Proud of You

“Sometimes I think you adopted me because Fred was such a disappointment.”

Hop (2011)

Often when I write a blog post featuring a specific book or film or television serial or stage production or piece of fiction in whichever other format, implicit in my doing so is a suggestion that I would recommend said piece of fiction as an enjoyable way for my dearly cherished readers to spend their time. I would like to make clear from the off that that is not so today; on the contrary, this post is about one of the least inspiring motion pictures I have ever seen. I can think of no redeeming feature on whose account I can honestly soften such criticism, unless one were to count the fact that one of the many facets of the film’s storyline that I greatly disliked will provide the analogy for the point I’d like to make today.

 

To suit the theme of Hop, a rather charming rabbit. Or hare. How does one tell?

The plot of Hop is so altogether unoriginal that it employs the most unbearably overworn trope of recent computer-animated films – that of a misfit son with crazy dreams failing to live up to the standards of his respectable and conventional father¹ – not once but twice. The two misfit sons are E. B., the CGI son of the Easter Bunny, and Fred O’Hare, an unemployed (human) Californian still living in his parents’ house. To spare you any unnecessary rendition of the tedious narrative that follows, I’m going to completely ignore E. B., and pluck out only two scenes that showcase Fred’s relationship with his dad, Henry.

The first is an intervention that Fred’s family holds with the hope of persuading him to get a job, move out, and generally start behaving like a competent adult. “You need to get a life,” is the way Henry puts it. A moment later, Fred’s adopted sister Alex chimes in: “Sometimes I think you adopted me because Fred was such a disappointment.”

“Alex, that is a very hurtful statement,” Henry chides her.

“You’re not denying it,” she counters.

The second is taken from the end of the film. After a series of rather silly and frankly uninteresting adventures, E. B. and Fred have been appointed as co-Easter Bunnies. Fred’s family aren’t massively more impressed with that as a career choice than they were with Fred’s previous unemployment; his mother describes his uniform as a ‘costume’ and Henry states that whenever Fred talks about delivering Easter baskets, he mentally replaces ‘easter basket’ with ‘pizza’ as a coping mechanism. But then E. B. stops by in the duo’s work vehicle (it flies, is pulled by a horde of festive animals, and travels the world bestowing gifts upon children, but it’s definitely not a sleigh, mmkay kids?) and all of a sudden Henry changes his mind: “Fred, wait – this is amazing! … I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I’m proud of you.” They hug it out. Fred thanks his father and trots back to his definitely-not-a-sleigh. “Easter Bunny – wow! The one who makes it all happen,” Henry continues to enthuse.

As I say, I’m pretty spoilt for choice in terms of things I disliked about Hop, but this one might just take the Easter biscuit.² Oh look, it’s the happy-ending reconciliation scene that inevitably caps off an instance of the misfit-son trope: Fred’s dad is proud of him now, isn’t it all wonderful? But Henry had made it abundantly, relentlessly clear that he was disappointed in Fred, right the way through the film, and only changed his tune at the sight of a leporine³ colleague and a set of flash wheels. His pride in his son has no basis but these flimsy trappings of success that Fred now carries. It arose in a moment and will presumably vanish just as readily if Fred is to lose those trappings for whatever reason. Are we the audience supposed to be satisfied with that as a conclusion? Shouldn’t Henry be proud of his son regardless of whether he has a fancy definitely-not-a-sleigh to drive about in? Shouldn’t he proud of his son no matter what?

Although actually, let’s pause on that thought for a moment. Suppose Fred had chosen a different career path; suppose he had become a professional serial killer, say. (Hard to imagine, I know, but indulge me.) Would it be reasonable for Henry to express pride in him then? Much as conditional pride seems shallow and valueless, if we’re to argue in favour of unconditional pride instead, then our only option is to claim that pride in an individual can be completely detached from any endorsement of what that individual actually does with his or her time – and I’m just not sure that I buy that. One can hardly tell someone, “I’m proud of you, but at the same time I think every life choice you’ve ever made is idiotic and evil.” What would the first half of that statement even mean in such circumstances?

 

Theoretical serial-killer Fred claims another victim. Proud of you, buddy.

I imagine that we all want the people we care about to be proud of us. (I certainly do.) But if they’re proud of us conditionally, then we’ll live in constant fear of falling short of their standards and losing their pride in us; and if they’re proud of us unconditionally, the victory is nevertheless hollow, because that means that nothing we do actually matters to them. What are they proud of, at the end of the day – just the idea of us, completely removed from the reality of what we’re actually like?

Is there a third option? Is there another way to be proud of someone?

Well, consider this: there’s another way to be proud of something. If I say that I’m proud of that essay I wrote or that artwork I produced or that solution I thought of to that tricky problem, the onus is on me, not the source of my pride. The essay doesn’t have to do anything to ensure that I’ll continue to be proud of it, nor is the question of what it’s like totally irrelevant to my pride in it. I wrote it in such a way that I’m proud of it and that’s the end of the matter. The essay is totally passive in this process; all it does is be written, by me, so that the entire responsibility for whether I will be proud of it rests with me, and not any agency of its.

Perhaps I’m stating the obvious; essays don’t, after all, have any agency of their own to exercise (whatever it might feel like when the actual contents of your word document have turned into something very different from the plan you discussed with your lecturer). And this kind of pride therefore can’t apply to inter-human relationships like Henry and Fred’s, because the latter does have his own agency independent of other humans, as do we all. But if you’re familiar with me and my weekly ramblings, you’ve no doubt already twigged that I have a somewhat different relationship in mind.

“For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers,” wrote the author of the letter to the Hebrews.⁴ Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers – why? Not conditionally, because of what we have achieved or the trappings of success we bear, seeing as nothing we do could ever meet God’s standards; not unconditionally, detached from the reality of what we’re actually like and so meaningless; but because we have been made of one with him who sanctifies us. That is now the reality of what we’re actually like, and that was all his doing, not ours; we had no agency in our being made one with him. He’s the author and we’re the essay. He’s proud of us because he has made us, in Christ, something worth being proud of.

Of course, when I write an essay, even if I am proud of it, it’s never going to be perfect, because I’m not perfect. God, on the other hand is, and so there’s no threat that he’ll make a mistake and end up ultimately producing in us something that’s not worth being proud of. Every bit of sanctification that he achieves in us, every way in which he edges us closer to being like Christ, is something worth being proud of – because Christ is worth being proud of. God is proud of us because he is proud of the one with whom he has made us one – the one who demonstrated love and mercy and humility and obedience and every pride-worthy virtue you care to name to the absolute maximum when he gave his life for us on the cross.

Our story, like Fred’s, ends up with us being reconciled to our Father. But we didn’t need a definitely-not-a-sleigh to convince him to be proud of us.

Footnotes

¹ More of my opinions on this narrative trope can be found in ‘Variation of Animation’, under ‘2016’ then ‘April’ in the box on the right, if you feel at all inclined to consider them.

² Easter biscuits, if you didn’t know, are really tasty sugary biscuits with currants in them that are for some reason associated with Easter. But the vaguely Hop-themed recipe to which I’m going to point you today is actually one for carrot cake which I tried out recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/classic_carrot_cake_08513. It makes a seriously good cake, but you’ll probably want to halve the quantities unless you own a cake tin the size of a small lake.

³ That is to say, of, like, or pertaining to rabbits or hares. I have found a directory of Latin-derived animal adjectives and am extremely pleased about the fact: http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/animalaj.htm.

⁴ My own translation, because I didn’t like the way the English translations tend to dream up a noun to attach to the number, but you can have the rest of the chapter according to the ESV as usual: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+2&version=ESVUK.

Snow White: A Practical Version

Lorenzo:         We’re doing a good thing.

Angelica:        Yes.

Lorenzo:         A noble thing.

Angelica:        Yes.

Lorenzo:         We’re putting our own feelings aside for the good of our families.

Angelica:        Yes. So we’ll get married and have lots of children and everyone will be happy.

Lorenzo:         Except us. Whoa, wait a minute, children? Who said anything about having children?

Angelica:        What did you expect? It’s what married couples do.

Leonardo S2 E11, ‘Hitched’ (2012)

It probably says something about the kind of brain I have that an idea it recently chucked at me for a fun twist on a fairytale was to explain the characters’ actions as having taken place for extremely practical and mundane reasons chiefly relating to the politics of running a small kingdom. This is the spirit in which the following monologue was written, which is intended to represent the thoughts of the prince associated with Snow White. I hope you derive some amusement from it, and if any possibilities for further filling out of plot details along the same lines should occur to you – I’ve left the story halfway through, after all – or, indeed, if any particularly fun possibilities for the rendering of other fairytales in the same manner should occur to you, then please do voice them, or rather, type them, I suppose.

 

Snow White, according to the digital paintbrush of the very talented xaolan at newgrounds.com.

***

Heirs.

That’s what it’s about, at the end of the day, this whole prince-charming gig. If you haven’t got an heir, then it doesn’t matter how good you are at duelling and dragon-slaying and diplomacy; it doesn’t matter how capable or virtuous or beloved by your people you are; it doesn’t matter whether you’ve managed to defeat your enemies and secure your borders and bring peace and prosperity to the territories over which you’re responsible, because if you haven’t got an heir, then there’s nobody to hand the peace and prosperity down to. No heir means that all those achievements die with you and the kingdom descends into civil war as your former advisors and even friends trample each other down in a vicious scramble to claim your vacant throne. A lack of an heir has spelled the doom of some of the most impressive autocracies in history; don’t think it won’t spell the doom of yours too.¹

At least, that’s how my parents seem to like to put it. And the thing is, parents, merely by virtue of their being parents, rather annoyingly have every right to put the pressure on as far as this point is concerned: they have, merely by virtue of their being parents, already enjoyed some success in the business of producing heirs. In other words, nothing less than my own very existence provides the basis for the standard I’m expected to meet.

But in order to produce an heir, of course, one needs a wife. And this, my friends, is why you’ve ended up under the impression that princes like me have nothing better to do with our time than pursuing potential brides, whether that involves something strenuous like slaying a dragon who’s keeping a lady captive, or something less strenuous like holding a lot of parties. It’s because we genuinely haven’t got anything better to do with our time. Nothing is more important than providing a secure future for the kingdom, and that means that nothing is more important than finding someone to marry.

Though, just to make life more complicated, it can’t just be any old someone. First off, she has to be a woman of high status. A noblewoman from your own kingdom might sometimes do, but really you want a princess from another kingdom, because then you can use the marriage to make an alliance. In short, the better her position is, the better your position and your heirs’ position will be. Second, she has to be in a promising state for childbearing. Princesses tend to get married in their late teens, to make maximum use of their fertile years. General good health matters as well; if she looks sickly or weak, that raises the question of how well her body will cope with pregnancy and childbirth. To a large extent, that’s the real issue at hand when we’re talking about beauty (or lack of it). And third, and trickiest, you have to be very, very sure that she is in fact – ah, how to put this delicately … that she is in fact a maiden. Heirs are the whole point; if there is any doubt about the parentage of the children she bears, any at all, then we have a civil-war scenario brewing already. I wouldn’t be so crass as to point fingers, but everyone knows of cases where a princess’ startling eagerness to get married has been followed by a reasonably short pregnancy resulting in a child whose resemblance to said princess’ husband is, shall we say, rather limited. So if one’s potential bride has been confined to the house doing domestic chores, or imprisoned alone in a secret tower in the woods, or trapped in a castle whose every occupant including herself is under a sleep enchantment behind an impenetrable hedge of thorns, or something, ever since she hit puberty, that’s pretty ideal. If you’d been thinking it was just sheer noble princely heroism that prompted us to rescue these kinds of damsels in distress, then I hate to burst your bubble, but think again. It’s far more selfish than that.

 

Thorns. Ouch.

I hasten to add that a rescued princess has every right to turn her rescuer down, but they hardly ever do. A nice marriage alliance and a few high-status heirs probably look just as desirable to her as to him. If her parents are still about, you can bet they’ve been putting just as much pressure on her as his have on him. Plus, if you’ve managed to climb the secret tower or hack your way through the hedge of thorns or slay the dragon – whatever the nature of the confinement may be – you’ve proved that you’ve got a bit about you, you know. You’ve got some guts and some physical prowess and probably some brains as well, and that means you might well do a halfway decent job of maintaining peace and security in your court and kingdom, which means the oh-so-important heirs will hopefully end up with something halfway decent to inherit, and Her Highness will be able to live in comfort while she’s busy producing them. A prince who’s competent enough to rescue her from her imprisonment is as good as she’s likely to get, basically.

I didn’t quite manage to properly rescue my damsel in distress in time.

Her name is Snow White,² and she is a princess, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it to look at her right now. Her parents both died before she came of age, so her stepmother starting acting as regent for her, and of course she made all the right noises about handing the throne back to Snow White just as soon as she was old enough, but come on, we’ve all seen that before. If the Queen Regent had been serious about ever relinquishing her power, she wouldn’t have had Snow White locked up in the bit of the palace where the scullery maids live, now would she?

Ah, you’ve spotted it. A princess locked up with the scullery maids since she was a child, but now teetering on the brink of adulthood – as potential brides go, she ticked all the boxes. The fact that she’d been functionally stripped of her royal status presented a slight snag, admittedly, but I didn’t imagine that would be too difficult to deal with: the Queen Regent was unpopular, and restoring the kingdom to Snow White would probably only take a small army, which is something I happen to have. So I did my heroic breaking-into-the-palace bit, which I figured should be enough to prove my worth, and had a bit of a chat with the princess. She looked in pretty good shape to me – very pale, granted, presumably from having spent so much time indoors, but the scullery maids had clearly been making sure she was well fed and looked after (and her hips weren’t a bad width either) – and she was keen to get her kingdom back, so when I offered her that in exchange for her hand in marriage, she jumped at the chance. It was all going swimmingly; all I had to do was nip back home to gather my troops, depose the Queen Regent, and arrange for Snow White’s coronation, and the deal would be done.

How the Queen Regent got wind of my plan, I have no idea. But she’s a shrewd and decisive lady, I’ll give her that: she immediately took measures to get rid of Snow White permanently. She’d presumably been hoping that if she just kept the princess out of sight, unmarried, and so heirless, she’d be able to establish her own line on the throne – because even though Snow White was the rightful ruler, if she didn’t have any heirs, then taking major risks in order to put her back on the throne wouldn’t necessarily look like a great option as far as her subjects were concerned. Again, it’s all about the heirs!

A huntsman was charged with killing Snow White, but he was loyal to her family and wouldn’t dare lay a hand on her, so she ended up fleeing into the woods, according to my sources – though that’s the last they’ve heard of her. I’ve got my people scouring the area for any sign of her, but I don’t doubt the Queen Regent will be doing the same by now; she’ll have twigged soon enough that the huntsman didn’t really kill Snow White. So it’s essentially a race. If I find her first, we’ll proceed with the original plan. If the Queen Regent finds her first, she’ll kill her. But I can’t make a move against the Queen Regent until I’ve found Snow White: if I’m not restoring the rightful monarch to the throne, it’ll just be a straightforward invasion, and I somehow think the people of that kingdom, not to mention my own, might look rather less fondly on that.

My dear parents, as you can probably imagine, are not exactly thrilled by these developments. I mean, I’m obviously going to stick to what I promised Snow White whatever happens, or my word will be worth nothing, and I’ll be very glad to find her safe and well whatever the circumstances, but I dread to think what my parents might say if it turns out she’s been spending time with other men since she, you know, fled for her life and that. Oh, wait a moment, here’s a messenger; he’ll be bringing the latest report from my scouts, I should think…

Oh, thank goodness, they’ve found her! And she’s all right! And she’s … been living with seven men in a remote cottage in the forest.

Oh dear. How on earth am I going to explain that?

Footnotes

¹ Notable example: Alexander the Great. I once read a really interesting novel based on psychological analysis of Henry VIII that made pretty much exactly the same point, so I probably owe some credit there: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/H-M-Castor/VIII/10802882.

² I wrote a bit about Disney’s Snow White specifically – and touched very lightly on some of the ideas covered in this post – in ‘In Defence of Snow White’ in October 2016. In the box on the right if you happen to fancy a read. Also, here’s a fascinating video that also makes a defence of Snow White as a great Disney princess, though on very different grounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7FF8nL42qw.