“A Transformative Journey”

Toi Hikari

Disney is very well known for their animated films showcasing emotions that connect with its audience. Examples of disney films that do a great job on showcasing this are Toy Story, Tarzan, Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinnochio, and many more. It is often done sometimes by giving non-humanoid characters human emotions/characteristics as well as giving human characters animal-like characteristics. The question is though, what are the ways disney showcase human characteristics through non-human characters and vice-versa and how is it done? Some of the ways that Disney is able to portray this very well is through the use of its animations, music, plot, and its character development. Both Disney films, Brother Bear, and Tarzan have similar themes and excel very well at showcasing these points. Well now let’s explore two Disney films that demonstrate this perfectly and syncs together, Tarzan, and Brother Bear.

Before we get more into depth about these films, it is best to know what exactly these films are. Let’s start first with the Disney adaptation, Tarzan. “Released on June 18th, 1999, Tarzan is another Disney film based on a popular legend and adapted to cartoon form” (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). This comes from the adaptation of the book Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is also known to be the very last Disney movie, during the “Disney Renaissance” era. What exactly is the “Disney Renaissance'' you may be wondering? “The Disney Renaissance is an important era in Disney animation history, beginning with The Little Mermaid in 1989 and ending with Tarzan in 1999. It marks the decade when Disney returned to its roots, drawing on familiar fairy tales (or adapting well-known stories, like Hamlet) and relying on memorable music and a stunning mixture of hand-drawn animation and CGI” (Timothy Moore, April 18th, 2022). To start off, “the story of Tarzan as told by Disney starts off with the stories of two different families touched by loss, a gorilla couple whose baby is eaten by a leopard, and a marooned human couple who are killed in their amazing tree-house, leaving their baby orphaned”  (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). The same leopard that killed the two apes, Kala and Kercheck’s child, attempts to eat the young little orphaned human child, Tarzan. Kala, following her motherly instinct saves Tarzan from the leopard attack and attempts to adopt and raise the little human boy as her own child. However, Kerchak, husband of Kala as well as leader of the ape pack, doesn't take this too lightly nor does he accept Tarzan as his “son” or as part of the pack. When Kala expresses to Kerchak how much of a good son Tarzan will be stating “Kerchak I know he’ll be a good son”, Kerchack replies with a sternly voice “I said he can stay! That doesn’t make him my son”. Although Tarzan is given permission to stay by Kerchak to stay out of respect for Kala, it is shown clearly through his tone and facial expressions that he is not comfortable with the idea. He looks at Tarzan with disdain and looks at him as nothing more than an outsider who will never be a part of the family. Tarzan recognizes this and does his best to prove himself to Kerchak, to gain his trust, his respect, and most importantly his acceptance. However, in doing so he stumbles upon creatures in the jungle that look like him, Jane, Jane’s father Professor Porter, and their guide Clayton. They’re in the jungle to learn more about the gorillas. Tarzan is torn between two realities, having to choose between learning more about what he is and choosing to live as a human, as well as trying to fit in with his ape family and live as the “hairless ape”. This kind of decision is ultimately what helps Tarzan discover his humanity while also gaining the acceptance he always wanted from his ape family. Now that we talked a bit about the Disney adaptation of Tarzan, let’s talk a bit about the Disney film Brother Bear.

The Disney film Brother Bear, was released on October 24th, 2003. It takes place during the Post Renaissance Disney Era or also known as the “Second Dark Age”. This is a time where Disney tried to step away from it’s Renaissance roots, as they tried to incorporate CGI as well as incorporate less singing in their Disney films. After finding out that the Lion King film was such a successful hit movie, the team and Ceo was asked if there were any other animal based stories in the works. That was when Ceo, Michael Eisner, came up with the idea that his next project would focus on an animal film that was set in North America, and the idea of a bear popped in his mind (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). “Director, Aaron Blaise, mentioned that he liked drawing bears, and the seed for Brother Bear was planted” (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). As the team were on the drawing board of bringing ideas to start their story, “the team was heavily inspired by a variety of Native American myths and legends, particularly the transformation stories, and in the “Making Of” feature, they say that they researched these stories extensively when making Brother Bear (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). From this, it’s safe to say that the film was heavily influenced on Native Americans' culture of stories and the symbolism behind those stories, specifically the theme of “transformation”. “The transformation stories struck a particular chord in the team because the characters were transformed into something else to learn important lessons. They particularly loved the bear transformation stories. As the directing team put it, the idea is that bears hibernate every year and are reborn again in the spring, making them an ideal way for someone to be reborn into a new life” (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). What makes this choice of theme, “transformation”, so powerful is that it plays a huge part in the character development of Kenai, as well as is the main showcase of the film. The meaning of “transformation” (a dramatic change in form or appearance) is shown and used throughout the film both metaphorically and in the most literal sense through Kenai (vocabulary.com, 2023) “The story also appealed to the team because they saw it as a universal story; every culture has a story about a transformation. They also point out that all Disney movies are about transformations in some ways, either metaphorically or literally. This just happens to be one of the literal transformation stories” (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). 

The story of Brother Bear starts off with 3 Native brothers, Kenai, Denahi, and Sitka. Kenai being the youngest, but also being the most reckless. Denahi being the middle brother, who is trying to follow his totem, and Sitka being the oldest of the three brothers, but also the wisest. “Kenai is a brash, fun-loving, adventurous and hotheaded hunter who’s looking for his place in the world. Since he’s coming of age, he’s looking forward to becoming a man, without actually knowing what that entails'' (February 4th, 2016, thecoolkat1995). Kenai wants to find his totem and what does it mean to become a “man”. To do that, he undergoes a ceremony called the “coming of age ceremony”. A coming-of-age ceremony marks the introduction of young people into the world of adults. After young people complete the ceremony, they are seen as adults (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023). Kenai becomes frustrated and disappointed with the totem animal he is assigned, a bear, that symbolizes “love”. While gathering food with his brothers, a bear eats the food that Kenai and his brothers worked to gather. “To prove his toughness, he attempts to track down a basket dragged away by a bear who had stolen some food during the ceremony, and angrily provokes the bear after finding it” (tvtropes.org). Kenai puts himself in danger as he is now attacked by the bear, in which naturally, his brothers Sitka and Denahi come to his aid. The 3 brothers do their best to fend off the bear attack and get home safely. While the two brothers Kenai and Denahi survive the bear attack, Sitka, the eldest brother, unfortunately does not make it out alive, due to his noble sacrifice to drag the bear with him at the edge of the icy cliff to save his brothers. Kenai and Denahi hold a special ceremony to mourn the death of Sitka. Angry Kenai refuses to set back and let the bear get away with Sitka’s death, he tries to persuade Denahi to join him and hunt the bear down, but Denahi refuses. From there, Kenai angrily throws his Bear necklace, symbolizing that he is abandoning his totem, and sets off on his hunt to track down the bear, to avenge the death of his brother. He manages to track the bear down and corner it to a cliff. Kenai manages to succeed in killing the bear. However, in doing so, Kenai is turned into a bear by his brother Sitka, who is with the spirits, in which Denahi warned him about before he took off stating to Kenai “Kenai! Don’t upset the spirits”. What this scene can imply is that Kenai is being punished by the spirits, specifically Sitka, for breaking his totem and killing the bear. When Kenai wakes up and emerges as a bear, he stumbles across a young cub named Koda, who was separated from his mom. From there, the two set off together to head to the mountains, “Salmon Run”,where the “lights touch the earth”. For Kenai, this is a spiritual journey where he learns the values and importance of brotherhood, love, and empathy. 

For context on what a totem is, “in Native American culture, a totem animal is the spiritual symbol of an individual, family, or tribe. Your totem animal, according to American Indian belief, is the main guiding spirit that stays with you for your lifetime or your family throughout its lineage. Different animal guides may come and go in different situations or periods in your life, but your totem animal will always serve as your principal guide or protector. You may be drawn to this animal innately or experience a spiritual epiphany that leads you to it (faustgallery, April 14, 2020). From this explanation as well as Kenai’s display of disappointment, it can be inferred that one doesn’t choose their totem or spirit animal, their spirit animal chooses them. According to Kenai’s spirit animal/totem, it seems that his totem represents or symbolizes “love”, but it also seems to symbolize power, physical strength, and leadership (faustgallery, April 14, 2020). It is a bit ironic to think about since Kenai’s personality doesn’t resemble those quality traits of a strong powerful leader. Those traits seem to resemble more for his older brother Sitka, who's spirit animal is an eagle. His spirit animal represents bravery, courage, and strength. However, that is what makes Kenai’s character growth and journey such an investment to watch. Now that we have an idea of what the two films are about, let’s get into some of the things that stand out in between these two movies.

Both Disney films, Tarzan, and Tarzan have great elements throughout the movie that helps the movie shine in their own way. Let’s start off with Tarzan first. One of the elements of the film that helps showcase the animal characteristics that Tarzan demonstrates through the film is the animation and what he does.The way that Tarzan was able to move despite being a human is one of the very few aspects of the film that stands out. A perfect example of this is the scene where Tarzan is fighting the leopard, “Sabor”. The scene at 27:20 mins through 27:34 mins of the film, if you pay close attention and notice the way he moves, you will notice that Tarzan is extremely agile, crawling on all fours while moving backwards to evade Sabor’s attacks, climbing through trees, grabbing the vines with his feet, and swinging on vines similar to a monkey. Tarzan throughout the film is shown to jump through great heights, not only is he very agile as demonstrated throughout the film, he is also quite durable. It is safe to say that in order for Tarzan to be able to keep up with the apes and survive in the jungle, he would have to find ways to adapt, and have strengths that stand out to the apes, that being his evasiness and agility. A scene that does well of showing this is when he saves Jane from being attacked from the hordes of Baboons. At 35:52-37:05, you can see Tarzan swing on vines, grabbing Jane with his feet, moving on tree-like rails like he is skating, grabbing the vines with his arms and feet to stop himself from falling, and surfing through the trees. “Tarzan’s movements were based on pro-skaters, including that of Tony Hawk. Glen Keane, the supervising animator of Tarzan, was supposedly inspired by his son’s interest in surfing and skateboarding (and those moves) to create how Tarzan moves through the jungle. The movements are so smooth and the character moves in such a unique way, that there was doubt whether or not an actual human could move that way” (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). Some other instincts in which Tarzan seems to resemble more animal characteristics are in the same case when fighting Sabor. Shown through 27:42-27:46 mins of the film, when he cuts Sabor, Sabor snarls at him, and Tarzan snarls back at him as a form of him standing his ground. Animals are known to snarl as an act of aggression or standing their ground, and as an act of dominance. Another scene that demonstrates Tarzan’s animosity is when Tarzan along with Jane and her father is captured by Clayton. Shown through 1:10:20-1:10:36, you can see Tarzan angrily throwing himself at the walls desperately trying to find a way to escape the boat, to save his family from Clayton’s ambush. However throughout the film, Tarzan is shown to become less animalistic and more “human” thanks to the influence of Jane. One of the key aspects of every Disney film, with Tarzan being no exception, is the music.

The song “Strangers Like Me” by Phil Collin (a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, drummer, singer, songwriter, and a multi-million album selling artist) wrote and performed the music (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). The scene and music perfectly shows Tarzan’s character growth of learning about his roots as a human. For instance Jane teaches Tarzan how to read and the lyrics through the song “I can see there's so much to learn. It’s all so close and yet so far. I see myself as people see me. Oh I just know there's something bigger out there” (Phil Collins, May 18, 1999). This is the beginning of Tarzan learning to be in touch with his humanity. Tarzan’s curiosity of wanting to learn more about his kind and where he comes from is told through the lyrics “I wanna know. Can you show me? I wanna know about these strangers like me. Tell me more. Please show me. Something’s familiar about these strangers like me” (Phil Collins, May 18, 1999). He also starts to become familiar with the concept of love. “Every gesture. Every move that she makes, makes me feel like never before. Why do I have this growing need to be beside her?” (Phil Collins, May 18, 1999). Tarzan is experiencing a phenomenon of emotions that's allowing him to find his humanity even further as told through the lyrics “Ooh these emotions I never knew. Of some other world far beyond this place” (Phil Collins, May 18, 1999). Time to move on to the Brother Bear film.

Similar to Tarzan, the scenes/animation plays a huge part on how the audience views Kenai’s story through his perspective as a bear. Even something simple as making Kenai and the other animals talk is a huge human characteristic given to the animals. An intense scene that shows Kenai’s struggle to come to terms with what he has done is the scene at the timestamp 1:02:50-1:05:00, where Kenai and the bears he came across are telling stories. From the scene, Koda is telling the story where Kenai fought the bear, but from his own perspective. This triggers Kenai to have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), as the memories are flashing through his head, when he puts together that he killed Koda’s mother. This realization causes Kenai to have an anxiety attack, breathing hard, and run away in panic. You can see it all through Kenai’s eyes and the guilt of his actions all hits him at once causing him to have an anxiety attack. Some symptoms of anxiety attacks include breathing rapidly (hyperventilation), trembling, trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry, restlessness, and having the urge to escape from a situation (mayoclinic.org, 1998). These are all the symptoms that Kenai faced. A powerful scene that captures the hearts of the audience is where Kenai tells Koda the truth about what happened to his mother. The scene perfectly captures the intense atmosphere as Koda is seen crying, running off in the snow, and Kenai goes after him to try to talk to him. Kenai deeply regrets his actions as he stumbles on his words and says “Koda I wish I could…If there was some way…I-I’d give anything if…. If I could just.. I’m sorry Koda. I’m so sorry”. It shows that Kenai had to learn what humility is as a bear, to get him to understand the importance of how his actions affect the people he cares about. Part of Kenai’s journey is Kenai learning that taking responsibility for your actions is part of the process of being an adult. The animation studio does a great take of showing Kenai’s confusion and fear as a bear when he is being hunted by Denahi and asking Sitka for guidance. It is shown in the timestamp of the scene that Kenai was lost and confused in what he should do. 1:11:30-1:12:42 when Kenai says “Please, Sitka. I don't know what else to do”; in the same scene when he mistakes Sitka for Denahi, as he runs away, as his eyes open up wide, you can see how fearful Kenai was as he says “Sitka! Hurry! Change me back!. Kenai is put in the same position he put Koda’s mom. However,  a scene that really nails down Kenai’s character growth is Kenai choosing to remain a bear for Koda during scene 1:50:00-1:50:11. Kenai looks over at his totem as well as Koda and says to Denahi “He needs me”. A component I want to explore a bit more is the music of Brother Bear.

Like Tarzan, Disney went with the same route for Brother Bear and continued the trend of not having the characters sing songs. Just like Tarzan, the songs were performed by Phil Collins. “In the same way that he performed the music in Tarzan, using Phil Collins as a singer over the film allows the story to maintain a feeling of realness (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). For Phil Collins, he never learned how to write songs, until Brother Bear. He was excited to learn and wrote most of the songs for Brother Bear. “Phil Collins and Mark Mancina, who had written the score for Tarzan, collaborated on the score for Brother Bear. The score builds at just the right times and knows when to lead the audience to a more somber feeling (Bailey Cavender, July 28, 2019). A perfect example of this is the song “No Way Out”. The song is an emotional turning point where Kenai tells Koda the truth about killing his mother. “Everywhere I turn, I hurt someone. But there's nothing I can say to change the things I've done. Of all the things I hid from you, I cannot hide the shame. There’s no way out of this dark place. No Hope, no future. I know I can’t be free, but I can’t see another way. Tell me where, did I go wrong? Everyone I loved, they’re all gone. I’d do everything differently, but I can’t turn back time” (Phil Collins, October 20th, 2003). The lyrics are very powerful and meaningful as it shows Kenai’s feelings of guilt, sorrow, and betrayal with himself and the people he cares about. It's time to wrap up everything.

“Symbolic interactionism states that the self is derived from and develops through human interaction. This means the way you act toward someone or something is based on the meaning you have for a person or thing. To effectively communicate, people use symbols with shared cultural meanings” (Alia Tyner, August 14, 2022). This can be shown through both films. For instance, in Brother Bear, Kenai and his brothers are assigned spirit animals through their totems, which symbolizes their path. Tarzan is able to discover his identity by interacting with other humans like him such as Jane. Sometimes in life, we may question why things happen and why things are the way they are; but a journey of self discovery is all it takes for a person to learn more about themselves. If you’re willing to stick it out and see it through despite how tough things may seem, in time everything will make sense.

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