open book open heart

My ten-year-old and I went to see Despicable Me 2.  You know we loved 1 right?  The bad guys, the minions, the adoption, the adoption softening the badness of the bad guys.  What’s not to love?  Plus.  Fluffy unicorns? Curse you tiny toilet?  Pure writing genius.

And I liked Despicable Me 2 too.  But my ten-year-old was troubled afterwards.  If you haven’t seen it yet, that’s weird. You must not have children.  I am pretty much always the last to see any movie so if you haven’t seen it yet, you are officially lamer than me. Thanks for making me feel better about myself.

This is a teensy spoiler if you haven’t seen the movie yet but the embedded life lesson is worth it so keep reading. (That is, if you haven’t already stopped reading because I called you lame.  I didn’t mean it!  Come back!)

The bad guy in this movie kidnaps some of the minions and injects them with purple stuff that turns them into purple, crazy, nutty, killing machines.

Yellow minions are the silly, twinkie-looking, butt-photo-copying characters we love.  Purple look like Einstein gone wrong with jaggedy teeth. You don’t want to be left alone with a purple minion.

I think the reason the movie bothered my oldest son is because he could identify – with both versions of the minion.  Me too buddy.  Despicable me too.  Some days, I am hug/loveable and some days purple sparks will shoot out my fingertips if you get too near.  But I don’t turn colors so you won’t know which I am until you come in for the hug.  It’s a big risk.  Thanks for continuing to take it.

To some degree, I think we all have a little Mr. Hyde in us – mostly tucked away, but sometimes not.  Some folks are better at keeping their purple minion self under control.  In fact, I think most people are very good at keeping the purple crazy tucked away in public.  At home is where they tend to come out.  Well, there and car dealerships, and freeways.  Just saying.

My 10-year-old knows he’s not so good at tucking away his angry.  But bless his yellow/purple heart, he sure tries.  So, for him, the reminder that the purple is even there, when he is being perfectly yellow, is disconcerting. That is what I think happened after our movie.  He couldn’t really articulate it, so he kept saying, “I just didn’t like the purple minions mom.  I just didn’t.”  Me too buddy.  Despicable me too.