Essay: Kung Fu Panda’s sophisticated take on Campbell’s monomyth paradigm

INTRO:
Screenwriters have a romantic and dependent engagement with the “hero”; it is a challenge to find a film that does not employ a “Hero” element. Films transcend entertainment and enter cinematic artistry when the writer takes the generic “hero’s journey” and deconstructs or manipulates it. The monomyth-as termed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces-serves as a paradigm for the development of protagonists in most all films, from suave secret agent James Bond to an anthropomorphic panda who is surprisingly adept at Kung Fu. Kung Fu Panda, an animated action-comedy wuxia film, follows Po, a large, clumsy, noodle-making giant panda who is “accidently” named the fated master Dragon Warrior, much to everyone’s discontent. What ensues is Po’s “Hero journey” to prove himself. The film Kung Fu Panda, directed by Stevenson and Osborne, is an underrated cinematic piece due to its manipulation of Campbell’s monomyth: it plays with a generational connection to the mentor motif, a literal and figurative take on the “Master of Two Worlds” stage, and an elusive “ultimate boon”.
FIRST BODY:
In the monomyth structure, it is assumed that the “hero” will have one mentor to guide them on their journey. However, Kung Fu Panda goes one step further and includes a generational connection to the mentor motif. Not only does Po evolve throughout the film with the help of Master Shifu, but also Master Shifu has to learn from the Grandmaster, Master Oogway, how to take on this unexpected amateur in order to fulfill the Dragon Warrior prophecy. At first, Master Shifu has his reservations about training Po in becoming the Dragon Warrior because he believed that his master, Master Oogway, had made a mistake in naming the Warrior. In crafting an analogy of nurturing a peach tree, Oogway imparts Shifu with the lesson: “…you [must] let go the illusion of control… no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple…but you will get a peach…if you are willing to guide it, nurture it. To believe in it” (Stevenson, Osborne : ). At this moment, Oogway passes on. This is not only a “death of the Mentor” moment for Shifu but also an apotheosis, as Shifu is thus given the wisdom that will enable him to finally mentor Po. Shifu realizes that, with Oogway gone, he must train Po by himself and therefore he must fill in the “mentor” role. This is a reconfiguration of Campbell’s monomyth structure. Stevenson and Osborne include a second mentor narrative structure by using Shifu’s doubts as a mentor as part of his heroic development, casting him as a master who must become the student. Shifu achieves “Acceptance of the Call” after Oogway’s “Supernatural Aid”. At first, Shifu denounces Po and rejects him as the Dragon Warrior. When the Dragon Scroll is threatened, Shifu places himself at Tai Lung’s mercy when Tai Lung demands to be named the Dragon Warrior and rewarded the scroll. Shifu rebuffs him: “Dragon Warrior has taken scroll halfway across China by now. You will never see that scroll, Tai Lung. Never” (Stevenson, Osborne : ). Shifu finally acknowledges Po as the true Dragon Warrior. This moment is when the third generation of masters, Po, is finally recognized. After Po almost witnesses a “death of the mentor” moment, Po becomes the third wave of mentors and enters the “Master of two worlds” phase of Campbell’s monomyth. It is this three-generation set of masters that “flips the script” on the mentor narrative of the monomyth. Not only does Kung Fu Panda include Shifu’s “heroic” or mentorship development, but it also includes Po’s development from disciple to mentor as shown through the “Master of Two Worlds” threshold.
SECOND BODY:
When Po becomes the third generation of mentors, he enters the “Master of Two Worlds” stage. At this stage, not only is he figuratively able to navigate both the heroic realm and the quotidian, peasant, noodle-making one, but he is also literally a master of Kung Fu once named the Dragon Warrior. After defeating Tai Lung with the special Wuxi Finger Hold, Po returns to the Valley of Peace square. While the villagers applaud Po, his adoptive goose father emerges: “‘That’s my boy. That big, lovely kung fu warrior is my son!'” (Stevenson and Osborne, : ). Po has figuratively become the master of both his humble upbringing as well as his new-found prominence in Kung Fu. His adoptive father, proclaiming him as the Kung Fu Warrior, is his reconciliation with both worlds. Po’s father’s approval is a figurative gate into Po’s mastery of the ordinary world because in the beginning, like everyone else, he doubted Po’s ability to be a great Kung Fu warrior. Po’s father’s praise of Po and his mastery of Kung Fu symbolizes a harmonization of Po’s roles within both realms. Right after he is awarded his father’s admiration, Po is honored by his past idols, the Furious Five. Once his fiercest doubter, Tigress leads the other Five in granting Po respect: “‘Master.’ Tigress bows deeply. The others follow. ‘Master?'” (Stevenson and Osborne, : ). Po is now literally a master of both worlds. Po has gained respect within his Kung Fu world, but is also technically, as Dragon Warrior, the best kung fu warrior. This thus makes him a literal master of kung fu, and he is then supposed to train the Furious Five, which is why they proclaim him their “master”. By becoming a literal “Master of Two Worlds”, Po alters the original monomyth. In the general heroic monomyth, the Hero conquers both the hero world as well as the ordinary, domestic one. The regular hero, at the next stage “Freedom to Live”, is able to do as he pleases. Po has to learn that as Dragon Warrior, he must be a master of Kung Fu and he must teach others in the future.
THIRD BODY:
In The English Journal, Sheila Schwartz explains the role of the ultimate boon in her article “The Idea of the Hero”: “The boon plucked by [the hero] for the world does not return it to an old balance. On the contrary, his boon must unbalance the powers of the world. And, when he does this, ‘the powers that he has unbalanced may react so sharply that he will be blasted from within and without’ (Campbell, p. 30)” (Schwartz 1969, 86). Even though Schwartz and Campbell agree that the boon unbalances the powers of the world, in Kung Fu Panda, the ultimate boon is not an ultimate boon. It is an elusive “ultimate boon” because it itself isn’t the boon; it must be deciphered by the chosen one who wields it. When Po is given the Dragon Scroll after his training, the Furious Five and his mentor, Shifu, surround him during his somewhat “coronation of the Hero” moment. Po opens the golden Dragon Warrior scroll, only to find, “‘It’s blank!’ … ‘Blank? I don’t…I don’t understand.’ Shifu turns away, contemplative. What can this mean?” (Stevenson and Osborne, : ). In this moment, it is revealed that the ultimate boon is underwhelmingly blank. Everyone is confused, and this ultimate boon unbalances the world because of its lack of substance. Eventually, once Tai Lung gets a hold of the Dragon Scroll, he too is confused by its empty meaning. This elusive, “empty” ultimate boon completely overturns Campbell’s monomyth paradigm because at this moment, the ultimate boon is “false”. Po is unable to give this boon back to the world because Po himself must be the receiver of the boon. In fact, Po himself is the boon, because without the Dragon Scroll he cannot become the Dragon Warrior. Campbell and Schwartz agree that the boon unbalances the world due to its alarming emptiness, and that the boon does blast Po from within and without. It is only when Po re-enters the ordinary world and not the heroic world that he discovers the true boon. It is Po’s father who grants him the key to discovering the true ultimate boon, “‘The secret ingredient of my secret ingredient soup!… is nothing…To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.’…Po stares at his reflection on the scroll…he gets it now” (Stevenson and Osborne, : ). Po’s father is the true giver of the ultimate boon. The ultimate boon is elusive because the boon isn’t the scroll itself; it’s the deeper meaning of it that the beholder must uncover. By understanding the special mundanity of the scroll, the Dragon Warrior-Po-becomes enlightened by the fact that he did not have to be “special” in order to be the greatest warrior in the valley. The ultimate boon is elusive due to its deeper, more symbolic meaning. The elusive boon manipulates Campbell’s paradigm because there is no actual boon, only a lesson to be learned. In this respect, it can be argued that without a boon to give back to society, Po’s journey is not just that of a hero but as well as the beginning of his journey to becoming a mentor.
CONCLUSION:
Kung Fu Panda, directed by Stevenson and Osborne, twists the Campbell monomyth into something altogether new and memorable. By including a multi-generational mentor narrative, a literal and figurative “master of two worlds” stage, and an almost “fake” ultimate boon, Kung Fu Panda revolutionizes the old “heroic journey” paradigm. In contemporary cinema where the Hero archetype is overused, films remain classic when they transcend this trope and revitalize it with interesting interpretations. Kung Fu Panda is an underrated Disney animation film that is incomparable to any other Disney work due to its sophisticated take on Campbell’s monomyth paradigm.
REFERENCES
Schwartz, Sheila. “The Idea of the Hero”. The English Journal, vol 58, no. 1, 1969, p. 82. JSTOR, doi: 10.2307/812354. Accessed 11 Mar 2018.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1993.
Stevenson, John, and Mark Osborne. Kung Fu Panda. DreamWorks Animation, 2008.