Kiki's Delivery Service

As we discussed earlier – despite protestations, Studio Ghibli movies are highly influenced by the OG Disney Alice, so this probably isn’t a coincidence, but an homage (conscious or not.)

I really wish I could find a clip of this Crow LOSING IT on Kiki. It’s hilariously extra.

Oh no! The stuffed cat Kiki was supposed to deliver gets stolen and decapitated by the crows.

(This sounds metal but it’s weirdly fine.)

To fix it, she has to barter her cleaning services so Janeane Garofalo will sew up the stuffy.

What is Garofalo doing here in the middle of this crow-infested forest, you ask?

She’s an independent modern woman doing painting retreat forest art things! Also befriending crows and introducing young passers-by to the anti-capitalist service-barter economy.

In other words, living my dream life.

So back to the ol’ bucket & scrub brush with Kiki so she can get that stuffy back to its rightful owner and rescue Jiji from his life of lies. LIES!!!

Because! While all of this is happening – Jiji is acting as a ‘place-holder’ for the un-delivered stuffed animal until she can retrieve it so the giftee (who happens to Bobby Hill from King of the Hill) never realizes she messed up and didn’t deliver the right cat.

Whew – mission accomplished, with the assistance of a dog named Jeff (that is SUCH a weird name for a dog), she swaps out the stuffy for her cat.

On the way back home, she’s says something like “That artist lady said she could draw a picture of me”

And Cat Phil Hartman is like “Naked?”

Wait. What?

Where did that come from? What…. What?!

Oh Phil Hartman, you freaking weird tiny kitten with a snide voice and completely bizarre and age-inappropriate comments.

The next day, Kiki is complaining how she’s gonna get “fat..fat..FAAAAAAAT!” Now that she can only afford to eat pancakes and wow. Not charming, Kiki. Maybe unpack that fat-phobia.

On cue, that boy who chased her down earlier and kept asking to play with her flying broom is here to… obsess about her flying broom some more.

Dude take a hint. Or rather – listen to the words out of her mouth where she’s like “Eeeahhhhghhh….”

So far, this movie has passed the bechdel test with flying colors (as low of a bar as that is), particularly revolutionary for a movie made in 1989.

I mean – we’ve got chill moms, supportive grandmothers, mean-girl-peers, cool girl forest hermits, and kind pregnant entrepreneur bakery owners.

*Underlined* on the pregnancy thing. Let’s remember in most spaces through the 80’s it was kind of verboten to acknowledge or show a woman pregnant because SCANDAL, gross! Pregnancy draws attention to a woman’s body AND the fact that she fucks!

As much as this was a controversy to depict pregnant women  before the 80’s (Re: Pregnant Lucille Ball, Pregnant Mary Tyler Moore on the Dick van Dyke show), even my own mom hid her body and refused to have ANY pictures taken of herself pregnant in the 1980s.

Although that might be because she’s got body issues and a severe case of fat-phobia. But she assures me pregnancy was *not visibly allowed* up through the 80s.

So getting to see so many different women and girls, and all of them interacting with Kiki in ways that don’t center men – it’s more common now, but still not super common.

Despite this – every interaction between women still feels like a scene about women written by men.

(Because they are.)

This kind of ‘strong female lead’ is so Whedon-esque. There’s still this sense of puppetry. Like what we are and are not allowed to talk about, how we condone ourselves.

Not saying Hayao Miyazaki is anything like Joss Whedon. (Whedon is trash-garbage, and Miyazaki is our Creative Surrealist Dream Grampa)

But there’s a theme in all these series of ‘creative men known for centering strong female leads’ that still feels like – well – were any actual women ever leading writing room?

Anyway, this is… a pleasant but slow movie. I acknowledge how radical it was for 1989.

(And how sadly radical it is for 2022).

But we’re still without much of a plot to get curious about. R2 (the 8-year-old) has wandered away. I can’t tell if this movie would be more or less interesting if he was older.

I mean – we just watched Kiki help an older woman start a fire, bake a herring pumpkin pot pie, and change some light bulbs.

Yes, literally this is not hyperbole, it’s a movie where the main character changes light bulbs and scrubs a fair share of floors. It’s the kind of movie you’d turn on if you’re having trouble sleeping, complete with rainy day white noise soundtrack.

[what feels like twelve hours later]

Oh okay here’s the plot. Kiki spreads herself thin working too much and burns out.

Her powers (of communicating with cats and flying on brooms) start to fade.

Luckily her feminist crow art painter friend scoopes her up for a short forest retreat where they talk about taking breaks and finding purpose or something. Again, we’re passing that low-bar, bechdel test with flying colors – but also in kind of a mind numbingly boring way that very much feels written by dudes.

Hey, has anyone read the graphic novel Song of the Court yet? Similar themes on burnout, self-care, and supportive friendship. I love it.

At this point – we’re all starting to lose it. One of our adult friends is asleep. Their kid has wandered off to play in an exercise bike. My kids are fighting over a skateboard neither one of them has touched in four months.

So I can confidently say this is a … difficult movie for kids ages 8-11 to sit through. And I can’t really see anyone under 8 sitting through this Young Artists’ Forests Retreat & Task Rabbit Documentary without spinning out.

It IS, however, a good contender for ‘good movies to fall asleep to.’

Second only to Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2, both of which I have tried MULTIPLE times to get through, but like 20 minutes in and I’m passed out in a sloppy drooling puddle on the sofa.

I mean – it’s not a tedious city council meeting with hours of hiking.  It’s not painfully boring. Kind of… pleasantly boring?

But still. Between those of us who haven’t fallen asleep, we’re all getting a little twitchy.

But ho! Excitement thickens the plot! The dirigible Kiki missed out on riding earlier is flying away with a police car in tow – along with that tenacious young boy from earlier. (I didn’t mention the dirigible scene before because… it was boring.)

Kiki happens to be helping out one of her clients when they catch it on the news. Her client’s friend (housekeeper?) is… excited.

She’s got ‘I wanna watch the world burn’ face. Add a few more points for ‘Complex Representations of White Women.’ I want this sadistic housekeeper to star in her own movie. I’d watch it!

We are all creeped out, and for a moment, all of us are riveted.

Kiki decides she can help (HOW THO? IT’S A HUGE ZEPPELIN THING TOWING A COP CAR AND A CHILD), steals a broom, and overcomes her fading flying skills to zwoop around the neighborhood.

And now that we are all on the edge of our seats…. Q and R2 have decided to escalate that skateboard fight so all of us are shouting now.

Anyway, the zeppelin has crashed, the annoying boy is dangling precariously on a rope, and I guess we can all see where this is going.

Kiki is NOT LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS! She’s gonna rescue a boy! (Sure. Okay.)

Meanwhile back at home, Kiki’s family (remember them) happily read a letter from her without like… I dunno any fear that she’s been unalived in her year-long Rumspringa?

(I get that Amish kids don’t actually leave home for Rumspringa most of the time and that’s a stereotype but you know what I mean.)

Anyway – Is this a classic movie that shaped entire generations of witchy baby white feminists? For sure.

Was it radically feminist at the time? Almost.

Is it radically feminist right now? Sadly – yeah kinda.

But! Really what I want is a sequel where the delightfully weird housekeeper watches the world burn (and finds a new way to do self-care that doesn’t involve domestic work.)