Summer of Pixar Look 17: Finding Dory- Dory

Finding Dory is what happens when you take a complete cast of supporting characters and just throw them all together in a movie with no strong lead. I don't think it's a bad movie, I found it to be really entertaining, but I just don't exactly understand the concept. Dory was the comic relief side-kick character in Finding Nemo, an otherwise really dark and fairy traumatizing film about a man who loses his wife, his unborn children, and then eventually his only son, and she served that purpose really well. Dory had some of the most hilarious lines and also helped to drive the plot forward in many cases. She did her job as a side kick. But the problem with side kicks is that typically they have a fairly niche personality. They serve one purpose, to support our main protagonist who, typically, has a well-rounded, multi-faceted personality. Dory doesn't really have that, and they didn't really even attempt to give her more of a personality in this sequel that was completely about her. Yes, she has a little more of a back story in that she actually came from somewhere, but is that really a well thought out back story? "I have a mom and a dad!" Like- yes, literally everyone has a biological birth father and mother. Is that a well thought out story line? I guess? Am I overthinking a children's movie? What do you think I've been doing for the past several months on this blog?

Anyway, Dory, as well as every other character in this film, is a side kick. Dory has memory loss, that's her shtick- she can't remember anything and for whatever reason that's very funny and not very, very sad like it would be if a real human person couldn't remember anything. I understand that she's a fish and therefore this is funny because "haha, actual fish have very short memories" and that worked for me in the first film, but in a movie that's main thesis is coping with your disability, it just doesn't fly? This movie relies very heavily on Dory's flashbacks, which to me is strange considering she isn't supposed to have the ability to retain any memories. If this were to be a real film that was actually about working through your disability, I feel like it would stand to be mentioned that if you have actual memory loss, it doesn't work like that. It's not like in very difficult situations where you REALLY need to remember something, you just DO. Bailey, the whale who can't echo-locate, also "overcomes" his disability by, when he REALLY needs to echo-locate, just not being disabled anymore? Hank has PTSD and then when his friends REALLY need him, he's just very brave? Destiny is the only one with a creative work around when she enlists another whale to be her seeing eye whale so she doesn't keep swimming into walls.

I don't know why I'm so bitter about this, but I really do wish that they actually made a movie about coping with disabilities rather than just having the characters just not be disabled when they really needed to not be.

So, anyway, for Finding Dory, I Disneybounded as Dory. For this look I started with an off the shoulder, royal blue roper that I found, you guessed it, on Amazon. And wouldn't I be darned if I didn't throw it on my Amazon Storefront so you could create the look for yourself? I added a black belt from Pinup Girl Clothing to represent Dory's blue stripes. For Dory's yellow fins I added a big yellow sunhat, also from Amazon, as well as these adorable yellow shoes from B.A.I.T. Footwear.