Randall Boggs is an ass. And he’s today’s Disney villain.
You know, I was gonna let you bask in the afterglow of Maleficent’s dragony evil. I was just gonna skip tonight because when I looked at my list of outstanding Disney villains, I realized that I didn’t recognize those MFs. And that means I have to watch some sorry-ass Disney movie to figure out the hell Sykes is. And I HATED The Hunchback of Notre Dame! And Pocahontas. And Fantasia. What this means is I am hedging on the last thing my kids watched and that leads me to Monsters Inc. and to Randall. The ass.
To be fair, all the monsters in Monsters Inc. are asses. You know the story (if you don’t, it sucks to be you, cuz I’m gonna ruin it): the monsters here are the monsters under your bed or in your closet and their job is scaring the cowboy shit outta your young ass because it powers their economy. While the premise is actually pretty cool, these bastards have been ruining nookie night for parents for years so they could watch some shitty ass movie on Monster HBO. I think I’m bitter. Anyway, cute lil Boo follows Sully the Monster back into the Monster’s world, hi jinx ensue, yada yada yada and they found out that the laughter a child—the sweet, innocent laughter of a little child—was ten times more powerful than their tears.
Sweet, isn’t it?
But what would this sweet little tale be without an antagonist? For Monsters Inc., we have Randall Boggs, a jackass chameleon with invisibility powers. You know, Disney villains do often commit horrible atrocities for the wildest of reasons—the Evil Queen thought Snow White was too pretty; Lady Tremaine thinks her busted ass daughters are secretly beautiful; Captain Hook likes little boys. Randall wants to be the Top Scarer at the energy company. This MF has been terrorizing a little girl for a while (per his f’d up job) and decides to kidnap her. This is already foul but Boo is like 3 years old. Kid is traumatized. The plan is to kidnap a little girl and terrify her permanently to extract her scream and power the city so he can be the Top Fucking Scarer.
Seriously.
You know, I like villains. I even like Disney movies. But these aren’t always the cool little movies with the breezy music and the family friendly themes. They’re really animated case studies in some sort of mental ailment. Randall has ambition, sure, but does anybody else take issue with a story that centers around emotionally abusing a 3-year-old? At least Scar fucked with Simba so he could be king. Randall and Mr. Waternoose—hell, everybody in the entire movie—are engaged in an enterprise that traumatizes kids just to turn on the light. It’s funny, yeah, but it’s fucked up.
Truth be told, Randall isn’t actually a bad guy. I mean he’s an ass for kidnapping a child so he could win an award (that genuinely is fucked up) but he’s just working on his career. He’s just a product of a society that’s literally built on terrifying kids. I don’t know why this one bugs me—probably because it’s that it’s packaged as this funny, kid-friendly, feel-good thing and I know that’s crap.
Anyway, that’s my word. Gimme your thoughts on this one and I’ll catch you tomorrow!
Crooked Letterz 
Ok, I was imagining myself having a hard time reading this when I first started. Thankfully I didnt close out of the window. Its good to see that Im not the only over-analytical “grown folk” to see the true story behind animation films. Regardless, you are right. Randall is a dick. Ambitious is a strong word for him in my opinion. I feel more like he was… hmm… wishing for a death sentence. If I had kids and they were keeping me from getting a piece of the poontang pie, Im wooping someones ass better yet because its probably not their fault (I dont imagine my kids screaming at a stuffed animal but more because theres a true reason to) I’m waiting in the room with them to see why my kid is staying up and screaming and shit. So, with shot gun in hand, I wait. If ANYTHING in that room movies, BANG, thats your ass… end of movie… roll the credits and off to the misses for sexy time.
I remember when Eric and I saw Lion King in the theater. ALL the SCREAMING AND CRYING children! Those poor little tots were mortified over Mufasa’s death. It was awful. I felt so bad for the little tykes. If you get right down to it, all these “animated kid’s movies” are inherently evil and really NOT for kids. As for Randall. He is a dick. But i have a request for a Disney Villain. Though you might sued. The dude who is sneaking into backstage areas and has now gotten himself a whopping lifetime ban from all things Disney(park). HE is a villain. what a friggin’ moron! I hear he is sneaking around Universal too. Ha ha.
You know, when I first saw The Lion King I was convinced they didn’t really kill Mufasa. I was stuck–and I was grown. Genuinely upset and I can remember saying, “They killed his dad? Seriously? isn’t this a kid’s movie?”
I have to look into the Disney guy you’re talking about: I’m not familiar with the story.
And Randall is a dick.
Just look on Mousejunkies on FB for the dude who has been banned by Disney. It’s all over the place. He made national news too.
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can you please state WHY hes a so called dick? randall is not evil. every little thing is taken out of context. the real story is, waternoose wanted to keep his company going, so he asked randall to make a machine that would keep electricity running(most people think that randall asked him to make a machine, but that would be like asking, “hey im going to make an invention that will keep the company going and i’ll rise to the top during the process and we could get in trouble? what do ya say?” it was waternoose’s idea to make the machine because he would know the risk he is taking and its HIS company). if anyone was paying attention to the movie, electricity shortages were occurring because, and i quote, “kids don’t get scared like they used to”. randall didnt choose to scare Boo, that was a door that he was regularly assigned to. and, remember, monsters thought that kids were toxic, so it seemed fair that they could scare them. in the bathroom scene, randall is by himself, and all he wants is peace and quiet. in most movies, the villain says his plot to himself and the good guys just happen to be around to hear it. most people think that randall was cheating. he was trying to improve the company. and randall would probably get good publicity out of making something that would help the company AND him. and randall wasn’t trying to kill boo either. he had never used the machine before, so how would he know that it would kill. Lets talk about cows: we milk cows to get milk. we can’t get milk from the cow if it’s dead. monsters scare kids to get electricity. they can’t get screams from a kid if he’s dead. randall only attempted to kill Sully, but that was when he had the chance. his whole plot wasn’t to kill him, he could easily do that. he was tired of being number two. waternoose was the one who banished mike and sully. waternoose agreed to do anything to keep the company alive. he would get rid of his top scarer and kidnap a thousand kids.
i have more, but i’ll save that for later.
also, about the whole lion king thing, its called LIFE. people die. alot of kids are traumatized when they are young. my younger cousins and i lost our grandpa at a young age. people trip and get cuts and bruises. and with kids watching all these shows like Adventure Time, Regular show, and Spongebob, it really doesn’t matter as of right now.
(sorry i didn’t reply! i didnt see it there oops!)
OK but you lost me on the Lion King thing. I actually talk about Scar in another post. The point with Scar is that he killed his brother in front of his nephew and then told the kid it was all his fault. It’s a bit more than the passing of life or bumps and bruises. That’s murder and emotional abuse. Talk about screwing up a kid.
Well, somebody has their “Free Randall!” t-shirt on today, huh? I’m moved by your passion in defense of someone I called an ass. And I think you’re right. To an extent.
To be fair, I did say everyone was asses. I said, “Randall and Mr. Waternoose—hell, everybody in the entire movie—are engaged in an enterprise that traumatizes kids just to turn on the light. It’s funny, yeah, but it’s fucked up…Truth be told, Randall isn’t actually a bad guy. I mean he’s an ass for kidnapping a child so he could win an award (that genuinely is fucked up) but he’s just working on his career.”
My point here is the premise of the movie is messed up: an economy built on traumatizing children is messed up. The extents to which Randall and Mr. Waternoose go to maintain that economy is villainous. I respect Pixar for making a clever and inventive premise and it was a great take on the idea of monsters under your bed. I respect them more for making a movie that is essentially an allegory about how I should join Pamela Anderson and stop eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. I get it. I just think they were dicks about it.
In the end, you’re right, Mr. Waternoose is the supreme ass of them all: it’s his company, his plan, and Randall is mainly the henchman. That’s fair.
Thanks for commenting!
well, about the whole scaring kids issue, i LIKE to say that our electricity does not exist in their world, so they have no choice but to energy from kids. Randall and Waternoose are not necessarily maintaining that economy- their trying to save the heart of Monstropolis from shutting down. and i agree that Randall to an extent was being a jerk, he just has a grumpy and introverted personality, but he was trying to keep the plan in secret. And Waternoose wasn’t revealed to be bad until later in the movie, and he got rid of his best scarer to keep his company going, so it would make sense how both of these guys have their major faults.