Film Analysis #4 - The Iron Giant

As hinted by the “duck and cover” cartoon playing in the background of Hogarth’s class, the world of The Iron Giant is tinted with a severe fear of technology. The Cold-War concerns here equate machinery with violence and destruction and little else. Kent Mansley makes constant harmful decisions based on this assumption—that the Iron Giant can’t possibly mean anything outside of destruction (most likely from Russia).  The film goes on to argue that technology, like Hogarth himself, is what we choose it to be.  

Hogarth’s innocence is initially what drives the idea of technology being used for good. When he and the giant first become friends, the Giant starts to eat railroad tracks. Inevitably, a train comes along. Hogarth instructs the Giant to rebuild the railroad—which doesn’t turn out so well, but it starts a pattern of the Giant working to repair and build rather than destruct. When the Giant is hit by the train, he can rebuild himself as well. Hogarth also uses the Giant for fun games, transportation, and basically an amusement park ride. Hogarth is the one who, through his childlike innocence, retrains the Giant to build rather than destroy.

Dean and his art also speak of how technology can be used for good. Dean makes art out of the scrap metal he has in the yard—repurposing technology to make something beautiful. When the Giant stays in the junkyard, Dean has him help create enormous pieces of art. Later on, they are able to use the art as a guise for hiding the giant. Additionally, it’s Dean’s art that first brings Annie and Dean together.

Obviously, the outer struggle between Kent Mansley and the Giant is the most obvious conflict between technology and destruction. When Mansley first hears about the giant, he is convinced that the giant must be from the USSR. When the Giant takes a bite out of his car, he assumes that there is a monster around, and does not see that it’s actually quite an innocent act—the Giant was hungry! When Mansley reports the Giant to the general, he overblows the situation as he assumes that the Giant will inevitably lead to huge destruction. When the military comes, they start attacking and cause much more destruction than the Giant ever has. Mansley even goes as far as insist that they destroy the Giant with a nuclear bomb. Even when the Giant is saved by Hogarth and is able to return back to his kind state, Mansley has already set off the bomb and there’s no stopping it. It’s up to the giant to save everything.

Overall, the theme of this movie can be summed up by the Giant’s inner struggle between what he is programmed to be and what he wants to be. In the end, he chooses to be the Superman. This movie critiques the way that many treat technology. The film suggests that even when it’s the status quo to use technology and assume that destruction is inevitable, we can use it to rebuild and create good relationships.

Book Analysis #4 - Danny the Champion of the World

At the very end of the book is a little inscription by Dahl: “A message to the children who have read this book: When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important. A Stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants—and DESERVES—is a parent who is SPARKY!” Reading the book as an adult, this statement and many of the events in the book may appear problematic—after all, their poaching is breaking the law and they really shouldn’t buy an oven if they can’t afford it. However, this is really the charm and the importance of it. Overall, the book explores the change in the parent-child relationship, normalizing the realization that parents are imperfect by delighting in the imperfection.  

Danny’s journey really begins when he finds out about his father’s secret habit—poaching: “Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets…all of them, including one’s own parents, have two or three private habits hidden up their sleeves that would probably make you gasp if you knew about them.” At first, Danny can’t believe that his father would engage in something so dangerous—and so illegal! While Danny’s father has more noble, Robin Hood-esque motivations, that does not change the fact that it is wrong on some level. Danny, not his father, is the one who is most aware of the dangers and consequences such a habit could mean. Dahl’s treatment of Father’s poaching habit is fascinating, because he does not shy away from depicting how unhealthy it is. Descriptions of Danny’s father when poaching always include an emphasis on how his eyes widen and he grows more and more excited, almost indicative of addiction. Danny’s father is restless when poaching, and does not fully consider the risks that Danny points out to him.

For a while, this leads to a reversal in the father-son relationship. When his father gets trapped in the pit, it is Danny who drives out and saves him, and then who takes care of him as he recovers. For a while, Danny is very wary of his father’s recklessness, and sees a noticeable change as his father confides to him about his dreams of getting back at Mr. Hazell.

The latter half of the book, however, normalizes Danny’s realization that his father isn’t perfect. As he and his father work together in their scheme to ruin Mr. Hazell’s hunting party, they develop a new kind of relationship—a friendship, rather than a parent-child relationship. There is an interchange of ideas and their plan is a result of friend-to-friend collaboration. Because of his father’s secret habit, Danny is able to have a closer relationship with him than they ever did before.

At the beginning of the book, Danny describes his relationship with his father in the way any typical lucky kid would—his father reads him books, walks him to school, and teaches him things. However, at the end their relationship is much more collaborative—and the end of the book Danny and his father discuss dinner plans and how they need to get more silverware. Overall, this progression depicts that although Danny has realized a shocking thing about his father, those shocking realizations can bring them closer together. It is his father’s imperfection that makes him “the most marvelous and exciting father any boy ever had.”