In his 2012 TED Talk, Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton referenced a quote that television host Fred Rogers liked to keep in his wallet.
“Frankly, there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard their story,” Stanton said.
Over a decade later, it’s nice to know that Pixar Animation Studios has kept this sentiment alive and well with its first-ever original series “Win or Lose.”
The Disney+ series follows a middle school softball team in the week leading up to their big championship game, with each episode recounting the same week from different characters’ perspectives as they face unique struggles on and off the field.
When I say that each episode is told from a different character’s perspective, I mean it.
The series brilliantly employs the medium of animation to showcase a heightened reality in which one’s anxiety can manifest itself in the form of a sweat blob Jiminy Cricket-esque figure, or one can develop a suit of armor to shield themselves from negative backlash that takes the form of laser beams.
Dialogue and character attitudes seem to change depending on who is recounting the story.
The series had a rough journey on its way to premiere. It was first announced with the launch of Disney+ in 2019 and subsequently shifted release dates several times.
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Not only that, but Pixar’s recent layoffs and managerial changes also heralded a shift in the studio’s priorities. As a result, we’re not likely to get another project like this from them anytime soon, at least for the foreseeable future.
I’ll admit that I was fully caught in this show’s trap. In the first few episodes, I found certain characters annoying — namely Vanessa and Yuwen — but when I got to their episodes and saw their sides of the story, I felt ashamed I had judged them so quickly. Just as in life, we’re often too quick to judge others based on the extremely limited insight we have on them.
Throughout the show, I found myself constantly wondering how the finale was going to properly resolve every thread introduced in episodes one through seven. You feel this tension in episode eight, but it sticks the landing.
The only major blemish I need to address is the character of Kai. It’s no secret that Disney executives pushed to remove references to her gender identity, and this is felt in episode seven. I believe the episode still works without these explicit references, but this decision continues a disappointing trend in which marginalized communities aren’t properly represented in media.
Through endlessly creative variations on how our main characters see the world, “Win or Lose” is a radical new way of looking at empathy for young and old audiences alike. The series stands tall amongst Pixar’s catalog of originals, and I think everyone can get something out of it if they give it a shot.