'Trolls is trolls'

Jana Mathia, Gazette Editor | Aug 06, 20200

One of the ways high school honors English class has scarred me is it has left me forever analyzing stories. With five kids at home, those stories are often animated movies and cartoons. It’s an interesting juxtaposition when you apply college level analytic to Disney and Pixar characters.

In Trolls World Tour—one such fun kids’ movie—the different genres of music trolls live in isolation from each other, until the Hard Rock Trolls try to take over the rest, bringing all trolls under one music. Unity sounds good, right? Division is divisive and leads to fighting, one kind of troll intolerant of another’s music.

It’s not until the end when the characters all realize it is okay to be different. Harmony isn’t created by everyone making the same sound; harmony takes different voices singing different tunes in different ways.

In the words of the old, semi-senile Rock Troll king, voiced by Ozzy Osbourne, “It’s all right. Just let everyone be what they want to be. Including you.”

When the Pop Trolls are thrown into the Country Troll jail for their offense of a “rad medley,” their rescuer says he liked her message of trolls of different musics coming together. “Trolls is trolls.”

I have heard it said that before the Civil War, people would say “The United States are...” and after the war it was “The United States is...” Our country went from being a conglomerate of different states to being one nation. I don’t know if the statement is true, but it’s a nice sentiment. They were no longer New Yorkers, Virginians or Georgian; they were Americans.

Our nation needs to remember that—the United States is one nation and we are all Americans. Yes, we are different, we have different political beliefs, religions, ancestry, status and—like the trolls—musical tastes, but we are still Americans. Everyone on our ballots are Americans. Some of them may clash like Hard Rock and Classical, but even those two extremes can be played in harmony to make amazing music. Trans-Siberian Orchestra, anyone?

The United States is one nation, home to a variety of people, most of them Americans. We can acknowledge our differences, but let’s always remember we have that one very important thing in common. If our beliefs were all transcribed to music, there would be many very different songs. That does not mean we can’t find harmony. If classically trained musicians can rock AC/DC, Democrats and Republicans can find common ground or, better yet, find ways to help make policies better by drawing on their strengths. We don’t need to get hung up on the differences and let it divide us; let’s instead find ways to harmonize and make something so beautiful it gives those who hear it goose-pimples.

Trolls is trolls. Americans is Americans. For better or worse.

Jana Mathia,

Gazette Editor