"Despicable Me" Movies and Their Lack of Diversity; Is It really THAT Hard to Illustrate a Brown Kid?

Despicable Me is the first film by Illumination Entertainment, about a villain who becomes a father.

Gru is a tall man with a pointed nose living in a massive dark house in a bubbly neighborhood.

Gru’s biggest dream, when he was growing up, was to go to the moon. However, that dream was ignored by his mother and even mocked.

“Mom, someday I’m going to go to the moon.”

“I’m afraid your too late son. Nasa isn’t sending the monkeys anymore,” she said.

Gru’s dreams and morals started to get evaluated as villainous as they would’ve been.

So he determined that instead of going to the moon and writing his initials on that dusty surface, he was going to steal the moon!

But, hey, we need money to do that?

Is There a Bank of Evil?

Yeah. Yep. Yes.

I watched all of the Despicable Me films as an adult and did what I had to do; took them very seriously!

The Bank of Evil is an excellent concept, which explains the power, that the “Evil” holds against the ” Innocent” and the level of security that the “Evil” has.

The Bank of Evil mainly profits from the media attention that the villains cause.

Doesn’t it sound very similar to something? >> Hollywood.

The Bank of Evil is essentially a fancier and larger bank, underneath the actual bank known by naive civilians.

Although Gru tries so much to get a loan from the bank, he fails. Nevertheless, he persists and comes up with an idea to steal the weapon to shrink the moon.

The idea is to use the three little orphan girls he met a week ago, who will be his soon-to-be daughters, to break into the main antagonist’s house.

The Three Little Orphan Girls in Despicable Me:

Agnes Gru

She is the eldest one and is obsessed with unicorns. She is also, for sure, the heart of the movies because of her innocent-looking eyes.

Edith Gru

She is the middle child. Edith is a troublemaker and is portrayed very much as a tomboy. She is the least explored out of the three sisters, which is understandable considering she is the middle child.

Margo Gru

She is the protective big sister.

In my opinion, she also is the best-written one. Margo was just a ten years old orphan girl who was untrusting of people. Margo had to take care of Agnes and Edith as if, she was their mother even though she was only 10.

This is Why Gru Rescuing the Girls is the Highlight of Despicable Me!

In that particular scene, Margo selflessly encourages Agnes and Edith to jump before.

As an older sister, she has the instinct to protect her siblings, which is a bit sad because she has never experienced this feeling of secureness that she provides to her siblings before. Until meeting Gru.

“I’ve got you.”

“I think the biggest challenge was making Gru a villain but also having him maintain appeal. It was a very tricky balance. We fine-tuned it as we went along. Early on, we had a bit where his dog Kyle eats kittens for breakfast. You laugh and it’s funny, but because we were trying to hit a broad audience, it’s something you have to think about and I think we landed in a very good spot for ourselves and our story. He’s a character that has to become a loving dad for three little girls, so we had to jettison that because how do you pull a guy back from that?” says the director Pierre Coffin.

It is obvious that Gru still loves being villainous but fortunately, he has more important things to prioritize, the three little kittens that changed his heart!

“One big unicorn

strong and free

thought he was

happy as he could be

Them three little kittens

came around

and turned his whole life

upside down!

They made him

LAUGH!

They made him cry…

He never should’ve

said goodbye

And now he knows

he could never

apart

from those

three little kittens

that changed his heart.”

How They Almost Erased Every Actual Character Trait of Lucy to Make Her a Mom?

“We ultimately landed on the fact that these movies are ultimately about family,” Paul, along with Daurio, said

This is very understandable considering that the Despicable Me series are initially a children’s film.

“Although I don’t think we’ll be ever able to touch the emotion of that first movie, because there’s something special about Gru becoming a dad and the girls changing his life. We feel like in each movie we’re going to expand the family, and deal with the challenges of things like sibling rivalry, or in this film, Lucy becoming a stepmom. She’s so accomplished as an agent, but feeling so insecure about being a mom now.” they said.

However, there was no need to erase her quirks and interests rapidly.

“When we met with Chris Meledandri about it, we realized, ‘Ah! Gru needs love.’ He found one kind of love by becoming a dad and now he needs another kind of love, so we found his romance with Lucy in the second film,” Paul said. “That was the same process with this third movie. While he has kids and while he has a wife, maybe there’s another kind of love that he hasn’t experienced yet, which would be sibling love — brotherly love.” said the director.

I LOVED this idea. Hopefully, in the next movies, they are going to fix Gru’s and his mother’s relationship as well.

SOUNDTRACK BY PHARELL?!?!

This is just unbelievable. The songs on the soundtracks essentially don’t even sound like they belong to an animated film. However, when you hear them throughout the movie, everything makes sense flawlessly.

“I would never have written any of those songs if it weren’t for this film and what is required,” said Pharrel once.

And now, we came to the part that forced me to write this unnecessary article.