Guest Author - Wendy Amato
This film is being talked about as a “pro-immigrant” movie, since the characters go “over the hedge” or border, to a foreign world where they are feared and persecuted. The cast of cute animals are manipulated by a greedy raccoon who capitalized on their naïveté and desire for food to drive them into suburbia and a life of crime. This dramatic “upping of the stakes” by the Pixar staff is unfortunate. This could have been a nice movie about the destruction of natural habitat by human encroachment and how the animals band together to survive. It could have also had parallels to the immigration efforts of those in neighboring countries who feel desperate and taunted by affluent Americans. This was a great chance to raise awareness about the need for compassion by people towards both native animals and persons who are different. It could have presented the advantages of people reaching out to others rather than crushing them. But the ending with it’s "cage the persecutors" finale advocates revenge more than compassion. That is not a good message to be sending to children.
The Over the Hedge troop becomes so fixated on obtaining their red wagon and cheesy poofs that the story descends into cliché farce. The animals in the story feverishly and blindly plot to steal food from humans without questioning the consequences of their actions or necessity of doing so. Immigrants don’t come into cities to greedily steal things. They generally aspire to assimilate into communities by working hard and sending their children to school. The immigrants do, however, face some of the same challenges the animals in the movie did: strange customs and behaviors, communication barriers, and a feeling of being excluded and unwanted. The HOA president’s overreaction to the intruders and the battle cry of “they will bring down property values” is unfortunately, a common knee-jerk reaction to “foreigners.”
The introduction of the exterminator character was graphically gruesome, and not appropriate in my opinion for small children. The first few minutes of the film, when the raccoon was threatened with death by the bear was also unnecessarily violent. There were a few good humorous moments but most of the comedy was of the cartoonish “turtle-losing-its-shell” variety. Pixar missed the opportunity to make a truly great and important film by underestimating its viewers and dumbing down its characters.
