Russian Adoptees “Meet The Robinsons”

I took my kids to see Meet The Robinsons a few days ago. My boys, who were both adopted from Russia, loved the movie. I was appalled. If I had known about the way adoption is treated in this new Disney film, I never would have taken them.

There’s no way to write this post without spoiling some of the details of the film. So if you don’t want to know, please click on something else.

Before I take my kids to see any movie, I read up on it. The plot summary on IMDB.com describes Lewis, the main character as “a brilliant inventor with a surprising number of clever inventions to his credit.” The kids are into science, so that sounds good. The voiceover on Disney’s trailer for the film says that Lewis is “searching for his family.” MovieFone says that “Lewis is an orphan who dreams of finding a family.” Sounds sweet, sounds like it might be a good jumping off point for another discussion about adoption.

Here’s what they don’t tell you. The movie opens with a shadowy figure of a woman leaving a baby in a box in a doorway on a dark and stormy night. So, sit down, munch your popcorn and get slammed in the face with abandonment. Then, prospective parent after prospective parent is invited into the orphanage to meet Lewis, but they rush away in horror, overwhelmed by his enthusiasm for inventing. How many times does this happen? 124. One hundred and twenty four rejections. Lewis dutifully chalks up each one on a box on the orphanage’s roof where he retreats after one meeting. Say what you will about Russia’s adoption procedures, but they only require a child to be visited by three prospective sets of Russian parents before an international adoption can be considered. What was Disney thinking?

Meet The Robinsons is based on the 1990 book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by Louisiana author William Joyce. He says on his Web site that he wrote 10 drafts of the screenplay himself. But adoption wasn’t in the storyline of his book and he is credited on IMDB only with writing the book–there are five other writers listed ahead of him on the screenplay credits.

I e-mailed Disney to get some clarity. The press person told me that “The adoption storyline came from the writers but none of them are adopted or an adoptee. Most of it came from director Steve Anderson’s personal experience, as he himself was adopted as an infant.” Hopefully not after having been rejected 124 times.

Why did my kids enjoy the movie when I didn’t? They said they liked the images, like the fast-flying spaceships, the singing frogs and the Tyrannosaurus who tries to be a villain but fails. My older son, who has begun to ask more questions about the circumstances of his adoption, said he was not bothered by the abandonment scene.

There’s been a lively discussion of Meet The Robinsons on the forums (see here and here), and there are views there that diverge from mine. But next time, I’m going to do a lot more research on a movie before I buy the tickets.

UPDATE: On Monday, April 9, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute put out a statement calling for a meeting with Disney to discuss “the potentially negative impact” of Meet the Robinsons. You can read Donaldson’s statement here.

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