The Emperor’s New Groove

Release Date: December 15, 2000

Watch Date: July 21 – July 22, 2023

“Emperor Kuzco (David Spade) thought he had it all: a devoted populace to rule over, a wardrobe of glamorous garb and his unwavering ‘groove.’ But his world is flipped upside down when he’s turned into a llama by his devious adviser Yzma (Eartha Kitt), and her hunky henchman Kronk (Patrick Warburton). Now the once-mighty ruler is forced into an unlikely alliance with pleasant peasant Pacha (John Goodman). Together, they must overcome their differences as they embark on a groovy adventure. Discovering the good in everyone has never been so much fun!”

---

    This movie is of its time. Let me try to explain that.

    When I watch this film I am transported back to the early 2000s. The irreverence, the remolding of the old into something unique. And particularly, Disney’s flailing as they tried to figure out just what they had done wrong to make the Renaissance end.

    Because it had, well and truly by this point. Serious movies like “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” wasn’t getting them back. Neither was “Hercules.” Pixar had entered the scene two years earlier and wowed everyone. They were good, solid films, Mulan and Tarzan were still to come, but things just didn’t hit the same anymore. So, it’s time to change it up.

    And you can’t get any more “changed” than this film, with its constant fourth wall breaking, it’s tongue and cheek self awareness, a villain you don’t necessarily root for but who gets down and dirty with the rest of the cast, telling her own fair share of jokes and knocking it out of the park with her own personality.

    People really fondly remember this movie – Yzma and Kronk in particular – and you can’t blame them. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s a little heartwarming while never quite making it to the level of a tearjerker, and considering just how self obsessed the children of the late 90s and early 00s would turn out to be, it’s a little bit prophetic in a way that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable for my generation and the one immediately preceeding it.

    But with “The Emperor’s New Groove,” we have firmly left the Disney Renaissance. You can just tell. We’re doing something different, trying something different, trying to stay relevant. Let’s hope it works.

    Let’s take a second to get away from the big overarching company decisions that led to this film – of which I’m sure there were many, and all of which I am completely unwilling to research – and instead focus on the message, which is actually an important one for the times we live in.

    Look, humans are not anymore self obsessed than we have ever been. Humans are, when they’re given the time and financial position to be so, historically obsessed with themselves. The difference is that, now, most humans can enjoy the basic tools necessary to express and validate that self obsession. And so we do. Happily. With gusto.

    And I think a bit of self obsession is healthy. If you walk around thinking you don’t deserve the good things in life, that you don’t deserve to win, that you’re not attractive or smart…well you’re going to have a sadder life for it. What people need to get better at, just like Kuzco, is to recognize that other people exist and have problems and feelings too. The people that populate our lives outside of ourselves and our immediate social circle are human too, more than just props meant to click share and like on our photos and videos. More than something we can manipulate in those photos and videos for our own gain.

    It is not a generation of the self obsessed that worries me. It’s the generation of the lack of empathy that does. But we can take this movie and we can learn from it. And we can be better. For the sake of the world we live in and the people around us, we have to learn from it.