Elemental, a new Pixar for inclusion

 Elemental is a 2023 Pixar cartoon directed by Peter Sohn. It is released with a short cartoon with Carl and Dug from the cartoon Up, another Pixar.

It is the story of Ember Lumen a fire element girl who lives in Elemental City. She lived with the only purpose to take back her parent's shop.

Unluckily she met Wade, a water element guy, who is a city inspector and sees a lot of issues in the shop and these will probably lead to the closing of it because it is no longer to the norms.

Ember tells him a bit too late why she doesn't want the shop to close and Wade, who is way too emotional, will help her because he is moved by her story.

While being together they learn about their cultural differences and accept them while they also fall in love.

Wade will teach Lumen that she has to follow her intuition and feelings because they are trying to tell her something.

Through this cartoon the public see xenophobia towards the elements. Lumen's dad doesn't like (to not say despite) the water element people because one water element didn't excuse himself to put his wife in danger by pouring by accident some of himself.

Element City is a depiction of New York City and we can see it through some elements:

-Ember's parents are migrants and the agent who welcomed them changed their name to include them more easily because their names were incomprehensible to him, it is a big reference to Ellis Island where the migrants arrived to New York and many of them had their names changed because they weren't understood by the Americans (fun fact Walt Disney is probably a descendant, or is I don't remember if it was checked or not, of a French migrant from the city of Isigny and in French "from Isigny" is "d'Isigny" and the customs officer changed it is Disney).

-There's also the theme of racism that is common to the two cities, each district is made for a specific element as if they can't live together (while New York had the Bronx for black people, for example). Fire people are often put aside because they are seen as potential dangers by other elements in some context.

It's an interesting cartoon to show people that every culture has good and bad points but if we don't share it with another none can be developed. It is here to show the diversity and accepting people for who they are and not because of which category they are put into.

4.9/5 The animation was excellent even though I would have liked to see more about the air and earth elements in this cartoon (I hope we will if there's an Elemental 2) and also discover more about the city. Except this it was perfect the characters were well developed and shows that women can be unable to show their emotions while men can over show them and be cry babies.

 

See you next week for the next article. We can even share a raclette together.