When you see the trailer for Finding Dory, it plays up a lot of the funny moments in the movie. The lovable characters, the references to finding her home and parents... But what I didn't expect, and what caught me totally off guard were the memories that showed young Dory with her mom and dad.
This was a special needs family! Dory suffers from short term memory loss, which in the first movie presents as more of a joke than anything else, because fish don't have much of a memory that we know of, hence it's funny. When you see Dory in this film, she is a little girl, and her parents are trying to navigate her disability, give her tools to cope and to stay safe, and I sat in that theater, my son to my right, identifying with Dory's parents. "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, what do we do we swim, swim.." a song they taught her for getting home, follow the shells etc.
There was a scene in the movie where young Dory is awake at night and she hears her mother crying to her father, worried about how Dory will survive as she gets older. What will she do without us? How will she survive in the ocean, etc... And I cried. I cried and cried with Dory's mother because I too understand that fear. That exhaustion at being positive and supportive for your child who needs you, only to collapse at night into those fears when you think your child is asleep. Its terrifying as a parent trying to navigate your child's struggles and to come up with tools to help them. Sometimes they work, sometimes you have to change them, sometimes they DID work but now they don't. Seeing Dory's parents work with Dory in all of her memories showed me how dedicated they were to their baby, and their reunion and hope and perserverance had me weeping in that matinee showing, surrounded by babies and other families at the movies together.
It touched me in such a way that Disney included this subtle salute to the parents of special needs children.. this wasn't just a movie about Dory overcoming and learning to cope with her disability, it was a salute to the parents who worked tirelessly to be sure their baby could make it in the world, and to arm them with tools and support as they ventured from home.
Thank you Disney..
