Monsters Inc.
I recently saw the cartoon movie Monsters Inc. again with my daughters. Two friendly monsters, Sulley and Mike Wazowski, put body and soul into perfecting their scare techniques to get the greatest possible emotional charge out of children’s screams. Monstropolis depends on this as its source of electrical energy. Knowing that “there’s no power without screams”, these good-hearted fellows fully identify with their company’s slogan: “We scare because we care.” Of course, their reciprocal fear of children helps them do their unpleasant civic duty.
A growing energy crisis caused by the fact that “children today don’t scare like they used to”, plus a direct encounter with a cute and very tough-to-scare little girl called Boo, starts our heroes on an adventure where they discover that laughs have ten times more amperage than screams. In the happy ending they redefine themselves professionally as great comedians.
After so many horror stories (enough to make Stephen King envious, were they not true), there is no doubt that fear is palpable here in Venezuela. Although a little cautious fear may be a good thing, we know that chronic fear is bad. It paralyzes everything and can eventually lead to collective suicide, making it urgent for all of us to shun the darkness.
I wonder what would happen if, when the lights came on, we discovered that, without our knowing it, our country was really just Monsters 2, a movie about a social experiment watched by the rest of the world as a lesson on how to manage conflict that arises from polarized opinions.
And what if we suddenly also discovered that the audience was laughing at all our monsters, having seen that they were only just balloons filled with hot air to rise up and frighten us?
In that case, we would have to conclude that we were the star players in the Mother of all revolutions and counter-revolutions (of the Café, Bodega or Cantina type, as the case may be). In that case, we would be left only with our fear of appearing ridiculous... A welcome change indeed!
Am I dreaming? Perhaps, but as I watch how the world shrinks, I become more and more convinced that we will shake off our fear in Venezuela. So my friends, to quote Dory in Finding Nemo, the movie that followed Monsters Inc.: Keep on swimming… keep on swimming.
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