Pinocchio

I just watched the 2022 Disney live action remake of Pinocchio with Tom Hanks. Pinocchio has never been my favorite Disney film. However, one of my most cherished childhood memories is my father taking me to see it when I was eight years old in 1984. I remember it very clearly. We had this lovely old movie house, The Cameo, and on a grey snowy winter day my dad took me there to see the original Disney animated classic. In full disclosure, which may have been the only time I saw the film in its entirety.

Again, it just never clicked with me that much. Plus, I grew up in an era when we did not own movies. You saw it once in the theater, and that was it. Yet, that remained and still is an important childhood core memory. For one thing, movies were also one thing that connected me and my dad. But I could also see how much my dad appreciated this movie. And that made me happy.

Here I am, a fully grown adult in my 40’s, and watching Pinocchio again. This time, I am seeing it from the perspective of a father. And it is a completely unique perspective from when you see it as a child. I can see why this movie resonated with my dad so much. Granted, there was likely a nostalgia factor with my dad. Pinocchio came out in 1940, which was before he was born but the movie still would have been big in his childhood. So, there is that.

Here is the thing, though. Pinocchio is a father-son movie. We do not really see that when we are young. We do not possess that life experience to see that perspective. As a father, you have empathy for Geppetto that you do not have at any other point in your life.

Pinocchio is a tale of the epic battle against temptation and peer pressure we all go through in boyhood. Every single father of boys that there has ever been can clearly remember what it was like being a boy. Conscience, honesty, and character are not traits with which we are born. Rather, they are traits that parent, family, and teachers work collaboratively to instill in us beginning from the moment we are born. They are learned. And Geppetto and the Blue Fairy both know this full well. Pinocchio through magic went right into boyhood. He does not have these traits yet. So, the Blue Fairy assigns Jiminy Cricket to act as his conscience, until such point Pinocchio develops it on his own.

We watch Pinocchio struggle and fall to the pitfalls of temptation as we all did as children. The lesson is the kind of person we are on the inside effects how the outside and how people see us. When Pinocchio lies, his knows grows and he becomes “ugly.” When he betrays his character, he begins to turn into a donkey, or a jackass.

We watch Pinocchio’s development. In the beginning, he does not have a clue between right and wrong. But with experience, we start to see him feel those “this doesn’t feel right” moments.

The dynamic between Geppetto and Pinocchio represents some of our greatest fears as fathers. We are terrified about sending them out into the world. My parents always say what good children both my brother and I were, and what good men into whom we have grown. And not to too my own horn, but yes, I was a good child. But I had those moments I fell to temptation. When I succumbed to peer pressure. When I “got into trouble.” The real success story of my parents is that Is that the character I had built with their guidance gave me to tools to bounce back from those moments, to learn from them, and be a better person on the other side.

Needless to say, I didn’t watch this with my Little Man. LOL Aside from the fact we do not really allow hm to watch television or movies at this point, he wouldn’t have the attention span to experience it anyway. Someday in the not too distance future though I will watch both the original and new version with him, just as I watched the original with my dad. And I will be curious to see how he reacts to it. And I hope that it does spur some father-son conversation.

And I’ll probably get an “oh my god this is so lame” reaction. And I am prepared for that.