There’s always been a fascination in the film industry to convert the inconvertible into being — from Disney’s Toy Story and John Carpenter’s Christine, to 1995’s The Indian in the Cupboard and the massive Avatar. Bringing the inanimate object to life, transforming the animal into a man, and imagining consciousness in different bodies and forms.
In Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, a grieving father’s immortal wood-carved creation suffers varying degrees of misfortune in a cruel world in a life littered with mistakes and punishment. Last week, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s take on the wooden boy debuted on Netflix, and his Pinocchio provides a different take on the children’s classic…
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A Lesson in Fascism and Toxic Masculinity
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Heralding from Mexico, the Academy Award-winning Guillermo del Toro, now an American citizen, has always maintained an anti-fascist stance in his films, with Pan’s Labyrinth set against the backdrop of the oppressive Francoist Spain, as well as the inclusion of Nazis in Hellboy. Between 2010 and 2020, the tsunami of the “Conservative Wave” hit Latin and North America. Far-right governments led by men with beliefs rooted in fascism, such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and America’s blonde-wigged ex-president, who shares a name with a fast-food chain’s clown, who brought their right-wing populism to the fore.
With the original Pinocchio set in the late 1800s, del Toro utilizes a warring Italian milieu of World Wars for his stop-motion animated adaptation. Like his previous works, this is a deliberate detail, one that incorporates the fascist regime of the totalitarian dictator, Benito Mussolini. The film’s forces of evil are embodied by a hilarious hobbit-sized caricature of Mussolini and the exploitive economics of Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz).
The theme of obedience is firmly enlaced throughout, and much is made of the grave repercussions of Pinocchio’s continual disobedience under the unforgiving jurisdiction of Il Duce. For this was the way of the world under the relentless indoctrination of right-wing extremists, with neither freedom of thought nor of action. Do as we say, and as we do. Pinocchio is required by all the patriarchal figures in his life to display absolute and unwavering conformity, a mandate of state-controlled obedience.
Very much like the Faun in 2017’s The Shape of Water, Pinocchio is a creature exploited by capitalist and military minds, who seek to further political and geopolitical power. Is there a greater gift to warfare or for advancing one’s political power than an immortal soldier with a pliable mind, one that is as easily sculpted as its physical parts?
This Is Geppetto’s Narrative Arc, Not Pinocchio’s
Collodi’s Pinocchio was employed as a fable to reiterate the importance of being “a good little boy,” one who doesn’t lie or rebel and contravene. It is a tale that serves, in part, as a warning to those who question the powers that be or comply or fall in line with social regulations. Unlike the 1940 Disney version of Pinocchio, and Collodi’s written illustration, del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s version flips the story on its head. This is not a lecture on Pinocchio’s acquiescence, far from it; it is rather an exploration of Geppetto’s need for reform.
Grieving the loss of his son, Geppetto in all his seasoned stubbornness has an uncompromising, pre-conceived idea of how his hand-crafted Marionette should be – like his deceased, beloved son, Carlo. A like-for-like replacement, aside from the obvious disparities in appearance, Pinocchio has an almost identical characteristic makeup. Expected to respect his father’s wishes, and obey his commands, this is where del Toro and Gustafson deviate from the traditionalism of the original.
Accepting Pinocchio as He Is
Pinocchio and Candlewick, the son of a fascist military man named Podesta (Ron Perlman, a frequent collaborator with the director), are both victims of misunderstanding. Neither Geppetto nor Podesta are emotionally capable of understanding their sons, and are instead driven by an idealized version of who they want them to be. Despite the ideological differences, this is a generation (or two) of men who assume that their sons will be just like them.
Through Pinocchio and Candlewick’s resilience, they concomitantly push back against their respective paternal influences, and against the idea of fascism. Pinocchio’s wish for acceptance is only granted once Geppetto recognizes the error of his ways and seeks to rectify his mishandling of his new son by receiving and loving him for who he really is, and not simply by who he wants him to be.
In many ways, Pinocchio dramatizes a brilliant quote from theologian and World War II martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together — “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” Beneath all the ideology and politics, fascism can ultimately be defined as the refusal to let others be themselves, and the need to enforce one’s notion of an ‘ideal’ society onto others despite who they are and what they want. In this sense, Pinocchio exposes fascism better than most recent films, and brilliantly transforms the story’s legacy for a new generation.
