I was about eleven years old at the time and well over my princess phase however, I remember how important it was to me to go and watch the movie. Disney had released their first Disney princess movie that featured a Black lead, The Princess and the Frog. The first time I noticed this was in 2009. Soul, like many other animated movies that feature Black leads, fell into the tired trope of turning the leading Black character into an animal or object that doesn’t let them fully explore their Black identity. Not only because I’m a 22-year-old who doesn’t know what she wants to do with her undergraduate degree and pending graduate degree, but because the movie felt somewhat familiar – in a bad way. Throughout the film, the viewer goes along with the main characters in the animated cosmic realm to discover the answer to life’s most important question: What makes you…You? However, as I trying to answer life’s essential question for myself, I found myself coming up against a wall. Not wanting to give up on his chance on living his perceived dream, Gardner’s soul escapes to the “Great Before”, where he mentors unborn soul 22, voiced by Tina Fey, into figuring out what their life meaning is. Shortly after Gardner secures his first big break, he manages to find himself as a soul heading into the “Great Beyond” after accidently falling down a manhole. Soul takes the viewer along on the journey of a middle school band teacher, Joe Gardner (Foxx), who longs to make it big as a jazz musician. The characters looked like me, my family, and some of my closest friends. Even the animated characters looked like actual Black people, not some exaggerated or perfected version of what people may want Black people to be. The movie makes a note to point out the cultural significance of New York and jazz to African American culture. ![]() I felt identified in the movie Soul takes the viewer on a journey from the streets of New York City and it’s set to a jazz background. ![]() For example, Soul was the first Pixar film to feature a Black lead, voiced by Jamie Foxx. ![]() There were a lot of qualities about Soul that were particularly soul touching for me to watch as a Black woman. Not bad for a movie that was released straight to Disney+ on Christmas. In an even more surprising feat, Deadline reported that during the week of December 21 st through 27 th, Soul received just under 1.7 billion total streaming minutes, beating out popular NBC show The Office which garnered only 1.435 billion streaming minutes during that same week. For example, it’s received an 8.1/10 rating from IMDb and a Tomatometer score of 95% from Rotten Tomatoes. Since its debut, Soul has become a hit and has received very high ratings. On December 25 th, Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures released their latest feature Soul.
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