I just finished watching the Dreamworks wild-west horse fantasy, Spirit. Together with my kids, Forrest 11 and Maya age 4, I trembled when the bad guy rode-up and I rooted for the good guy. When Spirit, the super hero stallion soared across a gaping canyon to the freedom finale, I soared with him. Exhilarated, and with that ‘the world’s all right’ feeling, I got up from the couch and joined Maya in a celebratory living room dance as the credits rolled. 

In case you haven’t seen the movie: it’s a newly created mythic story of a wild Mustang confronted with the encroachment of white man’s America. The success of this movie is in large part due to its technical genius. The producers created a masterful blend of 3D computer generated landscape, super imposed by hand-drawn characters. The landscape is a collage of the entire mountain west – including the Tetons, Monument Valley, and Bryce Canyon to name a few. As the directors say in their commentary, the landscape is like stepping into a Frank Remington painting – only animated. In Spirit, the American West is wilder, more colorful, wider, taller and bigger -than life. For example, in one action scene, the three heroes, Spirit, the charming blue-eyed mare Rain and Lakota Indian brave named Little Creek take an accidental swim in a river. They go through what seems like miles and miles of crashing whitewater. It looks just like the Colorado River on growth hormone. Down the rapids they go at Nascar speed culminating with a plunge over a Himalayan sized waterfall. 

Realistic is the word the directors repeatedly use to describe their technical marvel. In order to enhance the sense of realism, they have avoided all the usual anthropomorphic techniques. The horses do not speak and they do not wear clothes. The artists went to great lengths to accurately draw the horse’s physique. Except – in order for the horses to pantomime the unfolding drama – they are given heavy eye brows and an exaggerated range of facial expression. We hear a small amount of Spirit’s internal thoughts, and we get some of the drama through song lyrics, but otherwise the story is told through pantomime. The story takes us inside the horse’s head and heart. We get an inside view of what it might have been to be lassoed, saddle broken, loaded onto a freight car and taken to work on the railroad. The effect on me was profound. I have a new and heightened empathy for horses and by extension for the whole of the animal kingdom. 

Sitting at my desk, I look at my dog Buddy and wonder - does he resent that I eat salmon and sleep on a futon while he is left with a bowl of dry kibbles and a place on the rug? Is that loyalty I see in his brown eyes gazing at me – or something else? As I write these paragraphs, complexity begins to emerge and I feel troubled. Beneath the surface of this carefree flick about the love of freedom, and the dignity of animals is something ironic and confusing.

As in any good drama, the protagonist must have an enemy: someone or something to struggle against and ultimately to overcome. In this movie, the enemy, the ultimate evil is represented by the construction of the railroad and by the cavalry. The enemy to Spirit is the white man’s world of technology and enslavement of animals. The human face on this ultimate enemy is the colonel who makes it his mission to break the wild stallion – to tame the untamable. The colonel and the cavalry he represents seek to enslave horses. We watch as they raid an Indian village, unprovoked. The colonel is never shown to sympathize or engage with another creature, human or otherwise. While the facial expressions of the horse have been exaggerated from real life, the colonel’s facial expressions have been reduced to just one: a stern look, such that he appears to be entirely disconnected from human emotion. 

The same rough riding pioneer spirit that Hollywood idealized in 20th century cinema has become Dreamwork’s 21st century enemy. Hollywood has been portraying non-whites as outlaws and bad guys for decades. Now it is the white man’s turn. Now it is my turn to look at the TV bad guy and see someone who resembles me. The colonel could be my great grandfather. As I watch the movie, I empathize with the free and courageous horse – but I look like the enemy. I am forced to acknowledge that much of my world, my comfort and my advantages are founded on white domination and technological progress. The feeling of elation I had when Spirit soared across that canyon fades, and I am left with painful irony. 

It’s just a movie I remind myself. I should get back to more tangible business: plant garlic, cook dinner, split firewood. But I believe in stories. Muriel Rukeyser, a 20th century poet writes,

Say it, say it the universe is made of stories
Not atoms. 

Characters such as Luke Skywalker, Cinderella, Moses, and now Spirit infuse the air we breathe. We grow up with them. Their mythic plot lines shape our behavior. These legendary characters inform our world view and we are composed of their stories.