The Thematic And Narrative Failing of Barnyard (2006), An Udder-Rated Work Of SINema

         Talking about the quality of Barnyard: The Original Party Animals (2006) is an undertaking immediately complicated by the seeming ubiquity of “Thing Good, Actually” narratives these days that renders any such claims immediately suspect. “Thing Childhood, Ergo Thing SEEMS Good TO YOU” is a valid-enough reflexive rebuttal. Let’s get that out of the way immediately: Barnyard is undeniably part of the post-Shrek (2001) dam-burst of pop-culture-fried CG whimsies of varying visual and conceptual quality that contributed, long-term, to the cultural, spiritual de-valuing of both the Shrek property—a real hoisted by its own petard of a splash-back scenario—and also the output of pop-behemoth Pixar, whose work has undoubtedly been rendered less impactful over time by the presence of so many imitators, actual quality aside. When everyone and their brother-in-law is putting out a 3D fart-and-giggler per-month, the lines get blurred. For the discerning gentleperson, it’s hard to muster a damn to give for the Norm of the Norths (2016) and the Cocos (2017) both, now. They’re all just films with a distinctive Z-axis, in the popslop. If these are indeed “The Original Party Animals,” why does their partying feel so very imitative?

           Even at the time of its release, Barnyard wasn’t exactly a gem. It holds a certain significance for me, though: It has the distinction of being one of the only movies I saw in theaters with just my father, an odd bit of resonance with the plot of the film itself, but it also has an even odder accolade—Seeing as I didn’t listen to the radio or popular music until college, Barnyard introduced me to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” and Shaggy’s “Boombastic.” The former is performed in a gravelly, ultra-masculine, guns-at-noon voice by Sam Elliott in the role of a tough cow, while the latter is apparently just Shaggy himself but relayed via an appealingly large and round rat rapper, a rat-per, named Biggie Cheese. There are other licensed tracks in this Shrek-like, of course, but these two especially grabbed my childish attention. Prior to re-watching the movie this time, they were my primary points of positive-feeling fixation, in fact. The former song is a sort of emotional bookend or North Star for the film closely associated with its conflict, and thus with a deep well of pathos: Ben, the chief cow, sings it on lookout duty, and then it plays during his fateful confrontation with rapacious coyotes, at the end of which he dies; when his party-loving son, Otis, finally accepts the mantle of his father and decisively faces the coyotes again, the song returns as well. It “goes hard” for a sheltered child just as a song but especially because of how it’s deployed here. As for “Boombastic,” I suppose there’s just a certain salacious quality to it, to an even greater degree for a virgin-eared Christian kid, that’s further enhanced and rendered hypnotic by the stylish and decadent figure of this enormous rat, with his soft, sumptuous body and greedy tongue, who appears but fleetingly in the film. (Perhaps that is part of his mystique! Where, the childly mind sloshes about, does he go for the rest of the story?)

           Other, broader thoughts are yet subjective: I was surprised to still find the film quite funny. It has that mix of jokes children will and won’t understand that might prompt one to say it’s fit for the family. There is, perhaps, a certain Biggie-Cheese-ish element of amusing perversity that permeates so much of the proceedings, though, vibrating at a subconscious (or sub-child?) level. Take the much-observed fact that male “cows” in this universe all have udders for some reason; or how milk is obviously used in place of alcohol in some scenes (and how wrong it feels for grown cows to be sucking it down); or the particular quiver of a curvaceous old busy-body’s busy body; or the very random existence of “Wild Mike,” a pubaceous ball of Captain Caveman- or Cousin Itt-esque raging hair kept in containment and that stirs the barnlife to dance upon release; or even the sometimes uncanny, sometimes unsettling look of the characters—All are caricaturized and certainly to the modern eye visibly… lesser than the current standard for 3D figure quality, but while the animals make out at least “okay” because of their real-life counterparts’ innately cartoonish (and lovable for it!) qualities, the humans have an especially scrunched and troll-ish look that makes them appear degenerate in some way. The highlight for me is a young cow-tipper characterized in the Eric-Cartman-ian tradition of coddled, nasally disagreeableness. You can almost feel the disregard (if not hatred) of his creators emanating from his every move. (The fact that the rambunctious young cows, including Otis, “tip” him back is also just a very funny concept!) Or, consider the weird “maturity” of the plot thread of Otis’ love interest already being extremely pregnant because of her dead husband. This has huge value for the father-son story, as Otis finds himself in the end, having taken up his father’s role of protector, also father to a son that isn’t “his,” but will be, just like his own father once was. These big-boy familial complications are rendered perverse by their odd presence in this CG kids’ movie and by the fact that, yes, Otis is a male cow with an udder while he participates in these interactions. Voiced by Kevin James as well, which feels as inappropriate on some level as Ben being voiced by Sam Elliott feels unquestionably right.

There is something suspiciously grotesque about Barnyard: The Original Party Animals’ characters in general and its humans in particular. Something that makes me feel like the story might suddenly break out in, if you’ll excuse my French, por-NO-gra-fEE. They look like they belong in a lewd point-and-click videogame, and I keep expecting them to do or say something blue. The aged look of the 3D characters and environments is sometimes in cahoots with the cinematography to further strengthen the impression that I could be clicking on something. Like, I just know one of those chickens wants to give me a switchblade in exchange for some liquor from the farmer’s house.

          Maybe yesterday’s characterization just looks more competent in contrast to today’s trends, but David Koechner’s (of all people’s?) performance as the antagonist coyote leader, Dag, is surprisingly charismatic and—dare I say—with some real menace that is not constantly undercut for the sake of the comedy. It’s another one of those things that feels perverse by being associated with this specific movie. It’s a performance that I think has aged notably well, though it may be loudly counter-balanced by Jeffrey Garcia’s Speedy-Gonzales-adjacent mouse sidekick character and more quietly by Danny Glover’s mule, Miles, who in this wizened advisor-rary role to first Ben and then Otis absolutely recalls the figure of the “Magical Negro,” providing even-keeled guidance from the sidelines (give or take an occasional kick to a head) with a knowing look. It’s the fact that they cast a Black actor as a dark-furred animal together with the electively secondary status that does it: Miles seems to have the seniority and know-how (and reflexes, even if they exist for comedy’s sake only) to lead but instead defers to the two white boys. At the birth of Daisy’s child—which is perversely spectated by most of the barnyard—Miles remains outside and ostensibly, diegetically sings “Freedom Is a Voice.” Again, there’s the knowing-ness, some sense of remove that might be considered subservience, deliberately stepping back from the immediacy of plot/conflict to act the wiseman for the main character(s). If I wanted to get particularly spicy, I’d probably say something also about how the exaggerated features of the cartoon character, though also intentionally true to the animal what it’s supposed to be, could potentially parallel racistly exaggerated portrayals of Black men. Or, since Miles looks like the store brand equivalent of Shrek’s Donkey character (played by Eddie Murphy), then it could be unintentional racism by way of plagiarism. For what it’s worth, Wanda Sykes’ cow character doesn’t look overtly offensive, though they still did give her darker fur and heavier features than her white-played girl friend... Applying human racial/ethnic signifiers to animals for the purposes of anthropomorphizing them is fraught, let’s say. And I think it would be interesting to be a (talking) fly on the wall for the design journey of one of these characters, to find out how certain elements might be pitched or rationalized.

My beefiest critique, which may have somewhat more legitimacy for being less of a reach, is of how Otis initially heads into the final showdown with Dag. The issue is that he goes alone after going alone just the night before and having his male cow bohunkus handed to him. There may be some implication that mindset is the determining factor: this time for the sake of others (chick-napped friends and/or dependents) rather than for personal vengeance. It certainly looks a lot like picking the same fight twice, though. It almost goes down the same way again, but then the other animals (plus whatever “Wild Mike” is) arrive and fill the movie’s quota for third-act comedy pay-offs to various gags and sub-stories, like Freddy the neurotic ferret finding an acceptable chicken substitute in the coyotes or like Peck the beta-soy rooster finally crowing properly or like the rowdy Jersey Cows showing up once more in the curvy, nosy neighbor’s previously-trashed car. It’s all satisfying-enough in isolation, but I think it would have been so much better if Otis had orchestrated it in place of how the other animals just apparently chose to get organized and follow him on their own.

The intended narrative and thematic end-result is still achieved: Clearly, Otis is not as much of a brawler as Ben was (a resolute, reserved, ripped ruler), but he’s still able to ultimately accept and assume the position of authority by blending his wilder, younger, more care-free pastimes and associations with the duties of a protector. In a way, he surpasses Ben, who fought alone (and died because of it), albeit in part because Otis weaseled out of participating in the coyote watch that fateful night. Still, he makes the other animals partners in protecting themselves from predators. The problem, again, is that Otis does not choose this, actively; it is chosen for him, which raises the awkward question of why the others never helped Ben! This question would not exist if Otis was the one to stir the barnyard to action. Instead, he left his father to fight the coyotes alone, got his own rump roasted by those coyotes when trying them solo once, and was apparently ready to not learn the same lesson again when his friends showed up of their own accord. You could read between the lines, like I did a little, before, to find some sort of implied lesson for Otis and/or Ben here about not allowing themselves to be alone. (Something something democracy? The conspiratorially-minded might be inclined to say that this thematic failure to cohere is in service to not making kids political radicals of some stripe: Change just kind of happens; you don’t have to Organize or nothin’!) But this is ultimately a kids’ Shrek-like where there are male cows with udders. And it doesn’t teach the children proper cow anatomy, nor does it drive home the obvious theme of being stronger together, which is a trite lesson but acceptable in this context of a middling kids’ movie. Where, of course, a scene of the cast on motorcycles must be accompanied by “Slow Ride.” While certain other musical tracks might still move me via the pulleys and levers of nostalgia, my new appreciation for Barnyard is one that rests solidly upon its weirdly pervasive perversity instead. The udder waggle is going to stick with me for a while.

Why, one might reasonably ask, wasn’t this virile, udderless, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, beefsteak helping to protect the barnyard in place of a big, old, soft cow?

Okay—Let’s be real: This is an honest sight gag (“The bull is riding the man lol”), not lore. It’s a one-and-done; there’s meant to be zero logistical implications regarding this presumably electrically-powered amusement the animals are somehow hiding from the farmer when they aren’t partying. As fun as it is to lean into the old “This movie is so CRAZY, I’m going INSANE” bit, obviously the absurdity is intended given the consistency. This is also a good spot to acknowledge that while the visual style is grotesque, it is likely just about as intentional. Not that there isn’t potential for some degree of unintentionalness somewhere, but kids love weird and messed-up-looking stuff, and this is a Nickelodeon movie—the same people, broadly, with the channel that, for example, aired Ren & Stimpy over ten years earlier and that I associate with weird or gross visuals even in cuter fare like the infamous SpongeBob. One might ask what a 2D animated Barnyard would have looked like: if it could have ditched the less deliberately off-putting elements to let the art style express itself, without the stiffness and blandness that comes with the 3D, which was, for better or for worse, the style at the time, then and now. Maybe the inevitable reboot will… I’m not even going to finish that thought! It will 100% for sure be using the micro-stutter-y Spider-Verse look!