the groundhog day project

I've got a couple questions: Who is worse off-- Toy Story Buzz who thinks he knows who he is (with "years of academy training" in his memory) or Toy Story 2 Woody who doesn't know who he used to be (with years of cowboy adventures behind him)? Who are these toys, really? Hell, they choose to be toys; the "rules" are apparently voluntary and can be broken. They choose to live in servitude of an owner--recall Woody saying, "It doesn't matter how much we're played with. What matters is that we're here for Andy when he needs us. That's what we're made for, right?" It's a strange existence, built to be "played with" by others but having full consciousness of it. When Toy Story was on earlier--right now, I've got Toy Story 2 playing--I was talking with my daughter about there maybe being some metaphor or allegory for the practice of slavery in the way these toys exist for the sake of others... the differenc...

Clearly, Toy Story is built around the whole "buddy picture" sort of structure, but that's close enough to the romance genre, specifically romantic comedy, that I figured it's time to share this: For the record, I did not draw that. It was drawn by a deviantart user who seems to be named May Pong, lives in Brunei. And, if seeing Buzz and Woody kissing like that bothers you, you really shouldn't read the rather brilliantly titled "And Beyond" by Kass , a fanfic in which Woody realizes he has fallen in love with Buzz and Buzz overhears him breaking up with Bo Peep and one thing leads to another until eventually, Buzz plays with Woody's pull string and Woody pushes Buzz's buttons. Seriously though, I think there's more to it than some playful imagining or adolescent fantasy. (And, I'm not suggesting that Toy Story is feeding into homosexual references like, say, Planes, Trains & Automobiles , even though Woody is clearly jealous b...