Sometime in the last year or so, I re-watched Jumanji in McBee 3. This was likely because I had no motivation to do the homework that was assigned to me (I recently changed my major so I now feel free to voice my opinion on the material in my classes. Needless to say, the material was rotting my soul). There are many downsides of not having 40 subscription-based streaming services. One of these downsides being that you have to use free streaming services that also sound like names to adult entertainment venues in Las Vegas (they do not have to be in Vegas, but you get the picture). It is incredibly embarrassing when you have to look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you are consistently using streaming platforms such as Mubi, Plex, Pluto, and Tubi to watch movies that none of your friends have ever seen. The only other option is using 123movies, which sounds like a Gmail username that I would create on my parents desktop computer in 2011 so that I could watch Bon Qui Qui without them knowing.

While watching Jumanji, I realized that Jumanji is not about being stuck in a board game, it is about a young boy’s grappling with the loss of the American Dream in the 1990s. You have to read between the lines to see this movie is critiquing evil trade deals such as NAFTA. Robin Williams’s character is put back into an America that has its churches turned into fast food restaurants, the town square full of homeless people, and all of the manufacturing jobs gone. The culture of America is being destroyed and the town has no identity other than consuming cheaper goods which double as slop. When Williams’s character is taken into Jumanji, a curse has been put on the town and both him and his family have to wake up to the consequences of this curse.

Jumanji is about the people that are impacted by the wild, wild west of international finance and leverage buyouts that ruined middle America in the 1980s and 1990s. That story is then put through the lens of a children’s story. Jumanji is the articulation of the working class that has seen so much of their world slip from their fingers. What is funny about this is that I bet the people who wrote the screenplay had some other idea for what this movie is about. I bet they were really trying to go for something dumb like family and love. Leverage buyouts and the decline of American culture is WAY more kid friendly though.