“You’re doing pretty well for a first-timer!”
“Well, you can’t hold on to them forever, can you?”
Nemo is the title character in Finding Nemo,
and Dory gets the spotlight in Finding Dory,
but those titles kind of overlook the important role
that another character plays in this story: Marlin.
“A fish can breathe out here.
Did your man deliver, or did he deliver?”
The first movie, at least,
might be more accurately called Finding Marlin.
The journey to find Nemo is eally about Marlin figuring out
how to be the best dad he can be.
“In a couple of days, we're going to be parents!”
“Yeah.
What if they don't like me?”
“Marlin…”
“No, really.”
In order to do that he has to accept that Nemo is his own person
and realize that sheltering his son
will only prevent Nemo from forming a healthy relationship with the world.
“But, dude, how do you know when they’re ready?”
“You never really know, but when they know,
you’ll know, y’know?”
In the end, Marlin saves the day by becoming a confident role model
and showing that good parenting is truly a heroic feat.
“C’mon, Dad!”
“You’re doing great, son!”
“That’s my dad!”
Marlin’s key struggle is one that every parent faces --
he loves Nemo so much
that his impulse is to protect him from everything.
“I promise I will never let anything happen to you, Nemo.”
But like all parents, he has to learn to distinguish
between when that instinct is helpful, and when it becomes detrimental.
“You think you can do these things but you just can’t, Nemo!”
It’s hard not to think of your child as an extension of yourself.
But having a kid means raising someone
with their own personality, desires, and autonomy.
Nemo can’t develop his own independence with Marlin always standing in the way.
“You know you can’t swim well!”
“I can swim fine, Dad, okay?”
So even though accepting your child’s autonomy is scary,
it’s important to let go enough for them to form their own experiences.
“Kill the motor, dude.
Let us see what Squirt does flying solo.”
That’s hard for all parents, but it’s uniquely difficult for Marlin
because of his personal history.
At the beginning of the movie, Marlin is defined by the past trauma
of losing his wife and all of his other kids in a barracuda attack.
“Coral, get inside the house.
Coral, don’t.
They’ll be fine, just get inside.
You.
Right now.
No!”
That’s why he’s a helicopter parent with Nemo.
“Can I go play too?
Can I?”
“I would feel better if you go play over on the sponge beds.”
This tragedy has shaped his view of the world,
which he believes is a hostile, dangerous place.
“What’s the one thing we have to remember about the ocean?”
“It’s not safe.”
The vast ocean setting helps us see through Marlin’s eyes--
we can imagine how stressful it would be
to raise a child in an endless, open ocean,
so we partake in his heightened anxiety.
On top of all of this, his one remaining kid, Nemo,
has a disability -- his right fin was damaged in the attack.
“What’s wrong with his fin?”
“He looks funny.
“
“Hey, what I do?”
“Be nice.
It’s his first time at school.”
“He was born with it, kids.
We call it his lucky fin.”
“Dad…”
So Marlin’s worry for his son is justified --
just as many parents will feel,
understandably, that anxiety over their children is warranted
due to specific disabilities or disadvantages.
But Marlin’s belief that imminent danger lurks around every corner
shapes all of his decisions.
It makes him hold Nemo back from doing normal things,
like going to school.
“Are you sure you want to go to school this year?
Because there’s no problem if you don’t.
You can wait five or six years.”
“Come on, Dad, it’s time for school.”
Marlin’s overprotective attitude backfires and puts his son at risk,
because it breeds resentment,
“I hate you.”
which makes Nemo rebel and get captured by the divers
in the first place.
”Don’t touch the boat!
Nemo!”
“He touched the butt.”
So Marlin’s past seeps into his present in pretty harmful ways.
“No, Dad!
Just because you’re scared of the ocean—“
“Clearly you’re not ready, and you’re not coming back until you are.”
All parents want their kids to avoid the traumas they’ve experienced.
But the specific challenges we faced are unlikely to be the primary threats
confronting our children.
Letting the past dictate the way we view our kids’ lives
can do more harm than good.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been so tough on him.
I don’t know.”
Kids need to face hardships in order to grow,
and we can’t isolate them from the great big ocean of life.
“The ocean, silly.
We’re not the only two in here.”
Dory is the perfect guide to help Marlin overcome his past.
“No fish in this entire ocean is gonna help me.”
“Well, I’m helping you.”
She’s his exact opposite-- because of her short term memory loss,
she’s living entirely in the present.
“No, it’s true!
I forget things almost instantly.
It runs in my family.
At least I think it does.
Um.. huh.
Where are they?”
Even though her lack of memory is a disability
and makes her life hard in other ways,
she shows Marlin what it means to let go of what’s behind him
and live the moment in front of him.
“You wanna get out of here, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then, how are we gonna do that unless we give it a shot
and hope for the best?”
She sees the true value of minute-to-minute experiences,
because they’re all she has.
“Wow.
A whale.
You know I speak whale.”
And that opens Marlin’s eyes to the fact that he’s been making Nemo
miss out on life.
“I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.”
“Well, that’s a funny thing to promise.”
“What?”
“Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him,
then nothing would ever happen to him!”
“Just keep swimming” has become a famous mantra
in recent years.
“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”
It reminds us to persevere through difficult situations,
and stay optimistic when things look darkest --
two lessons that Marlin desperately needs to learn.
“Keep swimming!
Just keep swimming!”
In order to “just keep swimming,” you have to have faith that things will work
out,
even if you can’t yet see the path you need to take.
“Everything’s going to be alright!”
“How do you know?
How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?”
“I don’t!”
Marlin can’t bear anything that’s not in his control.
To him, everything that happens is just another opportunity for things to go
wrong.
“Hop inside my mouth if you want to live.”
“Hop into your mouth?
And how does that make me live?”
So he needs to learn how to trust.
“Trust you?”
“Yes, trust!
It’s what friends do.”
By not trusting, he drives Nemo away, and ends up hurting Dory.
When he finally trusts in his son and his friend,
he gets a happy ending.
“I can do this!”
“You’re right.
I know you can.”
Dory also teaches Marlin the power of optimism in tough times.
Optimism is what helps Dory think outside the box.
“Maybe he only speaks whale.”
“Dory, what are you doing?”
Marlin’s always too wrapped up in the consequences of his actions
to solve problems creatively -- until Dory inspires him
to start treating challenges like a game.
“Dory, listen to me.
I have an idea.
It’s a game.”
“A game?
I love games!
Pick me!”
This helps Marlin to be brave, and actually move forward
instead of drowning in anxiety.
“Swim down together.
Do you understand what I’m saying to you?
Swim down.”
These new skills that Dory draws out of Marlin
make him better equipped to be a good dad.
For one thing, they help him actually find Nemo,
and complete his quest.
“Thank goodness.
It’s alright, son.
It’s going to be okay.”
And they also help him channel his love for his son into a more productive outlet.
Expressing his love as trust and optimism rather than fear turns him into a hero
who can take on sharks, jellyfish, or anything that stands in his family’s
way.
“Seriously, Marty, did you really do all the things you say you did?”
“Pardon me.
Hello.”
By the end of the movie, Nemo sees his dad as a role model,
instead of as someone who’s terrified of the world.
“Sea turtles?
I met one.
And he was 150 years old.”
“150?”
“Yep.”
Marlin needs to set this example for Nemo to learn to believe in himself.
Parents have to show their kids that the world isn’t just a scary place--
otherwise, kids will grow up insecure and unsure of their own capabilities.
“We leave them on a beach to hatch, and coo-coo-cachoo,
they find their way back to the big ol' blue.”
“All by themselves?”
“Ya!”
How kids view their parents shapes a lot about who they are.
At Nemo’s age, which is roughly the age of a number of kids in the audience,
seeing your parents as a heroes is an important part of development.
Watching their parents take on the world gives kids the confidence to do so themselves.
Early in the film, Marlin hasn’t been setting that example for Nemo.
So Nemo’s left feeling the same lack of control his father feels.
“I can’t go with that girl!
I have to get back to my dad!
Daddy!
Help me!”
He feels hopeless and abandoned -- unprotected despite his father’s
urgent desire to protect.
“You’re lucky to have someone out there looking for you.”
“He’s not looking for me.
He’s scared of the ocean.”
Psychology studies different kinds of attachment patterns between parents and children,
which set the standard for how the child forms relationships.
Secure attachment, which is the ideal, means that the child sees the parents
as a safe, soothing home base they can come back to,
while the kid comfortably goes out into the world.
“Hey, Dad.
Did you see that?
Did you see me?
Did you see what I did?”
“You so totally rock, Squirt!
Give me some fin.
Noggin.”
“Dude.”
But Marlin is so frightened of the world that he’s mainly a source of fear for Nemo
--
“You’re not going to freak out like you did at the petting zoo, are you?
“Hey, that snail was about to charge.”
so without a secure home base,
Nemo is likely to form a more confused, ambivalent relationship
with the greater world.
On first viewing, it’s tempting to say
that Gill is the one who helps Nemo overcome his timidness,
since he initially pushes Nemo out of his comfort zone.
“Can you help me?”
No.
You got yourself in there, you can get yourself out.”
But the first time Gill asks Nemo to jam the filter,
Nemo doesn’t believe in himself.
“I can’t do it!”
And when he fails,
the other fish in the tank don’t think he can do it, either.
“Gill, don’t make him go back in there!”
“No, we’re done.”
No one in Nemo’s life trusts his abilities because of his bad fin.
And Nemo doesn’t trust himself to succeed,
because he’s been brought up to think that taking risks will lead to disaster.
“Have you ever met a shark?”
“No, and I don’t plan to.”
That only starts to change when he gets word of his dad’s adventures.
“It’s my dad!
He took on a shark!”
“I heard he took on three.”
Hearing about his dad crossing the ocean to find him
gives him the courage to try to escape again.
So for parents, the lesson here is
that the way you approach life will directly influence your kids.
Leading by example is really the only way to prove to a child
that they’re up to the challenge of navigating this world independently.
“Bye, son!
Have fun!”
“Bye, Dad!”
Finding Nemo gets at the heart of every parent’s fears and insecurities.
It asks the terrible question: what if I can’t protect my child?
And the answer is that you can’t shelter your child
from every possible disaster.
“Nemo, don’t move!
You’ll never get out of there yourself.
I’ll do it.”
But great parenting demands a blind leap of faith.
It’s impossible to anticipate every challenge your child might run up against.
The best you can do is to fight the urge to overprotect,
let trust and optimism guide you, and be the person you want your kids
to take after.
If you “just keep swimming,” you’ll find your way to a safe,
happy home within that big, scary ocean.
“Love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, son.”
Hi, guys.
Susannah and Debra here.
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