Music|‘Trolls World Tour,’ a Kids’ Music Movie, Has Big Problems With Pop
Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Supported by
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
Critic’s Notebook
Rock tries to rule the other genres in this sequel to “Trolls,” but the real lesson is about how pop has been a conqueror for generations.
The original “Trolls” movie in 2016 was about the unique privilege associated with being a Troll — kaleidoscopically colorful lives, unrelenting joy, hourly hug-a-thons. Chipper, loopy songs peppered the film, which presented pop music, and Pop Trolldom, as sources of joy that are unimpeachably good (if a little oblivious).
What horror lies beneath, though? In “Trolls World Tour,” which was released last week, Poppy, queen of the Pop Trolls, discovers that her tribe isn’t the only one out there, and that the Rock Trolls are intent on conquering them all, a residual effect of a time when Pop Trolls were, in fact, invaders. The real lesson of the movie? That one Troll’s privilege never comes without another Troll’s suffering.
And yet in a movie that features musical megastars including Justin Timberlake, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, J Balvin, Ozzy Osbourne and Gustavo Dudamel, it is, somehow, the genial, sometimes grating funk-soul singer-rapper Anderson .Paak who’s tasked with the sociopolitical heavy lifting.
He voices Prince D — a Funk Troll, but really a Hip-Hop Troll — who interrupts Poppy (played by Anna Kendrick as a walking embodiment of Troll privilege) on her quest to save Troll Kingdom from the evil, rhythm-deficient intentions of the Rock Trolls, led by Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom). Prince D presents her with a brief lesson in appropriation history called “It’s All Love (History of Funk)”: “The Pop Trolls started snatching up all of the strings/Put the melodies on top of poppy lil’ beats/They cut us out of the scene.”
Turns out all that Pop Troll joy was built upon the subjugation of other musical Trolls. The actual truth: Pop absorbed all of the things that made each of the other styles great and watered it down! Pop wrote the history books — a scrapbook, in this universe — suggesting that it wasn’t, in fact, the aggressor!
Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
