Spirited Away Genre Essay by Jonathon Burgamy

Spirited Away is a majestically displayed family film with a rich plot and mysterious atmosphere. This movie shows many characteristics pertaining to the family genre with its life changing family conflict and an obscure, yet essential, otherworldly helper. The protagonist also learns of the power and influence greed has on humans, morally learning and growing as a strong young character. Although Spirited Away is considered a family film, it does have a melancholy tone and nightmarish vibe throughout the whole movie with the many creatures encountered, which can be unsettling towards the adolescent audience.

It all starts with the Protagonist, Chihiro, and her two parents driving down the road to move into their new home. While driving they take a wrong turn arriving at an abandoned theme park when the scent of appetizing food lures them into the park. As the parents are stuffing their faces with food Chihiro decides to wander and is greeted by a spirit named Haku. Haku is a soul that was trapped in the theme park by an evil witch named Yubaba, who shapeshifts anyone that trespasses. After hearing this (Chihiro) rushes back over to her parents only to see them turned into giant pigs. Haku then explains to Chihiro that her only way of survival in the spirit world is by getting an occupation within the theme park.She later begins to work for Yubaba the Witch and is forced to sign a contract. This contract steals some of the character in Chihiro's name changing her identity to Sen. This later becomes a problem because with this name change her memories begin to fade as well. Sen and Haku later learn of the Witches sister, Zeniba, who attacks Haku for stealing a golden seal from her. Near death, Haku falls unconscious from many vicious attack done unto him by Zenibas paper birds. Sen realizes the urgency of the situation and swiftly gives Haku a medicine cake, causing him to regurgitate a mixture of blood, the gold seal, and a slug, who is later stomped upon by Sen. She then persuades Zeniba to heal Haku, as Zeniba enlightens them about the slug inside Haku's body. Zeniba informs them the slug that was inside him was a mind altering device created by Yubaba used to alter their memories and later change their entire being. Haku induces a full memory gain with the help of Sen, who later confronts Yubaba about her repayed debt. Yubaba then gives her a trial stating "before i free you from this contract you must first identify your parents within that team of hogs." Sen confidently states that her parents are not in that group of pigs, causing the contract to disappear, and Chihira and her parents ripped from the spirit world and back into reality as a fully human family once more.

the reoccurring genre in this film would be the monsters in this world. In this film the whole concept of the spiritual world is derived by the humans personal greed. The parents show the best example with their lust for that savory scent of food, even though the scent came from an abandoned theme park. This shows how far they were willing to go for a simple bite of food that they did not have ownership of. By eating this food the parents upset the Witch causing her to change them into pigs, almost as if she turned them into the thing they were acting like the most. Another family film that portrays this would be the movie Brave. within this film the Witch talks about three brothers that each had their own kingdoms. While two were content with this, the oldest wanted all of the land and lusted for the power to slay armies. He later went to a witch and asked for this power, and in doing so he was turned into a monstrous bear with an iron hide to stand against even the sharpest weapons, and enough force to destroy kingdoms. Because he chose this lust he began to lose his sanity and later became the beast itself, almost as if something altered his mind.

Another criteria for the family film genre is the protagonist's development as a strong, young lead. In Spirited Away we see Chihiro as a young brat seeking the attention of her parents. This is later