Further Thougts on The Jungle Book

As I said in my review, I wound up pleasantly surprised by Disney’s new version of The Jungle Book, and not just because of how great the CGI is.  No – I also really enjoy the story, which explores some interesting themes.  It’s those themes I’d like to look at today (spoilers.)

Obviously, the immediate elephant in the room for The Jungle Book is the fact that Mowgli isn’t a wolf like everyone else in his adopted family.  In fact, he’s not any type of jungle animal – he’s a “man cub,” and that means he’s out of place.  While his family and friends love him, his status as a human earns him stares wherever he goes, and even within his family, he can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t fit in.

Like Disney’s other major “diverse animals” movie this year, Zootopia, we can find some thoughtful metaphors for multiculturalism.  Although Mowgli was technically born in the man village, he was found by Bagheera as a baby and raised by the wolves since infancy, and yet he’s still seen as an outsider.  Animals who don’t know him whisper and keep their distance when he approaches the watering hole.  More significantly, Shere Khan is overtly hateful towards Mowgli and isn’t content to merely see him leave the jungle; he wants the boy dead by his paw.  In the present climate of stirred-up xenophobia, I don’t have to tell you what that kind of hostility feels reminiscent of.  It’s important, too, that Shere Khan’s hatred is rooted in both ignorance and fear.  Because he believes all humans are the same, he believes Mowgli will grow up to fit his expectation of what that looks like, and it’s not in a flattering one.  In his mind, all humans are inherently dangerous, indiscriminate killers, and he tries to fan the other animals’ wariness and mistrust into a fear that matches his own.  Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar, does it?

In light of all this, the movie couldn’t very well have ended as the animated version does, and I’m super relieved that it doesn’t.  Sure, in the real life, it’s of course better for a child to live among humans instead of jungle animals, and if this was real life, it would be criminal to suggest otherwise.  However, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that this isn’t real life.  It’s a movie with talking animals and a singing bear, so the rules are different, and when it uses Mowgli being human as a metaphor for immigration, it would be terrible to end the movie by sending Mowgli “back where he came from” (even though the man village has never truly been his home in any meaningful sense of the word) because he “belongs with his own kind,” the implication being that he doesn’t belong with the animals who are physically different than him.  So glad, then, that the film is ultimately about Mowgli and those around him recognizing the jungle as his real home.

Even better, it’s about Mowgli belonging in the jungle just as he is.  There’s an intriguing thread throughout the movie about Mowgli’s “tricks,” which is what the animals call his natural instinct toward making and using tools.  Other characters discourage him from tool-making (again, because it’s unfamiliar and therefore troubling to them,) arguing that it isn’t “the wolf way” and try to reshape him to fit their ideas of the correct ways to behave and get by.  However, Mowgli isn’t a wolf and physically can’t do the same things they do, and it’s only by accepting himself the way he is that he’s able to find real success.  As he and the other characters come to terms with this, the message is clear:  Mowgli can be different and still belong in the jungle.  He doesn’t have to assimilate to be one of them, and I love that.