Pinocchio and The Whale
by Alfonsina Betancourt
What do fairy tales teach us about challenging moments?
There is no shame in admitting that from a very young age until now I have always been a fan of Disney stories. I believed the whole plot that the world is difficult but the good ones always triumph, the evil lose, and there is always a happily ever after. Before you judge me too strongly, let me clarify that I have grown enough to understand that life is not a Disney story and there are lots of exceptions to the plot we were made to believe.
From Disney’s Pinocchio (1940)
The world at this exact moment does not look like a fairy tale. I doubt a pandemic will ever make it to a children’s movie. I certainly hope not unless it is a science-fiction story. So how come in the middle of this unforeseen chaos, my mind is going to one of the most iconic children’s stories?
Pinocchio was released in 1940, so that means that it was already more than forty years old the first time I saw it. Because my dad used to shoot 8 and 16-mm films when I was little, one of our favorite pastimes growing up was darkening the room and projecting the movies on the wall: the first definition of a home theater I learned. Besides our home movies, my dad had bought a collection of Disney 16mm films. It was quite a treasure! That is how I got introduced to the story of the marionette that was brought to life by a Blue Fairy and, with the help of a cricket who acted as his conscience, went through lots of tribulations until he proved he was good enough to become a real boy. Happy ending, as usual.
The scene that popped into my mind yesterday was the one that frightened me the most when I was little. Pinocchio decided to run to a sinful place called Pleasure Island (I doubt that name would pass The Motion Pictures Association ratings these days), where kids became donkeys after misbehaving, drinking and smoking all they wanted. He eventually realized he needed to go home, where he found out his dad Geppetto had gone to sea looking for his lost son and was swallowed by a whale called Monstro. Pinocchio went to rescue his dad.
In my young girl’s eyes, the whale looked really scary. It gulped Geppetto’s boat along with loads of fish, and they showed the animals inside. Gepetto was resigned to die there alone until Pinocchio was also swallowed in a very suspenseful moment. At one point, the dad refers to being inside the whale, “everything comes in, nothing comes out.” The wooden puppet started a fire to make the whale sneeze expelling their raft with them on it. It worked, but on their intent to swim to shore, Pinocchio dies. A little bit dramatic, no? Disney worked its magic and had the Blue Fairy return to bring Pinocchio to life and into a real boy’s body. Happy ending.
Away from the fairy tale and fast forward into the year of COVID-19, we are asked to stay home, recluse for everybody’s sake. Doesn’t it feel like we have been swallowed by a whale? There is no way out, we are forced to face the darkness, away from the rest of the world. It is so easy to feel like Geppetto without hope. But the fact that he went through that is what made Pinocchio go after him. It was inside the whale that father and son reunited, Pinocchio still holding to his donkey ears and tail, a sign of his jackass behavior. It was inside the whale that Pinocchio proved he had a good heart and the brains to solve their problem. It was there that they fought united. When the time was right, they escaped, Pinocchio lost his donkey features and earned his right to become a real boy. Being swallowed by the whale was the beginning of the happy ending, although it didn’t look like that at the moment.
Right now, it is our time to create a fire inside, burn all the old pieces of wood that do not serve us, to be courageous. Right now, the whale is the safe place to reunite with our families. Right now, it is time to abandon bad behaviors that make us into jackasses, including selfishness. The time to get to shore will come eventually; let’s practice our patience. But patience does not mean statically waiting. It means to keep moving with shorter steps knowing that the moment to act will come later. Patience is accepting what we never thought we would accept for the greater good.
There will be a happy ending to all of this among all the tragedies it presents. Let’s try to behave as well as possible to earn our right to become real boys and girls and superheroes. Let’s embrace our time inside the whale, and let’s be honest….we already know what happens to those that lie, and I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want is a growing wooden nose. And let’s remind ourselves that even in fairy tales, characters must wait, explore, fight, and die. Happy endings are earned, and we are now called to do our part, even if that means staying inside the whale with our loved ones around the fire while Blue Fairies in scrubs do their magic outside.
This will eventually pass, but in the meantime, the whale is where we ought to be for now. And when the moments of despair arrive, remember that life is a thread of fairy tales with challenges and rewards and happy moments and impermanent afters.
Stay safe, and embrace this chapter!