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| Photo credit: thelegomovie.com |
My ENGL 1010 students have to complete an activity in which they read two definitions of "creativity" and discuss which one they like better. One posits that creativity is "being free to express yourself in a way that is unique to you, not having to conform to certain rules and guidelines" (qtd. in Ramage, Bean, and Johnson,
The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, Brief 6th Edition, 154). The other gives several contradictory definitions (creativity = making something yourself vs. something that's derivative is not creative) before arriving at a synthesis: "Creativity, therefore, is a process.... The less experienced tend to allow for less originality, while the more experienced demand real originality to classify something a 'creation'" (155). Students usually find the second stronger and more interesting because it provides a more nuanced definition of creativity.
All this went through my mind while watching
The LEGO Movie with my family last weekend. Though full of laughs and certainly a good time, it quickly unveiled loftier ambitions than I had expected. For most moviegoers and critics, it succeeded; for me, those ambitions were a risk that didn't pan out. I was expecting the people behind
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), which I loved, to suspend my awareness of reality through over-the-top goofiness. Instead, the movie's insistence on facing reality made its over-the-top goofiness something only my kids could truly enjoy...as if that's what it wanted. As if to say, "This kind of fun is not for you."
To illustrate my point I'll have to move into
spoiler territory.
