A Number Of Black Critics Pointed Out Joe's Lack Of Agency In Soul As Nightmarish Conjurings' review of the film rightly points out, ' Overall, Joe is a Black man in his Black body for less than 20 minutes in the entire film,' pointing to the main character's general lack of agency throughout the film. While Soul's main character is a significant milestone in terms of representation, it is unfortunate that it will also be added to the list. Most infamously, Disney's The Princess and the Frog transforms Tiana (the studio's first-ever Black Disney princess) into a frog for the majority of her story.

Even in recent years, The Emperor's New Groove transmutes an Incan king into a llama, Brother Bear morphs an Inuit leading character into a grizzly, and Will Smith's character in Spies in Disguise changes into a pigeon. Soul's doubling down on this particular plot contrivance - which in essence splits and separates a person of color from their racial identity - is difficult to rationalize, especially considering animation history. Related: Soul's Post-Credits Scene Makes No SenseĪs the trailer implied, Joe spends most of the film's first act in his diminutive blue soul-form and then its second as a cat (a detail left out of the marketing material). Soul ends with Joe being given a second chance, but what he will do with that opportunity is left ambiguous.

After some setbacks, Joe eventually persuades 22 to live her life though it means that he will die, giving up his hard-won dream in the process. Tasked with mentoring the unruly soul, 22 (Tina Fey), Joe and his charge end up back on Earth (22 is accidentally in Joe's body while Joe finds himself inside a conveniently adjacent therapy cat) before being found out and brought back to their metaphysical limbo. Soul follows Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a Black middle school band teacher and talented jazz musician who, after landing the gig of a lifetime, lands in coma in the wake of a freak accident. Unwilling to enter into the 'Great Beyond,' Joe's soul-self lands in the neighboring 'Great Before,' a plane of existence where new souls are prepared for human life. While the trippy film has been met with a largely positive response since its Disney+ release, the controversial utilization of the problematic trope of separating Black characters from their bodies (and others) has inspired some of Soul's most nuanced and complicated discourse. When the first trailer was released, there were a few eyebrows raised after learning that the character of Joe Gardner - Pixar's first Black lead - would appear as a blue-green creature. Pixar's Soul may have made history, but it still has some racial issues.

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