Pinocchio and the Liar Liar Movies - Essay Example

Comparative Essay on Pinocchio and the Liar Liar Movies The Pinocchio and Liar Liar movies’ thematic settings revolve around positive dispatch, dishonesty and drug abuse. In both of these movies, parents are the targeted groups. These movies exhibit the information parents need to understand in relation to the perils of wrong deeds. The Pinocchio’s scenes and themes are likely to be stronger especially in young and sensitive viewers. This is because of the dominant theme of dishonesty, in the movie. The Liar Liar movie, on the other hand, portrays Fletcher Reede as a divorced father and a future-oriented career lawyer. His career is full of dishonesty in order to win various cases by his clients. Fletcher spends ample time with his son and the ex-wife though every promise he makes to the son, Max, happens without being fulfilled. This portrays the theme of dishonesty, in this movie. Fletcher has adapted the habit of giving superiority to his job while giving false statements on his declining nature to take good care of his son after his divorce with the wife. This research paper compares and contrasts the Pinocchio and Liar Liar movies in relation to their dishonesty thematic settings. One of the significant themes that are portrayed, in these films, is dishonesty. Both Pinocchio and Liar Liar movies portray their characters to be of an ever-lying nature thus making these movies inappropriate for children without parental guidance. Lastly, this paper explores the thematic differences in these two movies and their impacts to the viewers. Pinocchio’s kidnapping, being caged and threats for destructions leaves him with no option, but to lie in order to be rescued in any case his parents refuse to turn up. The Liar Liar movie, on the other hand, portrays Fletcher as an ever-lying parent who even misses his son’s fifth birthday party. The son makes an ironical wish that, on his fifth birthday party, his father would not lie for the whole day. The father finally turned him down by not attending the birthday party. Pinocchio and Fletcher seem to have neglected their parenting responsibility by leaving the whole upbringing aspect of the socialization process to the mothers. This is evident in Fletcher and Audrey case where they even got divorced as a result of his irresponsible character. In the Pinocchio movie, Pinocchio’s friend, Lampwick, introduced him to cigar smoking, but he denies it. He is dishonest of the drug abuse they carry out together, and when their parents find this out, they are severely punished. The punishment should be carried out in the dishonest cases especially to bring back the norms in to the existence within the dishonest individuals. This becomes one of the reasons why Lampwick and Pinocchio are punished for them to comply with the social norms. Morality, in these two movies, becomes the key point of view in dishonesty as a thematic setting in both films. Gambling and smoking are the order of the day between Pinocchio, Lampwick and the other boys they find on their way to Geppetto’s house. This brings closely the relationship between dishonesty and morality in the Pinocchio dismay pictures (Pinocchio). These characters, in addition, get drunk and vandalised Jiminy’s dismay because of deviance and dishonest behaviours, which are exhibited by Pinocchio and his friends. This is due to lack of rules and authority to deter them from these dishonest behaviours. In the Liar Liar movie, on the other hand, moral issues are as well pictured where Fletcher indulges in the extra marital sex before and even after he divorced his wife (Liar Liar). Fletcher is immoral, and he finally confesses this through a series of embarrassing moments. He says to his wife that he just had a better sex with Miranda, his boss than he did with her, which makes him unable to tell a lie (Liar Liar). This confession even though sets Fletcher’s mind free, is an immoral action and figure of speech especially to the underage viewers. This kind of statements, in the movie, instils dishonesty to the viewers in both the couples just like Fletcher and Audrey. It even becomes worse to the underage viewers where it affects their degree of honesty. The honesty in the family revolves around the responsibility of the family members and for the disunited families, such as the one exhibited by the Liar Liar movie, is not the ideal type of family structure. Fletcher, as a lawyer, takes part in telling lies in order to win his daily cases. In Liar Liar movie, he is handling his own divorce case, which if he wins, will boost his career; a great deal. Dishonesty, therefore, is clearly brought up for in order to win the case. This means that Fletcher must take part in telling ambiguous lies to prevent both his wife and son from moving to Boston with his new boyfriend. In both of these movies, the theme of law is clearly shown to be full of lies. In the Pinocchio’s film, on the pleasure island, there is a belief that there is no laws and authority to stop Pinocchio and the other boys from misbehaving (Pinocchio). This is not the truth since this movie is produced in animation form, and it exhibits the behavioural characters of man. Man is always a beast, and without law, they are prone to be dishonest in everything they do. Pinocchio finally finds themselves in the wrong side of the law when they are later kidnapped in the Pleasure Island. Fletcher in, The Liar Liar movie, understands everything related to law and authority, but he is still in the valley of divorce and being a lawyer, does not intimidate the wife from moving to Boston with the new boyfriend. The common theme of law, in these films, shows the justified end of law in tackling dishonesty issues. Pinocchio, due to his dishonesty to the law and authority, manages to flee with only donkey’s ear with the help of Jiminy. Lampwick becomes a terrified donkey. The rest of their friends who were transformed into donkeys remain unsaved by the evil coachman. This shows the repercussions of the disobedience of law and authority. Pinocchio and Fletcher, as the main characters, in these two films are cold, ungrateful rude and inhuman creatures. These two characters are always dishonest and often repel the sympathy of every individual around them. Fletcher and Pinocchio only learn the art of honesty through brutal and absolute torture measures. The language used in these movies is English though subtitles are also used in these motion pictures to make them more understandable to those who are below the recommended ages. This brings in another contrasting feature of these two movies apart from the ascendancy of the theme of dishonesty as a common distinguishing feature. The dishonesty character negatively affects Fletcher. He demonstrates this when he realizes that his main witness, Jennifer Tilly, is more than willing to commit perjury while testifying in court against his wife. Fletcher finally rushes to the airport to bring his son back as he is now ready to acknowledge the ultimatum given to him on the 24 hours of truth though it is already late. Pinocchio, on the other hand, though believes in his dishonesty when in trouble is helped by his dopey Jiminy cricket. Fletcher, on the other hand, is so used to dishonesty and he delays the case affecting his wife by thumping himself up. This affects his wife emotionally, and the judge Marshal Stephens insists on the hearing of their divorce case urgently. Fletcher, beyond doubt finally won the case when he realized his client had lied about the age. This shows that dishonesty, in the Liar Liar movie, is not only practiced by Fletcher, as an individual, but also by all the characters in this film. The faithful winning of this case shows to some extent that fletcher was a rational being who was only forced to lie in order to make ends meet due to the nature of his work and profession. In summary, even though the theme of dishonesty is the only key one, in the Pinocchio, the animation movie by Disney and Liar Liar movie by Jim Carey, also features some other themes such as honesty, violence, language, family responsibility and the drug abuse are also put across in these movies. The honesty theme is majorly used by fletcher in the winning of one of his cases where the accused person lied about her age. In the Pinocchio movie, there is no honesty especially due to the deviance nature of Pinocchio and his friends. The language used, in these movies, is not appropriate for the viewer’s especially the underage viewers. Family responsibility, in the Pinocchio film is brought out when he was caged yet there was no one to save him. Finally, in the Liar Liar movie, one of the parents, Fletcher is not responsible in the collective responsibility of taking care of their son Max. Bibliography Movies Analyzed Liar Liar Pinnochio by Disney Read More