The workplace is a universal setting. Sometimes it’s an office, sometimes it’s a factory, but many films use a job as the ideal place for a story where characters, conflict, and resolution all intersect on a daily basis. Pixar in particular loves to use a workplace in many of their stories. There’s the organized hierarchy in Toy Story, the cutthroat kitchen in Ratatouille, the cerebral command of Inside Out, and even the free-flowing seminar space of Soul.
Although we can relate to someone working an office job in a skyscraper, those are not the most common representations of a job anymore. We live in the age of the gig economy. The COVID-19 pandemic kicked freelancing and the concept of working from home into overdrive. More and more millennials are working these kinds of jobs. There’s a real division in how different generations see work as a concept between something you do for money and something borne out of passion, especially as the traditional pipeline of university-to-career appears to be shrinking.
These quaint ideas of employment, work, and dedication are the foundation for the entire Monsters Incorporated Universe and each part of the franchise represents a different mindset.
The original Monsters, Inc. (2001) has a very classic workplace setting: a 1950s factory complete with work floors, locker rooms, and specific employment departments. Sulley (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) are a dream team turning children’s screams into electricity to power their world. The job is equally regarded as aspirational yet dangerous because of the perceived belief that children are hazardous. Though when Sulley learns that children are not dangerous, he unravels a major conspiracy that could endanger the lives of humans as well as monsters.
What works so well about Monsters, Inc. is that Mike and Sulley are willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good. They even discover the greater energy source of laughter power while they save Boo. Despite this gigantic discovery, CEO Henry J. Waternoose III (James Coburn) rejects both of these claims to keep the company running as he wants. Thankfully, Waternoose is arrested by a more powerful entity and the company is allowed to transition into a more beneficial environment for both worlds.
Monsters, Incorporated is a very baby boomer idea of what a company should be. Blue and white collar workers perform their jobs in tandem. Everyone is motivated by the singular duty of acquiring energy through a specific resource. Mike and Sulley’s accomplishments contribute to the universal greater good: they solve their world’s energy crisis and restructure their company, encouraging monsters to choose a new job that they truly enjoy. They are given the idyllic resolution where they’ve reached the peak of the corporate world and are now able to freely do what they want.
12 years later, Pixar decided to return to this world with the prequel Monsters University (2013). It’s kind of hard to follow up with how the first movie ended, so exploring the universe, especially in a college where students pick their careers, has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, Monsters University spends a majority of its runtime being a Gen-Xer throwback in the vein of Revenge of the Nerds. There are some ideas that touch on the idea of passion and dream jobs, but the morals of the film that were heavily praised at the time for their realism have aged poorly if not become flat-out retrograde.
One of the biggest mistakes Monsters University makes is converting the idea of being a scarer into some type of athlete. In the original film, a scarer is more applicable towards being a coal miner, as a noble yet necessary job framed as the pinnacle of blue collar work. A professional athlete makes some sense that it’s a career a lot of people idolize, but the main goals of an athlete is fame and fortune. The first movie understands that Mike isn’t physically scary but recognizes he is a great trainer and floorman that can fit in this factory setting.
It’s especially bewildering when scaring is just defined as a singular idea, whereas real life universities have gigantic programs centered on sports that aren’t just for the physically fit. The idea of Mike being a coach or manager or broadcaster is never touched upon. The film would work much better if Mike selfishly ignored these positive attributes he had to just become a star athlete. Monsters University has a very “all or nothing” attitude towards being a scarer versus every other major (like engineering) being some sort of failure.
Let’s also not discount the pretty disgusting ableism that takes place to push forth this narrative. Even though every misfit can overcome their non-threatening appearance to be a scarer, somehow Mike has this bizarre inability to be scary for the sake of the movie’s themes. Sure, Dean Hardscrabble probably shouldn’t care that there’s one single student in the wrong major, but it’s treated like Mike is going against the laws of nature. Somehow, Mike can’t be scary, but Scott Squishy can sneak up on someone and that’s good enough. Even though the climax reflects on Mike’s ingenuity and ability to bring out the best in Sulley, the university can’t actually acknowledge the flaws in its own systems and has to expel our dynamic duo.
This brings us to the worst part of Monsters University: the ending. If you look up just about any review of the film, there is glowing praise for the film’s gutsiness in not giving Mike and Sulley the safe Hollywood happy ending. You know what the problem with this ending is? Even in 2013…that ending was a fantasy.
Other than the fact that Mike and Sulley do not get a traditional degree, there are no consequences or penalties for attending college. No student debts, no disappointment from their families, no struggle with unemployment, not even any delayed time in getting their eventual dream jobs. Personally, I know maybe one person who has been able to pull themselves out of a blue collar job into a white collar job within the same company. You can’t argue that this film has a “realistic” ending that recognizes people’s physical limitations when there’s no fallout or student loans in the picture. It is such a pull-yourself-by-the-bootstraps type of message.
The film’s ending montage assumes that hard work will be automatically acknowledged and rewarded to allow prospects to rise through the ranks. However, most businesses create physical barriers between different of employees. It’s more likely if you are the best mail sorter in the world, the company is going to want you to keep sorting mail, not suddenly make you a scarer with more pay and benefits. If the film brought up more concerns of networking or emptiness of earning a degree, that might be less fun, but it wouldn’t come off as hopelessly naive.
Monsters University doesn’t offer a good argument for the question “is college worth it?” when both avenues feel very disconnected from reality. This very antiquated idea of what college was like back in the 80s of Greek fraternity culture, which only 10% of students participate in, has no real connection to what the children of the 2010s expect of a college education. And the ultimate irony of this ending would be that eventually, the world of Monsters Inc would drop scaring in favor of laughter power…so the movie has no real reason to exist. One character even goes back to Monsters University to get a diploma in scaring because he was laid off from his sales job; so I guess the cycle is just going to repeat for him again?
In the years since Monsters University, these demands have done nothing but increase. Companies demand more qualifications of workers, including college degrees, with less promises of satisfying career opportunities with little in the way of upward mobility. At most, we’re more aware that college is not this incredible life changing experience, but a degree is still expected by so many industries to even get a foot in the door. The best case weighing the pros and cons of college is covered in this segment by Hasan Minhaj’s The Patriot Act, where so much of the issue comes from the mismanagement of funds.
For a long time, the world of Monsters, Inc left a very sour taste in my mouth because the first movie created such an idea of what you want work to be and then the prequel presented a very underhanded message of hoping for the best from capitalism. So needless to say, I was pretty skeptical when it was announced that we’d return to this world with the series Monsters at Work (2021), where we’d follow up directly from the first movie featuring a brand new set of characters with our old pals in the background.
Monsters at Work centers on a new character, Tylor Tuskmon (Ben Feldman), who graduates with a Scaring Degree from Monsters University the moment that laugh power is discovered. Thanks to Sulley’s generosity, Tylor is still allowed to work at Monsters Incorporated, though he’s pushed to the Monsters Inc Facilities Team (MIFT), a department centered on repairs and maintenance, because of a recent vacancy. Although he tries to adjust to his new job and workmates in the facilities department, he strives to become a jokester, feeling that’s where his true potential lies.
There’s something about Tylor’s struggle that feels very millennial, where he’s pushed into the workforce even though it’s not exactly what he was trained for but he’s expected to wear many different hats and make it work. He’s clumsy and unsure of himself, but he has tons of potential and pushes to learn everything about the company, even dealing with petty office power struggles. At the same time, Mike and Sulley are now running a brand new company that doesn’t have the same protection or prestige as when it was run by Waternoose. While Sulley is stuck behind a bureaucratic desk, Mike takes a much more forward approach, talking to employees about how to make the company better through positive reinforcement, higher wages, and teaching a comedy course throughout the series to help people adjust to the new changes.
These two plots align together in the final episode when the Monstropolis Energy Regulatory Commission (MERC) threatens to shut down the factory, despite the fact that laughter is ten times more powerful than scares. MERC believes it is not reliable enough to be sustainable, delivering an ultimatum to double their quota in 24 hours or face a shutdown. For a moment, Tylor doubts himself, wishing that they could go back to the old ways of things being scarers. But Sulley delivers a hopeful truth as the clock ticks down:
“Laugh power is the heart of the new Monsters, Inc. And it’s also…the right thing to do.”
This is where I believe Monsters At Work comes full circle with its evolution from Monsters Inc. by returning to the value of the workers involved. Thanks to the departments working together, Tylor is able to join the laugh floor as a great jokester and innovates a new canister to collect incredible amounts of power to save the company from being closed down. That undercurrent of collective duty allows Tylor to get his new job, which is not what he studied for but is just as valuable.
Today, as young workers are increasingly isolated through many of our corporate systems, we’ve become so much more inclined to the idea of unionized labor and solidarity. Although Monsters at Work is providing this idea in a very self-contained “good corporation” type of way, there’s still some value to be gained through supporting your fellow laborer. If the world cannot give us the jobs that we were promised or had studied for, then we should be treated with dignity and respect for being on the ground floor. And if we are forced to work for a company, we may as well work a job with meaning that’s dedicated to making the world better for the next generation.
Monsters at Work has been renewed for another season to air in 2023 and I don’t know what they will be covering next. It’ll probably be another decade until we learn what unique issues Zoomers have to deal with when entering the workplace. Either way, I’m hoping Mike, Sulley, and Tylor can work as a way to teach people that institutions can provide purpose without working you to the bone.
