and I certainly sympathized a lot more).