Monster's University: The Hard work vs Talent Paradigm

Do you remember when you were a child and your parents use to read to you different types of tales every time you were about to go to sleep?  I don't. But anyway, you know which stories I'm referring to, you know these types of tales and you know that there's always an underlying lesson that you must have acquired by the end of the story. Usually , it's a lesson that you've already acquired or is something so obvious or dorky that you completely forget about it within few minutes. Classic Disney movies work the same way, hell, even the most popular and classical Disney movies are based upon these stories. Except Pixar movies, those are different. Pixar movies tend to explore themes that we don't ordinary see in kids movies and some of these themes and lessons are actually quite complex than just the classics : "The true beauty is inside", "True love conquers everything", "You're the only one holding you back", etc. Take the revolution and oppression theme that revolves around "A Bug's Life":



The middle-aged crisis and the family issues that Mr.Incredible has to endure and how these things put his family in danger, the dilemma that Woody has to face while choosing a momentary period of happiness with Andy or an eternity of fame in a museum but alone.

The conflicts that these characters face are quite complex but at the end of the day, they always learn the lesson that we expect them to learn, they always make the choices that we expect them to may. Except in this final release: Monster's University.



The overall theme that Monster's University presents us is the classic "Talent vs Hard-work" paradigm; Mike Wazowski representing the notion of hard work and determination and  Sulley (and all of the other successful monsters) the notion of talent and natural ability. You may think that this is nothing new, we have been presented with this same paradigm in a lot of different movies and what is the lesson that they always teach us? It doesn't matter if you don't have talent, if you keep on trying, you will succeed. If you show determination and hard work you can keep up with the ones with natural talent and even overtake them. Hard work is always going to defeat talent. That's the lesson that we have learned but now here it comes Monster's University and this movie doesn't come to retell this lesson, what it does is actually the opposite: this movie challenges and question this idea that we thought we have learned and in the process that teach us the true hard lesson about the "Talent vs Hard work" paradigm.

What Monster's University and Mike Wazowski's quest of becoming a "scarer" are trying to tell us is that, this paradigm is not always true, hard work doesn't always manifests in success and in some disciplines, a degree of natural talent is required and cannot be acquired through hard work.

You can try, you can be determined but hard work is not always going to defeat natural talent. Just because you desire a dream so much and you try everything to reach it, that doesn't mean that it's going to eventually come true. But when you fail you need to know that this wasn't your fault. With the other lesson, failing is such a painful process because everything is up to you, success is there and you can take it, if you couldn't take it that means that you didn't tried hard enough and your failure is completely your fault. In real life this is not true, Mike had the knowledge and determination to become the greatest scarer of them all but he lacked the essential natural talent. After learning this hard lesson, Mike modified his dream based on the realities he has faced and that's exactly what we do in real life, that is the true lesson that we have to learn about this paradigm: Sometimes we have to just accept failure, move on and try something else, if you've tried really hard there's no shame in that.

So as you can see this is not the typical lesson that you get from your typical fairy tales or your typical Disney movie, this is a hard lesson to learn but an important one and Monster's University does an excellent job in teaching it.

Thanks for reading :)