This and That

“Range Life” by Jordan Bolton

"Ja, klar!" beginnt die Juniorchefin. "Die Bahn will in diesem Sommer vor allen Dingen den Urlaub im eigenen Land hervorheben. Wir haben jede Menge Stock Footage mit der wir arbeiten können—Züge in schönen Landschaften und so, aber wir brauchen irgendwas Neues, das die Leute anspricht. Will jemand anfangen?" Nora meldet sich. "Also, da die Bahn ja gerade voll auf Zukunft macht und so mega die Digitalisierung pusht, dachte ich, dass wir irgendwas krass Visuelles mit einer Suchmaske machen. So wie im Online-Ticketshop, aber anstelle von Bahnhöfen könnten wir Situationen nehmen, mit denen sich jeder identifizieren kann. 'Von Lockdown nach Freiheit' oder so." Die Anwesenden brechen in Beifall aus. "Genial!" freut sich Manuela. "Suchmasken wegen Digitalisierung! Sowas kann auch nur der Nora einfallen!" Cleo läuft eine Träne über das Gesicht.

"Einfach super! Ich denke bei der Idee können wir gleich bleiben." Manuela wühlt in ihrem Jutebeutel und fischt einen wasserlöslichen Whiteboard-Marker heraus. "Brainstorming! Was können wir noch in die Suchmasken packen? Sowas wie, 'von daheim nach da draußen'."

"Von Glotze nach Glück", schlägt Cleo vor.

"Ja! Super!" Manuela liebt Alliterationen.

"Von Sehnsucht nach Seeluft", ruft Nora.

"Wie poetisch! Noch jemand?"

Etwas schüchtern meldet sich Quentin: "Ja, also ich hätte auch eine Idee."

Are straight white people okay????

He is played obviously camp and dramatic, for a start, and there is the aforementioned "hate your hair/not likely/yikes yikes yikes/let me guess you have a great personality" summary dismissal of all his potential brides. Then he spends dinner asking Yzma about Kronk ("so he seems nice? He's what, in his late twenties?") and otherwise being slightly obsessed with him.

Then there is the whole Adventure of Doom with Pacha, him being ever huffy about the Kiss of Life, and then the restaurant gag where Kuzco takes to playing Pacha's fake wife and dressing up in ladies' clothing with great gusto (reinforced by the waitress' "bless you for coming out in public" remark when Pacha says they're on their honeymoon). Then when he is finally de-llamafied, we don't see him paired off with the obligatory girl from the lineup earlier, as might otherwise be expected in a Disney movie. Instead he is still single, but goes to found family it up with Pacha, Chica, Kronk, etc, which dare we remark is a very queer trope.

In short, I have no idea how a Disney movie with no white people (all the characters are Indigenous/people of color), a gay king, cross-dressing jokes, and the most offbeat plot of all time actually ever got made (can you imagine the Family Friendly Mouse doing that today? Let us also talk about Kronk because he is a brilliant deconstruction of both toxic masculinity and the musclebound henchman stereotype.) Other than that this was the Chaos Hour of animated movies in the late 90s/early 2000s, and yes.

Please, read this article if you have some time. This story is wild, and involves directors being pitted against each other Bake-Off style and a shockingly intimate documentary created by the wife of Sting who, himself was heartbroken by the decimation of the songs he wrote for the film including cutting a fantastic Yzma villain song sung by Eartha Kitt that is SO DAMN GOOD but would not ever have fit the more nailed-down Yzma we would eventually come to know and love. It’s so catchy though, I’m doubling up on calls to action but please listen now: