The concept of chimeras has been around for thousands of years: ancient stories are filled with creatures that are a mixture between two or more animals and between animal-human mixes, such as the Minotaur.
Recently, two films have brought back this concept. To make things even more odd, they arrived at a time when talks on actual chimeras have filled the internet. The two movies in question are the new Lion King and the Cats movie, which will be released in a few months. The Lion King is a remake of the 1990s animation movie, only this time around the characters – all animals – were CGI-d with extraordinary care, being probably some of the most realistic animated animals cinema has ever seen. On the other hand, the Cats are a mix of humans and animals, only slightly CGI-d. What is also an odd choice in the Cats movie is that the characters all look like humans dressed up as cats, only that they were cat-sized.
Each of the two movies proposes a very strange phenomenon, namely that of the human-animal.
In the case of The Lion King, the characters looked very life-like, the movie has a very documentary-style feel to it. This is definitely an odd choice, as this does not make the animals more relatable, but extremely lifeless. In most animation movies, when animals are personified, they usually also borrow expressions of humans, so that we can relate to them. In a way, what animations that feature talking animals usually do is what a fable used to do: they apply human traits on an animal, so that we can relate to them. In the case of The Lion King, this effect has been heavily reduced and now, the animals simply… talk. The reason why this is extremely bizarre is because while we may easily join a creative convention where animals talk if they are personified, seeing normal animals simply talk is just odd.
In the case of Cats, the characters are neither cats nor people, which confuses our brains and makes us feel discomfort. Both The Lion King and Cats generate this discomfort in the viewer due to the phenomenon called “The Uncanny Valley”. The Uncanny Valley is a theory formulated by Masahiro Mori, which is based on the idea that, as robots become more human-looking, they become more and more familiar. However, once a robot reaches a certain degree of human resemblance, but it is clearly not human, it starts making us uncomfortable. This is why, Masahiro Mori suggested that robots should not be made to look like humans. The reason why the Uncanny Valley appears is not 100% clear, but it is probably safe to say that it arises because our reason and our emotions drive us in two different directions at the same time when faced with such a presence. Our emotions tell us that the presence is human and thus encourages us to relate to it, but our reason tells us that it is not, and thus encourages us to flee from it. This approach is often used intentionally in films where the goal is precisely to feel uneasy when a character appears, but until now, it has not been common to see such characters in children’s movies, comedies or musicals.
The two films in discussion have appeared in the mainstream discussions right when Chinese researchers have announced that they have created the first human-monkey creatures. Basically, their stated goal is to create animals with human organs so that these can be later harvested for people who need them. Of course, this is not only an example of the commodification of humans, but it is also an open door to many experiments which in many countries are banned.
Today, we are definitely seeing a trend in the “humanification” of animals: from political activists who see animals as equals to humans to artistic representations such as these two movies, it seems that there is a clear push for the blurring of lines between humans and animals.
And, who knows? Perhaps soon we will see a Pegasus and later down the line a centaur. Which would, of course, place huge ethical problems, that, undealt with, can lead to a lot of damage. Should we let our imagination run, it can be even said that these creatures existed once before on Atlantis, which “fell” under the weight of its own creations, and that the myths we have are just stories of old.