Where are the Wild Things? Chances Are, You’ve Met Them Before…

by Lara Blackwood Pickrel

If you are anything like me, you remember the gritty pastel and grey drawings from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are with a certain warm and fuzzy sense of nostalgia. I loved every bit of those monsters – beaks, horns, hooves, human feet, fur, feathers and roars – and I envied Max, that he could be the king of such a motley mischievous crew. But as I watched Spike Jonze’s cinematic rendition of the beloved children’s book, I realized that I’ve held that title before…

It is important to note from the get-go that this version of Where the Wild Things Are is a movie about a little kid – not a movie for little kids. It is often jarring, loud, heartbreaking – and it is filled with such emotional intensity that most little ones are likely to be overpowered. After all, they already live in their own emotionally intense roller coaster lives – lives that are, at best, filled with sword fights, sibling rivalries, and newly found emotions that must be tried on carefully like the loud paisley suit owned by your crazy Uncle Mike. At worst, those lives are filled with wild things enough – to layer on more would be cruelly unfair.

And that brings us back to where the movie begins. Max is a very real boy with all those qualities that can make childhood magical – he’s precocious, adventuresome, whimsical and creative. But Max also has some wild things that threaten to eat him up: anger, fear, jealousy, loneliness and the gnawing feeling that no one ever listens to him, to name a few. The nameplate on the globe his absent father gave him asserts that he is king of the world – but Max’s world is broken, just like his home and his heart. As ruler of a broken world, there isn’t much left for a kid to do besides scream, kick and bite – and Max does just that. A heated battle with his mother ends with Max on the run. Sneakers slapping pavement, gasping breath and steam, ragged wolf hood flapping behind him – Max runs and runs until he finds a boat, and then he sails away to…the Church.

Ok. The place Max stumbles upon is not literally the Church. It’s more of a massive island with desert and mountain, forest and jungle – a wildlife preserve for emotions run amok. But if you’ve ever served an ailing congregation, you’ll recognize the Wild Things immediately:

• The person who doesn’t feel valued or listened to – and therefore undercuts every idea and person who has an idea.
• The individual who is quick to embrace something new (and who does so with wild, hopeful desperation) – but explodes in rage whenever people and ideas turn out to be less than the magic bullet that can make everything “perfect”.
• The group member who is so threatened by the presence of new things and new people that he or she seeks to undercut or destroy them using any available means (sarcasm, passive-aggressive manipulation, etc.).
• The good-natured partner who loves his spouse/partner so much that, though he doesn’t approve of her destructive and jealous tendencies, he stands quietly by while she works to destroy the people around her.
• The escapee who loves the people around her but can’t stand to live this way – and whose interactions with folks outside the circle are seen as traitorous.
• The quiet, shy workhorse who wants things to be better, but won’t speak out against the status quo.

They are all there on the island – and they are living in a state of chaos marked by infighting, destruction and violence. Things have gotten so bad that the rage-aholic (Carol) is literally pulling down the buildings.

Enter Max.

Max finds himself in the middle of a place he didn’t seek out (with the way the boat sails itself, it’s almost as if he was “called” there) and a battle he didn’t create. And, to escape being eaten, he does what anyone would do when pressed into a corner: he tells them he’s a King. And not just any king – he’s got the power, the knowledge and the experience they need to make their home better.

Again, if you’ve served an ailing congregation, you’ll see the trap long before Max walks into it. But there he is, scared and inexperienced – and the promises are out of his mouth before he can think things through. The wild things jump on those promises and spin them out into one hell of a job description:

• Make us happy. All the time.
• No more loneliness.
• Bring back the ones who have left – and don’t ever let them leave again.
• Create a place where only the things we want to happen will happen.
And, finally:
• Ignore the pile of bones in the corner – and don’t ask what happened to the last king.

With his rather timid agreement, the deal is made and the work begins. Things start off well, but as you have probably guessed, they don’t stay that way for long – and in an effort not to spoil the last half of the film, I’ll leave the storyline alone from here on out. It’ll suffice to say that Max begins to realize he’s in a dangerous situation that has no emergency exit rows.

Now, let me make two things very clear. First, just as there is beauty in every congregation (even the toxic ones), there is much beauty in this film. Every wild thing has his or her own sweetness and vulnerability, whether in the forest or in the pew, and that reality is deftly captured by Jonze’s camera. Second, as a minister, I watched this story unfold through the spectacles of one who has been the ruler with the impossible job description. While my ordained girlfriends whispered similar comparisons in the theater through gritted teeth, my husband connected to the film in an entirely different way. In other words, there is more than one way to exegete this story!

That being said, I wish this film were required-viewing for everyone living on this Church-shaped island. With the help of some discussion questions about both King Max and the other wild things, we might see ourselves, our emotions, our actions and our commitments in a new light. And in so doing, we might slowly begin shaping the Church as a less dangerous and even more beautiful place.

The Rev. Lara Blackwood Pickrel is a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Lara currently serves Hillside Christian Church in Kansas City, MO as Associate Minister for Youth and Young Adults. During any given week, Lara divides her time between congregational ministry, writing & editing, time spent with family,friends and animals,and watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

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