Is there still something to laugh about in these angry times? The answer is a small, yellow, and big-eyed yes. Because the little yellow characters the Minions have already done everything in five animated films, with their slapstick behavior and infectious laugh, to overcome evil by making fun of it.
Take the scene where Kevin, Stuart and Bob, three of the most famous of hundreds of little Minions, are tortured, in the movie minions from 2015. The flexible, enthusiastic yellow guys are stretched on the rack by their enemy. But they have to laugh about it. They are hung and slide out of the noose – and make a cheerful game of it. Their executioner is no match for so much absurd slapstick. He yells to the Minions, “Don’t laugh in the torture cellar!”
Adult movie viewers will recognize a witty reference to a famous scene from Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire. dr. Strangelove (from 1964 and current again). In it, a Russian and an American clash during a meeting about a nuclear bomb crisis in the command room. Gentlemen, the American president exhorts, do not fight, this is the war room†
With that reference we get to the heart of what makes the comical creatures the Minions so attractive: with their absurd humor they offer a way out of the torture chamber that life can be. “There is no sweeter comfort than that of the slapstick,” wrote Arnon Grunberg in an essay on silent film comedian Buster Keaton.
Read Arnon Grunberg’s essay here: Squeezed into a bath cubicle; Buster Keaton and the solace of the slapstick
The new Minions movie, How Gru Became a Super Villainoffers plenty of sweet slapstick comfort, such as the scene where one of the Minions, a disastrous airplane pilot, is sucked into a vacuum-sucking airplane toilet.
All our endeavor is an absurd comedy, seems the slapstick lesson the Minions teach us. They often sing cheerfully, in their nonsense language: in the latest film that is very appropriate ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, by the Stones.
From Orcs to Cute
The Minions first appeared in the French-American animated film in 2010 Terrible Me as blundering, loyal sidekicks of villain Gru. The basic idea for the comedy film was: bad guy adopts three innocent boy scout girls. In the original script, the “terrible” Gru had large, scary Orc-like helpers. But the animation filmmakers Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin (who does the Minions voices) thought it was too scary. To make Gru likeable, his helpers had to be nice too. This resulted in increasingly simple, smaller, blundering Minions. With big eyes. Or one big eye. Childishly large eyes are considered universally adorable. See the Japanese kawaii-character style (‘cute’, ‘sweet’.)
Also read: Cuteness is sugar for the soul
The combination of oriental kawaii and western slapstick make the Minions modern. And ensured their worldwide success, according to the website Buzzfeed.
The unexpected success of the childishly enthusiastic helpers became so great that they grew from an afterthought to a mainstay. They got their own movie minions in 2015, after three Terrible Me– movies with the pill-shaped guys in the supporting role. minions grew out of one of the most lucrative animated films ever, grossing over a billion dollars. Kids and adults love them. The yellow rascals became a hit on the internet and as toys. Gru, the bad guy, is in succession Terrible Memovies became more and more daring: he married and became a crime fighter – much to the chagrin of the Minions, who want to remain thugs. In the third Terrible Memovie they run away from him.
Threatening Dutch
Without their subversive mischief, Minions, while cute, aren’t nearly as fun. That is why they regularly stick out their tongues, fart and then get the giggles. Or fight each other.
In Minions quarrels a special role is reserved for the Dutch language. The common nonsense language they speak is a mixture of Spanish, Italian and English, among other things, as in the sayings ‘Banana!’ and “Tu le bella comme la papaya.”
But when they argue, the Minions use threatening Dutch guttural sounds, the creator of the language Pierre Coffin told The Guardian.
Coffin is the son of a French diplomat and Indonesian mother, who wrote novels about Dutch colonial horror in Indonesia. He knows how threatening Dutch can sound. It shows how universal the Minions are, that they even have a thread to the difficult Dutch colonial past.
Minions: How Gru Became a Super Villain. Directed by: Kyle Balda. In: 152 cinemas (NL), 104 cinemas (OV).
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 29, 2022
