I have to be honest: When I sat down to watch Minions & Monsters with my ten- and eight-year-old daughters, I did not expect the experience to end with a debate of Minion genitals.
But that is what happened. Typically, after I take my kids to the movies, we spend the trip home from the multiplex discussing what we liked and disliked about the film, whether we would change anything, and how it compared to other things we’d seen recently. We’ve done a bunch of these kid reviews now, and I am never not fascinated by the curious ways their minds work.
The occasion of a new Minions feature sparked a different sort of conversation. After a brief discussion of Minions & Monsters pluses and minuses, we took a detour into movie history, discussing the various actors, directors, and films that inspired this surprisingly detailed homage to early cinema. (We also learned what the word “homage” meant.)
It was a great little teachable moment for my kids. Then it segued into a teachable moment for me as my kids attempted to explain why the Minions have butts but no other visible body parts, and why there don’t appear to be any girl Minions. It was really a deeply educational day all around. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows below.
READ MORE: A Brutally Honest Kid Reviews Toy Story 5
Dad: So which did you like better, Toy Story 5 or Minions?
8 Year Old: Minions.
Dad: Wow. Why is that?
8 Year Old: This was really funny.
Dad: What was the funniest part?
8 Year Old: I think when it was they got … I keep forgetting the name of the big guy? [The giant orange blob covered in eyeballs seen on the movie’s posters]
Dad: Eyereen?
8 Year Old: Eyereen. I like Eyereen.
Dad: So was Eyereen your favorite character?
8 Year Old: I liked the green guy. [Goomie, voiced by Trey Parker] He was so cute. And also I liked James. [One of the three main Minions in the story.]
Dad: Ah.
8 Year Old: But I also liked … what was the main villain?
Dad: Eyereen.
8 Year Old: Eyereen! I like Eyereen.
Dad: [to 10 Year Old] You haven’t seen Toy Story 5 yet. What did you think of this movie?
8 Year Old: NO! I have a question: Minions or Mandalorian and Grogu?
10 Year Old: Minions.
Dad: This was better than Mandalorian?
10 Year Old: Yup.
8 Year Old: I don’t know! I think they’re tied.
10 Year Old: Yeah, maybe they’re tied for me, but I liked them both.
Dad: What makes the Minions so funny?
8 Year Old: They’re so funny.
10 Year Old: The butt comments.
Dad: I’m sorry; did you say “the butt comments”?
8 Year Old: They have a lot of humor.
10 Year Old: They do a lot of unexpected stuff. A lot of surprises. I like that. Also they laugh a lot. Everything’s funny to a Minion.
Dad: Could you understand what the Minions were saying?
8 Year Old: No. But that’s the funny part. [screams vaguely Minion-coded gibberish] Actually, I do understand them.
Dad: You do? What are they saying?
10 Year Old: [in high-pitched Minion voice] “Oh Chris!”
Dad: How can you tell the Minions apart? They all kind of look alike to me. I get confused who is who sometimes.
10 Year Old: Some are tall, some are short.
Dad: Which one was the short one?
10 Year Old: The short one was the one that got bonked in the head.
Dad: What was his name?
10 Year Old: Uhhhh … I don’t, they didn’t, they probably only said his name once in the beginning, so I don’t remember.
Dad: What did you think about all the stuff in this Minions about old movies?
8 Year Old: I liked how the reason the Minions got fired from their movie was because they were pointing [on cue cards] to what to say, which they don’t normally do in movies — which is funny — but also they were pointing at it like “Say this! Say this!” But Henry just kept saying gibberish instead. And the time when he was supposed to die on camera, he was just like [Minion voice] “Ah lo laaaaa! Blehhhhh!”
Dad: Did you know that scene was sort of inspired by real history?
8 Year Old: Yeah.
Dad: You did know that?
8 Year Old: Mmmhmmm.
Dad: Can you tell me more about the real story?
8 Year Old: No.
Dad: [laughs] Would you like to know the real story?
8 Year Old: Yes please.
Dad: Okay. Did you notice how when the Minions first started working on movies, the films were silent? Have you ever seen a silent movie?
10 Year Old: Uh, I don’t think so.
Dad: Did you know that when they first invented movies they were silent?
10 Year Old: Yes, you’ve talked about that before.
Dad: Okay. Yeah, when movies were first created, they had no sound.
8 Year Old: Ohhhh that’s why the Minions were better at movies at first.
Dad: Yes, exactly. The Minions could be silent movie stars, because they did not need to say lines of dialogue. When movies first started having sound in the late 1920s and early 1930s, suddenly the actors had to talk on camera. And some of the actors who were very big movie stars when movies were silent had a really hard time staying stars with sound. You might be very handsome or beautiful, you looked great on camera [speaks in squeaky voice] but you had a voice like this.
10 Year Old: They didn’t sound good, so people didn’t like them as much?
Dad: Yup. Very popular silent stars had their careers basically end when movies added sound. So even though it’s a ridiculous joke — the Minions get fired because they only speak Minionese — it is kind of based on a thing that really happened.
10 Year Old: The movie also started with those, uh, books, where you take, like, a picture every second and it looks like it moves.
Dad: A flipbook.
10 Year Old: Yeah. And now we have video. You just record things on a camera. And you can hit pause, stop, start. It doesn’t matter how much film you use. If it’s a bad take you say “Cut!” and try it again another time. But it’s harder when you have a certain amount of film. I’m sure it’s not cheap making movies.
Dad: No, definitely not.
Dad: Actually, a lot of the early part of the movie was based on real movies and real people who worked in movies during the silent era. Did you recognize any of them? Any of the non-yellow, non-Minion people?
10 Year Old: I don’t know.
Dad: Have you ever heard of Charlie Chaplin?
10 Year Old: Nope.
8 Year Old: Yeah.
Dad: You have? Who was Charlie Chaplin?
8 Year Old: Uhhhh he was a guy…?
Dad: Have you actually heard of him?
8 Year Old: Yes.
Dad: But you don’t know who he is.
8 Year Old: Yes.
10 Year Old: Was he a movie star?
Dad: He was a movie star and a director of silent movies. He was a comedian and he was really, really popular, mostly when movies were silent. He was still very famous after movies introduced sound, but he was most famous before that. Do you remember the scene in Minions where the guy with the mustache got sucked into the factory machine along with a bunch of Minions?
10 Year Old: Oh yeah.
Dad: That’s from a Charlie Chaplin movie called Modern Times. Taken almost exactly from one famous scene — without the Minions.
Dad: That was part of that chase scene, which was filled with references to other silent film stars. One moment was inspired by this guy Buster Keaton who was another famous silent comedian. And then there was a guy hanging off a clock; that was Harold Lloyd, who made this fantastic movie called Safety Last! Do you know what it’s called when you reference something inspired by an old movie or a book or a TV show? You call that an “homage.” So the movie was paying homage to all the old silent comedians.
10 Year Old: How much money do you have to pay them?
Dad: No no, that’s just the expression. You don’t actually pay. It’s just a tribute. And that wasn’t the only part of Minions paying homage to early movies? Do you remember how the opening credits played next to all those old-looking black-and-white movies with Minions in them?
8 Year Old: Yeah.
Dad: Do you remember what you said to me at that point?
8 Year Old: No.
Dad: You said “Is the whole movie going to be in black and white?”
8 Year Old: Oh yeah.
Dad: So they added the Minions, but all those movies were actual examples of very early movies made like 130 years ago.
8 Year Old: Were any of those silent stars in those?
Dad: So those were even older than the movies with silent movie stars. These were from, like, the 1890s.
8 Year Old: That’s even older than you.
Dad: Yes. Wait, do you think I was almost alive in the 1890s?
10 Year Old: He was born in 1980.
Dad: My great-grandmother was, like, a baby when these early films were coming out. At that time, just the idea of a picture that moved was so exciting you didn’t need movie stars to interest people. So someone would take a camera to a factory and film the workers leaving, which was one of the clips in Minions. Or they would film a train arriving in a station. And supposedly the famous story — although it’s not clear if it really happened or if it’s more of an urban legend — is that the first time that film of a train entering a station showed in a movie theater on a big screen people thought it was real, and they freaked out and ran away because they thought the train was going to hit them.
8 Year Old: Wait, what happened?
Dad: So the very first movies were shown in these devices where you would stick your head into a little viewfinder and see something playing inside it. But then they started projecting movies onto big screens like they still do today — and one of the first ones was this film of a train pulling into a train station. The camera was positioned so it kind of looked like the train was coming right toward it. And, according to legend, people thought it was real and were so freaked out they bolted from the theater. Supposedly.
10 Year Old: Mmmmmm…
Dad: Do you believe that?
10 Year Old: That sounds made up. I guess it could happen, but if there was a blank wall one second and then a movie on it the next, how are you seeing out into the open? Also, the world isn’t actually black and white so you would know it’s not real.
Dad: That’s a really good point. Again, just to be clear: I wasn’t alive 125 years ago to know for sure. But it is a story people tell. And if you know a lot about movies, then you understand why that is in the opening credits of Minions. And even if you don’t know anything about old movies, there’s lots of Minions being silly and showing their butt cheeks and stuff.
8 Year Old: That was another thing I loved about it!
Dad: I know. I was sitting next to you as you laughed hysterically at their butts.
Dad: Wait, how come the Minions have butt cheeks but they don’t have [pauses as he immediately regretting broaching this subject] other body parts?
10 Year Old: What do you mean?
8 Year Old: Like their privates?
Dad: Yes. Their privates. Isn’t that weird? There’s that one Minion naked. He’s got a tushie but otherwise he appears to be totally smooth.
10 Year Old: Maybe they did that thing where they pixelized him so you can’t see it? You know how they do that? They pixelize it? [Editor’s Note: I think she means pixelated?]
Dad: They pixelized it? Did I miss that?
10 Year Old: Maybe he’s so yellow, it was very hard to see.
Dad: So what you’re suggesting is the Minions do have privates, and the movie pixelized them, but because the Minions and their privates are yellow, they become invisible? That’s the explanation we’re going with?
10 Year Old: Yeah!
8 Year Old: [cackles hysterically]
Dad: Good to know.
10 Year Old: I think they’re all boy Minions because none of them have boobs.
Dad: You raise a good question. Why are the Minions all boys? Shouldn’t there be girl Minions?
10 Year Old: “Give women the vote! Give women the vote!”
Dad: Where do the Minions come from if there are no girl Minions?
[Six seconds of silence as we all ponder this unanswerable question]
Dad: The Minions are pretty strange, huh?
8 Year Old: That’s why they’re funny Dad.
Dad: Oh sorry.
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Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
