Laughs Instead of Screams for Enigin
By Steve Hill
I came in on my wife and son the other day watching the end of a family favourite film, Monsters Inc.
As I had not been watching the film from the beginning I came at the story form a different angle and saw something new in its message
If you don’t know this amazing animation from Pixar then let me layout the story, very briefly.
The world that these creatures, monsters, live in looks just like ours but their energy comes from screams, hence the energy company, Monsters Inc., collects screams from young children in our world by emerging from children’s closets to collect the required scream in a can and returning to their world with this vitasl resource (you can guess what attracted my interest).The main characters, Sulley and Mike, through misadventures end up bringing a little girl who they call Boo into their world – which is a big no-no, as everyone knows if a monster is actually touched by a child they will disappear, hence children are regarded as toxic and letting a child into the monster world is a serious crime. The adventure begins as the main monsters and the little girl form a warm relationship while the bad guys try to catch the girl, hence the adventure begins – if you haven’t seen it watch it, it ain’t just for kids.
Now as I came into the end of the film I focused on what the main bad guy was saying – he was concerned about the future of their world if the collection of screams was impeded by concerns over what they were doing to the young children through scaring them.
That got me thinking – how similar this story is to the world we live in now and our concerns over energy, climate change and CO2 emissions are a major concern but also the consistency and security of our energy supplies.
Hence we have the same concerns as Henry J. Waternoose (the CEO of Monsters Inc and the main bad guy) about or energy futures, but the comparisons became clearer to me.
The concerns that Waternoose has is about the supply of frightful children’s screams, while Sulley is concerned about what they are doing to these young children. In other words, a similarity also between our concern for the future of our children.
The result was that further research and thought needed to be applied in the film as Sulley and Mike realise that laughter has the same affect as a resource as creams. They discovered a sustainable and beneficial alternative energy source.
We too are going through the same process, what we have been doing to supply the energy we need certainly is more related to screams and a frightful and uncertain future. In our race for maintaining supply we have been willing to put our security into the hands of other people and governments, we have gambled in other ways, hence the Gulf of Mexico oil spill – screams indeed.
The alternative in the film was laughter instead of screams – through energy efficiency and clean energy we get smiles and laughter not frowns and tears, as we save energy, save money and the environment.
Hence here at Enigin I think we can relate to Monster Inc, not making people fearful but the later Monsters Inc relying on laughter, as we help businesses and organisations to become energy efficient, producing laughter and smiles for all concerned.
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