CARTOON "KUNG-FOO PANDA" AS A METAPHOR FOR ACCEPTING A REJECTED INTERNAL CHILD

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

When I was asked if I could write an analysis of this cartoon, my first thought was that there was something to analyze, and everything was also clear and transparent … Especially the moment with the Dragon Scroll and the secret ingredient, which actually does not exist

And then I decided to watch the cartoon. At the same time, carefully, with stops of viewing and thinking about some points

And I realized that you can definitely find additional meanings. Well, at least I can see them for sure))

Let me remind you that for me, during in-depth analysis, there are two "layers" in a cartoon - an event plot and characters, and the second layer or subtext is when we perceive everything that happens in a cartoon (film, story, fairy tale) as a space of the inner world, and then each the character symbolizes a certain subpersonality of some protagonist

And in the cartoon "Kung Fu Panda" the space of the inner world is not the space of the panda bear Po (although he is the main character in the event layer of the cartoon), but … the inner world of Master Shifu. And then Shifu becomes the main character, in whose psychological world trials and metamorphoses take place. In addition, Shifu himself is also a panda, a special kind of dwarf pandas. That is why, for me, Po and Shifu are the central characters in this story

Panda Po and Bars Tai Lung are the shadow figures of Master Shifu. Panda Po symbolizes the divine inner child, while rejected. Also, however, like Tai Lung, he also personifies his rejected wounded part.

Let's figure it out in order …

Both Po and Tai Lung are foundlings raised by adoptive parents. Both the panda and the leopard have no mother. You can take this literally - that they grew up without mothers, lost them in early childhood, and this already suggests that everyone has a traumatic experience. It can be understood symbolically - and with living parents, some children feel like orphans, when the mother does not see the child, but sees some ideal image in him or an extension of herself. This is exactly what happens to Tai Lung - Master Shifu sees in him not another being in need of love and support, but first of all his disciple and his continuation as an outstanding master.

This perception of one's child in psychology is called "narcissistic expansion", when the child is perceived by the narcissistic parent (most often the mother, and this is a very traumatic experience, as a rule) as its continuation, as a function. When all the merits of the child are the merits of the parent, and if an adult child suddenly wants to live his own life, the parent can perceive this as a betrayal. "How dare my hand or leg dare to separate from me!" For the master Shifu, Tai Lung became such an extension of himself. If the leopard received the Dragon Scroll, for Shifu it would mean that he himself, Shifu, would become the Dragon Warrior. This is what Master Oogway understood and therefore did not support Shifu in handing the Dragon Scroll to Tai Lung.

Tai Lung personifies a wounded child. He is a carrier of narcissistic trauma. But instead of accepting and acknowledging this wounded part, Shifu banishes Tai Lung to a prison among the snow-capped peaks. Tai Lung is chained and immobilized. For me, this is an amazing metaphor for trauma, when everything inside is frozen and immobilized and there is no life. That is why Shifu cannot find inner peace - he expelled, supplanted traumatic experiences and is terribly afraid of collision with them. Moreover, Tai Lung is also humiliated in prison - remember the episode when the guard, to show how good the security is, steps on the immobilized leopard's tail and sarcastically says: "What, they stepped on the little kitty's tail?" Thousands of guards guard a single prisoner. An incredible amount of energy is spent on internal control, and there is no longer any place for the joy of life. Often a person treats his traumatic experiences in this way - he devalues them, displaces them further, believes that all this is nonsense, and why look at all these experiences - it is better to freeze them, immobilize them, try to forget them … Forgetting usually turns out to be very bad, although all inner forces are unconsciously thrown to ensure that the injuries do not remind of themselves. But they will still remind of themselves with a pendulous and lack of inner peace …

Shifu orders to strengthen the security, which ultimately does not help. When it comes time to pay attention to your traumas, when the soul strives for healing, restraining pain and pretending that it is not, it becomes, as a rule, impossible.

The only way to deal with the consequences of a traumatic experience is to look at them and acknowledge them. This is exactly what the "clumsy fat panda" can do.

Panda Po is a manifestation of a divine child. As Jung wrote, the divine child as "the carrier of healing is plain." In both fairy tales and cartoons, the hero, the carrier of healing, becomes the one about whom one can least of all assume that he can cope with very difficult trials. Harry Potter, for example, is a very nondescript boy. Thumb-boy cannot be the one who can save, because he is too small. So the little bear Po, fat, clumsy, who, at first glance, will never master the skill of kung fu, becomes the one who will bring peace to the valley and to the soul of Master Shifu. This is what Master Ugway is talking about. Ougway understands how wounded and at the same time arrogant Shifu is, and realizes that for the emergence of peace in his soul, it is not intelligence that is needed, but awakened feelings.

As I said, both Po and Tai Lung are related characters. Both Panda Po and Tai Lung are outcasts. But Po feels inferior and Tai Lung is arrogant. “A conscious dream of the great corresponds to an unconscious, compensating inferiority, and to a conscious inferiority, an unconscious dream of the great (you can never find one without the other),” Jung wrote in his essay on the divine child. We can say that inside Tai Lung he feels like Po, and Po - like Tai Lung (remember Po's dream, from which the cartoon begins - in it Po's bear sees himself as a superhero, that is, his unconscious dream of greatness is manifested in a dream).

Po is below, in the valley, Tai Lung in a distant snowy land, Shifu himself in a monastery on the mountain. Different subpersonalities are in different places - this can be understood as a metaphor for internal splitting. For the healing to take place, it is necessary that they all meet.

So, Po hears the call - both in a dream, and then, when he hears the sound of a gong, announcing that the Dragon Warrior will be chosen today, and by all means tries to climb a tall mountain. At the same time, Gus gives him a cart of noodles with him, and Po obediently takes this cart. Even when you hear the call of your destiny, it is not so easy to abandon family scenarios, and the scene with the trolley symbolizes just that. When the target is close, the gate slams in front of Poe. It seems to me that this is a vivid metaphor of how difficult it is for a person to see his inner divine child, and how difficult it is for an inner child to attract the attention of a person. That is why I am skeptical about marathons for several days with promises to see and heal the inner child immediately, quickly, painlessly. Because it can be painful and even disgusting to look at the inner child (which will happen to Master Shifu).

In order to get outside the gate, Poe hangs the cart with fireworks and sets it on fire. And at the same time, his adoptive father Gus, Mr. Ping, turns out to be nearby and blows out fireworks, and Po confesses to him that Po did not dream about noodles tonight … And that in fact he loves kung fu. And as soon as Po enters into a confrontation with the parental script, the smoldering light ignites fireworks again and Po gets inside the monastery. And he sees how the turtle Ougway points to him, as to the future Dragon Warrior.

So why is it Poe that Oogway is pointing to, and not any of the Big Five? In my opinion, because Po has the main thing - feelings. Live, not frozen. He can cry, get upset, worry and selflessly laugh and have fun. And all the members of the "Big Five" - Stork, Monkey, Snake, Tigress and Praying Mantis - are also "frozen", like Master Shifu. They are also, like their teacher, arrogant and consider themselves the chosen one. They have never gone down to the valley to see what is happening there, and the Resident is an inhabitant of the world to which they do not pay attention. “To win an opponent, you need to find his weak point and you need to make him suffer,” - this is the philosophy of Master Shifu. But this is not the kind of worldview that will help bring peace to the valley. This is exactly what Ougway understands when, before the ceremony of choosing the Dragon Warrior, he tells Shifu, "I feel that the Dragon Warrior is among us." He just feels it, and does not know. It is necessary for Master Shifu to awaken his senses. The fire in the fireworks thaws the ice …

It is at the very moment when the panda is elected as the Dragon Warrior, Tai Lung is freed from his imprisonment. Another metaphor for the fact that healing does not happen overnight, and that when the strength appears to cope with an internal split, all the split-off parts will surely remind of themselves.

The only one who accepts Po at the Jade Palace is Master Oogway. He's not trying to remake it. It reflects his feelings. Their dialogue near the peach tree is a real psychotherapy session, with Oogway accepting and reflecting Poe's feelings. And he tells him that "the past is forgotten, the future is closed, and the present is given." And Poe decides to accept the present.

Feelings in the Jade Palace gradually begin to come to life. The Big Five are gradually starting to take Po. “Who am I to judge a warrior by his size, look at me,” Mantis Po says in dialogue. The disciples tell Panda Po the story of Shifu and Tai Lung and say that "there is a legend that once Master Shifu knew how to smile." But Tigress is still arrogant and says that "now the master had a chance to fix everything, and he got you, clumsy fat panda who does not take anything seriously." It was at the same time that Master Shifu sits in front of candles and tries to meditate, saying about "inner peace". But inner peace will not come to him until he accepts his rejected part - the inner child who knows how to enjoy life. A great metaphor for how any spiritual practice might not help at all until this acceptance happens.

Oogway is about to end his earthly journey, and speaks with Shifu for the last time. He tells him that only a peach tree can grow from a peach seed, no matter how much he wants another. With this metaphor, he speaks of acceptance. "He wants to make me not me!" - Poe spoke about it. Oogway, on the other hand, tells Shifu that only his desire and faith can help Panda Po become a Dragon Warrior. "You just have to believe!" In psychotherapy, at some stage, this moment comes - when all that remains is to believe. When the understanding comes that it is useless to remake yourself, but what to do and where to move on, there is no understanding. And this inner work of accepting oneself can only be done by a person himself, no one else can do it for him - not a good enough parent, not a psychologist, not a master Ugway. At this point, you may be tempted to give up everything, devalue your previous work, decide that everything is useless. But it's important to believe. That is why Oogway leaves - then Shifu must do this difficult inner work to accept his rejected inner child himself. At the same time, he must remember that "The Panda will not fulfill his destiny, and you will not fulfill yours until you part with the illusion that everything in this world depends on you."

Shifu leads the panda Po to the water, to the Lake of Holy Tears, the source from which kung fu originated. Touched, he has tears welling up. Water is a symbol of feelings as well. But in general, a lot in the cartoon talks about feelings. When the news comes that Tai Lung has escaped, Po is the only one who says that "I am terrified," although everyone is scared. Shifu continues to come to life. And now the "five" praises Po's noodles and laughs at his jokes. And Shifu begins not only to train Po - he plays with him. Remember the episode when they try to catch a dumpling? Interestingly, when Po's training is over and, according to Shifu, Po is now ready to become the Dragon Warrior, Po gives up the dumplings he won in the fight with the master. “I'm not hungry,” says Poe. If you remember that food often symbolizes maternal love, and compulsive overeating indicates a lack of acceptance (remember, Poe said that he always eats when he is upset), then Poe's refusal of dumplings can be understood as that he was saturated with acceptance from the parental figure. … Po was adopted by his adoptive father, Gus, and is now adopted by his master. He has to take the next step - to accept himself.

It is this message that the Dragon Scroll carries. “Legend has it that you can hear the fluttering of a butterfly's wings …” Shifu tells him. But there is nothing in the Dragon Scroll. Poe does not understand why, he is upset and leaves the Jade Palace.

And Shifu will have to face Tai Lung. With his trauma, with his “false I”. And when Tai Lung comes to the palace and destroys everything around him, he asks Shifu: "Are you proud of me?" And Shifu says, in my opinion, one of the key phrases in this cartoon: “I've always been proud of you. From the first second. I loved you too much. " From the first second, Shifu had no love for the leopard, but pride. This is what contributed to the cultivated inner arrogance. It was Po that really fell in love with Shifu - he did not remake him and did not impose his desires. And Tai Lung had no chance, they immediately began to make a future warrior out of him. “Who clouded my mind ?!” he asks Shifu, and this is a perfectly logical question.

So, Po is going to leave the valley with Goose and the rest of the inhabitants, and Mr. Ping decided to tell his adopted son the secret of the "secret ingredient soup". And this secret lies in the fact that "the secret ingredient does not exist." I remember when I watched the cartoon for the first time, this moment impressed me the most. At this moment, the acceptance of Po himself occurs, and only at this moment does he become a real Dragon Warrior. It was at this moment that he believed that he could overcome Tai Lung.

He fights with him, and defeats him, in my opinion, not only because he believed himself and accepted himself. Unlike the Five and Master Shifu, Po treats Tai Lung as an equal. He is not afraid of him, but at the same time, Po does not have arrogance towards him, and this is also an important message from the cartoon. Remember how he even tells him the secret of the scroll? “Relax, I didn't move in at first either!” It is unlikely that this will be said to an opponent who is feared or looked down upon. If he had become arrogant towards Tai Lung, he would not have been able to win the battle with him. For me, it is also about the fact that it is important to respectfully treat any of your manifestations, subpersonalities and traumas. They all matter, and the only way to deal with them is by acknowledging and accepting them. And that is why Tai Lung cannot win - he is too arrogant.“You're just a big, fat panda,” he screams, but his arrogance doesn't help him.

When Panda Po returns to the palace, he sees Master Shifu lying by the pool of water in the Jade Palace. Remember that water symbolizes feelings? Shifu lies by the water, his rationality now balanced by his feelings. And although Shifu appears to be dead at first, in fact, right now he is alive.

“You brought peace to the valley and to my soul,” he says to Poe. All conversation with Poe is on an equal footing. “Should I shut up?” Po asks, and Shifu replies: “If you can.” He does not demand, now it is a request. And when Poe asks if they should eat a dumpling each, he replies "Come on!"

If you had the patience to watch all the credits to the end (I had enough)), at the very end, Shifu and Po sit side by side and eat dumplings …

And this cartoon for me is not a parody of the art of kung fu, but a vivid metaphor about the path of accepting your rejected inner child.