Oh I don’t disagree that he didn’t deserve that (and once again it wasn’t Sulley’s call to make in any case), but the fact remains there would be many people who feel they did want him hurt etc. Revenge in media can either be a) turned into ‘justice’ depending who does it. or b) turned i nto something only 2D villians do. It’s not really either. But in the formers case it is playing on a lot of peoples desires re:revenge in general. After all, people do get away with bad things and don’t face courts all the time (or even when they do get away with it/don’t get a harsh sentence). People get away with stuff. So there’s a certain desire for vigilantism often in fiction. It’s partially why super (or otherwise) hero stories are so popular.
Of course granted some do this better than others I feel (for instance Batman never kills- not even people like the Joker, though people and fellow batman nerds have argued he should, but the fact is the problem isn’t BATMAN’s fault but Gotham’s legal department for making it so easy for the guy to bust out that his crime continues- it’s not Batman’s place to make that decision and it’s dicy enough he beats them up and wraps them up as a present for the legal department to deal with. But killing people would take it and himself to a place he doesn’t want to go and he fears that he wouldn’t be able to control himself in such a situation. The Red Hood demonstrates this excellently and I suggest either watching or reading the animated feature/comic.).
Now Randall is no Joker but Randall- let’s face it- tried to kill the protaganists and wasn’t cut up about doing so; not to mention tried to experiment on Boo. (Possibly in fact peoples largest issue, forgetting that until then it had been more or less established humans only have the sentience level of puppies in Monster’s eyes given how Sulley and Mike treated her in the beginning)
Now of course in any event it can be taken as a good deal complicated than that, and Randall certainly isn’t “evil for the sake of evil” (plus humans were viewed as animals in any case) and there can be various things put into play, but to someone unfamilar with human behaviour and world building etc. and taking things at face value and forgets that how humans are viewed are not the same as how human kids are viewed here- What does it look like really? The story comes from the protaganistical view and their view on things is considered having the most weight. Plus the idea of humans being seen as animals, rather than an issue which likely resulted in such a thing being accepted by Randall more easily, he perhaps looks like the most evil person to reside the planet, It isn’t the truth, since once again- humans have never been viewed as true sentient beings at all. But at face value, just that scene alone as Boo is about to be tested on? Yes. If nothing else was taken into account and we were just shown that scene, the scene which sticks out in a lot of peoples heads, Randall is not in a good light at all. They’re not thinking on some of the other issues and things seen or sutilties. What’s happening is one sentient creature testing on a human kid (and it really is), but they are also forgetting that monsters didn’t take that view with humans at all so from Randall’s persepctive it’s more like someone testing on an animal. And after all, really hurting the test subjects would be detrimental to his interests- it would damage their resource. Waternoose wouldn’t want this either. But this is never directly stated, so people forget.
It’s kind of unfair to expect any character to have the same knowledge as a viewer, but it happens. (I mean Katara suffered a lot of backlash in fandom when she wasn’t instantly trusting of Zuko in Avatar: TLA in S3, when the fact was it made perfect sense in her persepective- she’d seen someone she deeply care about almost die and she blamed herself fro trusting Zuko that it happened. So she instigated a death threat against him if he stuck a toe out of line or made her think he’d hurt Aang.)
They’d want to see (Randall) hurt for various reasons on the basis of what he did and what is felt he (should) know, but really on the basis in the movie, he really couldn’t know, since he’s not say a viewer or an omnipresent god. A part of many people would desire that to be seen however because a part of people feels that he ‘does’ or ‘should’ know subconciously speaking and maybe even the creators forgot this. True a fair few may change their minds when it actually happens (I did), though my first viewing my distaste was more so from Sulley being the one doing it and as much as I disliked Randall then, it seemed ‘off’ in general.
Once again even if those ‘mistakes’ of Docters didn’t exist (or the things he didn’t think about but stuck in there), it STILL doesn’t reflect well on Sulley anyway, but regardless, many people in living vivcaciously through their desires would and did want to see him hurt in some form. Hence how revenge can be shown in Western media as desirable or good if the designated hero does it.
Doesn’t make it right, but both media and public desires both feed into each other a lot backwards and forwards.
Plus with the whole african american deal, I would hesitate to compare it to that. The idea of stereotyping in Randall’s case is more based on the medias perceptions of certain animals than people even though as a fictional character Randall is a person too. (And of course people and animal perceptions while both having to be gone up against- people prejudice is what’s by far, more important). Plus even in the case of (in-universe) racism ideas- Sulley did it on the basis of what Randall DID, not what he IS. Sulley did not do it because he has fur and Randall scales. He didn’t even get pushed into doling out a harsher punishment in that area. If Randall had been furry like him and behaved the same way, it wouldn’t have changed anything for Sulley. It doesn’t make what happened right but he’s certainly not a racist in any way, shape or form. There’s more of an argument for Mike in that area (if once again racism does exist at all in their world), but nothing in Sulley’s case to suggest that really. It’s not really a fit means of comparison- plus Randall hardly did anything as small as simply stand near someone in the first place either. So I’m afraid the example in of itself is flawed.
).
) than things like the Bucket List or Precious.