Shark Tale Film Analysis Essay

Working on getting decent analysis in and keeping it engaging

This shark is gay. He strives to polarize from the mafia while his friend sacrifices his personality and ethics to become famous. The film Shark Tale, created by Dreamworks in 2004, creatively and somewhat questionably teaches lessons about living life true to one's genuine self. One of the main characters, a shark by the name of Lenny, is coerced into following in the fin splashes of his malefactor shark family. An analysis of the movie Shark Tale reveals that it uses the emergence of a shark’s unfeigned self to represent a gay man and his journey of coming out and self acceptance.

Lenny is a vegetarian. The film emphasizes this point for its duration, namely as Lenny confesses

Lenny, presumed dead by the others when he goes missing, is found by his father while he is painted to be a dolphin. His father exclaims in disbelief, “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you out of your MIND? Do you have any idea how this looks?” upon seeing Lenny. He then proceeds to accuse Oscar of turning Lenny into a dolphin. This clearly is mirroring reactions to many LGBT person’s coming out. Often, parents and acquaintances with preconceived notions taught by their parents or peers will react negatively, sometimes rambling about societal image or wondering where they went wrong. Some believe that it is a choice and is influenced by contact with gay people, which compares to the accusing Oscar for corrupting his son. And, again in sync with reality, Don eventually accepts him for who he is in the resolution of the film, partially after a harsh and needed wake up call from Oscar, consisting of, “So your son likes kelp, so his best friend is a fish, so he likes to dress like a dolphin! So what?! Everybody loves him, just the way he is.” The narrative of coming out climaxes at this point.

Shark Tale delivers messages that were unanticipated. Although the movie is aimed mainly at children, it blatantly displays a storyline of self acceptance. Lenny grows as a character, slowly coming to terms with himself, and the establishment and inclusion of an obviously

Overall, I’d say this essay worked, and I credit that mostly to the fact that I started it much earlier this round. I went off Mad 40 analysis tips to make sure it was not mostly plot, so hopefully that was executed