SOUL - Jasmin Pittman Morrell
This year marked the first Christmas without my mother. Kind friends sent messages of support through texts, cards, and letters. Their words arrived like winged sentries to perch over the doorway of my heart. Take care of yourself, they advised, a gentle murmur that grew into a din as the days waxed closer to the holidays.
And underneath the din, a current ran: don’t lose sight of what makes you who you are.
It doesn’t always, but grief can do that, cast a shadow that dulls our vision. And we’ve all experienced some measure of grief after the year we’ve lived through. Losses so great we can’t begin to catalogue them, the systems for shelving our own narratives upended and suddenly obscure. Some of our losses were small and remain unnoticed aside from the lingering unease constricting our tendons and filling our lungs.
I slip my hand into the gnarled hands of grief, and we wonder together like lovers: How can we see each other clearly? How do we grow intimate with purpose? How do we find life’s joys together?
Soul, the latest film from Pixar now streaming on Disney+, reminded me of the mysterious way art and creativity can spur answers to these questions, the answers themselves embedded in our human experiences of awe, curiosity, service, generosity, and ultimately, love.
For a movie that tackles pre-birth and after-life realms, explores existential questions and mid-life crises, and peppers the astral plane with lost souls and mystic guides, Soul strikes the balance between poignant and celebratory, palatable and engaging, a feat not easily mastered when telling spiritual stories suited for children and adults alike. Soul directors Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, along with producer Dana Murray, orchestrated the team of creators who brought the story to the screen. “I’ve been so lucky to work with some incredible people and make movies that have been seen around the world,” Docter said. “But I realized that as wonderful as these projects are, there’s more to living than a singular passion—as expressive and fulfilling as that may be. Sometimes the small insignificant things are what it’s really about.” Our lives are comprised of mostly small moments, made significant when we notice them and infuse them with gratitude. And facing death can often amplify an appreciation of life, our mortality the thing that brings a preciousness to all the mundane and extraordinary things we do on earth each day.
Soul’s story centers Joe Gardener (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a jazz-musician turned middle-school band teacher on the verge of his big break. But before he can take advantage of his once in a lifetime opportunity, an accident propels Joe into The Great Before, the place where new souls acquire their personalities. When Joe meets Soul 22, voiced by Tina Fey, the two become immersed in a cosmic plot to return Joe to his body on earth and help 22 find the spark that will bring her soul to life.
Critics of Soul challenge the tendency of animators to portray African Americans as creatures other than human for a majority of the character’s screen time (i.e. Disney princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog). With that loss of time, an audience can neither be awarded the pleasure of seeing characters who look like them on the screen, or asked to consider a character’s racial identity who might be different than their own.
I didn’t see Joe’s identity as a Black man diminished during the time he spent onscreen in his amorphous, blue soul “body,” finding it easy to hold his blackness in my awareness throughout the entirety of the film. But I understand the desire for increased visibility, knowing that my community, and all communities of color, deserve stories that turn the lens away from whiteness or whitewashing and toward us. Does Soul do this perfectly? Perhaps not, but I found it rather lovely that eventually, 22 falls in love with being human through her time spent walking in Joe’s shoes. As 22, Tina Fey’s voice is indistinguishable from her public persona—quick-witted, wisecracking, and white. In this way, I hoped that a white audience might consider what it could learn by seeing the world through a Black body. Producer Dana Murray said Joe “is a character that so many people can connect to and culturally, we just wanted to make the Black community proud.” Soul is no Black Panther, but I’m not so sure it has to be.
On Christmas morning, my family and I woke up to find the woods surrounding our house transformed by snowfall. We’re Southerners, and we hope for snow on Christmas but rarely have our hopes satisfied. As I watched the sun rising over the horizon’s eastern mountains, each tree limb of our yard laced in white, the woods were set aglow, dazzling with a bright, ephemeral beauty. In the moment, I was aware of the sounds of my daughters tearing through wrapping paper; the feel of my coffee mug warming my hands; the hope that no one living outside had died of exposure that night; the longing for my mother.
I’ve surrendered to griefs personal and global, to the missing of small things. Exchanging the briefest of smiles with a stranger in the grocery store; letting a friend hold me; sidling up to a crowded bar to order a cocktail; dancing with strangers until sweat soaks my shirt. Grief nods, luminous with sweetness. Would I be me without noticing the pleasure of these moments?
In the bones of its story, Soul celebrates connection to our senses and the natural world, to the ones who love us, to the things that bring meaning to our life on earth, the things that make us human. After a year like 2020, this is the medicine we need, a gentle invitation to wonder.
Jasmin Pittman Morrell is a writer and editor living in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys facilitating healing through creativity, imagination, and deep listening.
