The Emperor's New Goove, 2000
November 13 , 2022 | JAKE SANTIAGO-MELCHIORRE
The Emperor’s New Groove is about a spoiled prince named Kuzco overthrown by his advisor Yzma and his journey back learning to be better. He is assisted by a poor, but happy man named Pacha, and Yzma is joined by her help Kronk. Over the course of the film Kuzco and Pacha’s subjective truths come clashing with one another resulting in a cartoonish thrilling adventure.
At the start of the film Kuzco’s voice is narrating over the events leading up to the moments he is left alone in the jungle as a Llama. He claims he was the nicest guy and several people ruined his life for no reason (Pacha, Yzma, and Kronk). We see in quick succession Kuzco’s spoiled day to day life. People carrying him, people waiting on him, people making doors for him, among other things. After this we are introduced to Yzma, later described as “Scary beyond all reason”, who is fired for running the empire behind Kuzco’s back. She is promptly escorted out and Pacha enters for his summons. After discussing his village Kuzco lets him know he plans to build his summer home there, destroying the village. After getting into a minor argument Pacha is escorted out. We’ll revisit this later.
Yzma furious about being fired gets the idea from Kronk to kill Kuzco with a special poison from her secret lab. Luring Kuzco to them under the guise of dinner Kuzco arrives and after some shenanigans takes a drink of the poison. The poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen specially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. However, due to Yzma’s labels Kuzco is instead turned into a Llama. Kronk is instructed to dispose of the body, but he has an internal conflict instead saving Kuzco. In doing so he misplaces the body in a bag falling onto Pacha’s cart. This won’t come back to bit him. (It does).
Pacha returns home and after admiring his house and his wife giving her two cents on what the emperor should have done, he finds Kuzco in his cart. Offering him the ultimatum of bringing him back to the palace if he doesn’t build his summer home here Kuzco refuses and ventures off into the dangerous jungle alone. Pacha tries to warn him of the jungle, but Kuzco ignores him. After getting lost and almost eaten by Jaguars Pacha saves him due to his good nature. Once they have a moment to rest Pacha and Kuzco have an argument about the good in people and his summer home. Again, we’ll look at this later.
A funeral is held for Kuzco by Yzma and Kronk lets it slip Kuzco isn’t dead. The next morning Kuzco and Pacha have an awkward conversation about the summer home and Kuzco seemingly concedes, but he really is just saying that so he can get back to the castle. Pacha leads him back till they both nearly die falling off a bridge getting stuck between two cliffs. Having to work together and trust each other to get up they cartoonishly make their way onto the ledge they fell from. Pacha however almost falls again, but Kuzco saves him showing a little bit of good in him.
Now having to go the long way around Kuzco and Pacha go to a restaurant to rest and meet Yzma and Kronk there. They never actually meet, but Pacha realizes they are after Kuzco and get them out of their as fast as possible. Kuzco thinks they can help and gets angry at Pacha’s claims that they are trying to kill him. Splitting up Kuzco finds out they indeed are trying to kill him and that nobody in the palace even cares he’s gone. Kuzco tries to go back to Pacha and realizes he’s gone. It’s now when we catch back up to the films opening of Kuzco in the rain and no longer caring about getting home accepting what he’s done.
That night as Kronk is sleeping he puts all the pieces together realizing the man in the diner was Pacha, and if they find Pacha’s village they find him, meaning they find Kuzco. Kuzco wakes up adapting to Llama life and Pacha finds him and offers to help again. In need of supplies they head back to Pacha’s place and realize Yzma is there. His family stalls them and in a cartoonish montage Kuzco and Pacha make it back to the castle after Yzma and Kronk. Which by all accounts makes no sense, but I digress.
Just before they die a lot of reveals happen. Kuzco admits out loud he wasn’t as nice as he should’ve been, Kronk turns on Yzma, and Yzma never liked his Spinach Puffs (Arguably the most shocking reveal). After Kronk is sent down a chute multiple animal soldiers chase after Kuzco and Pacha as Kuzco keeps changing into different animals. Down to the last two vials Yzma grabs one turning herself into a kitty. Kuzco loses the human vial and has to make the choice between getting the vial and saving Pacha that fell off the castle in the scuffle. Kuzco makes the choice and saves Pacha opting to get the human vial later. As the two work together again Yzma grabs the vial and Kronk conveniently smacks her with a window getting them the vial.
In the final moments of the film Kuzco is seen repenting for one of the bad things he did inferring he apologized for other stuff too. He decides to build his summer home on another hill apologizing in his own Kuzco way for the trouble he causes Pacha. Pacha subtly suggests the hill next to his and Kuzco builds a modest summer home in Pacha's village and everyone's happy. This even includes Yzma who is being taught how to speak squirrel in acorn scouts. She isn’t happy, I just thought it was funny.
So how does this old Disney Comedy relate to ethics in any way shape or form? This film believes it or not relates to Perspectivism and furthermore; Subjectivism. Subjectivism is the view that the truth value of moral claims is different from individual to individual, that it is a matter of preference. In this idea no moral truths can be truly true or truly false in the same way objective or empirical truths are. You can’t deny that if there is an empty cup in front of you that the cup isnt empty because it is. However, when looking at ethical arguments like is murder ok it goes deeper. There is no one definitive truth for this question leading to these ethical or moral truths being subjective. However, Subjectivism has quite a few holes in it which I’ll revisit later. First, I’ll explain the links in the film and subjectivism.
“After getting into a minor argument Pacha is escorted out.” This small line I typed earlier is the crux for this. In this argument both Pacha and Kuzco’s views are stated in bits of dialogue. Pacha, asking and pleading where his family will go Kuzco responds “Don’t know, don’t care”. Pacha responds saying he just can’t do that. Kuzco is shown here remaining polar opposite to Pacha in his views. Kuzco only cares about himself and his enjoyment while Pacha, even with the little information up until this point, is shown to be kind. He helps an old man, humbly speaks with the emperor, and his music is even in stark contrast to Kuzco. His is calm and peaceful while Kuzco’s is bold and rigid.
Later on, after saving Kuzco the first time Pacha exclaims that “Deep down I think you realize that you're forcing an entire village out of their homes just for you”. Kuzco wholeheartedly does not understand why this should make him feel bad leading to a full argument this time. Pacha standing firm in his beliefs says if Kuzco will wind up alone and the only one he can blame is himself if he doesn’t start acting right. The following day after Kuzco saves Pacha from the cliff he says that no one would be that heartless to let Pacha drop showing some change in him. Finally, by the films end Kuzco is still Kuzco, but he’s mellowed out no seeing what he’s done wrong.
Focusing on the beginning of the film we clearly see where Kuzco and Pacha stand over the morality of displacing many village people. They each of their own subjective view points of the matter. Except, Kuzco changes over time. He learns more about the people he’s ruling via Pacha and see’s firsthand that acting this childish is wrong. This entire part here contains two issues of Subjectivism.
One, if Kuzco didn’t change he’d still be right. Since all morality is subjective there is no one set way to be moral. It is all left up to the individual. So even though Kuzco is against multiple people while setting up his summer home he is still right to not care about them. That being said Pacha is also right because it is his viewpoint. If they are both right though, then who’s wrong? Both of them, but neither of them? Just because Kuzco evolves over time he doesn’t become right. At all times he is right, just not in Pacha, or any other character’s views. That brings me to the other issue.
Two, since Kuzco is always right despite changing over time he doesn’t truly progress. There is no moral progression with his character here. We as the audience can see he made the better choice in the end via Pacha’s happiness, Kuzco apologizing to the old man, and Yzma being defeated. However, since Kuzco is right at the beginning of the film when he wanted to destroy the village and at the end when he doesn’t, he never gets anywhere. In Subjectivisms eyes he goes from right to right instead of wrong to right. We clearly see him going from a bad person to a good person proving subjectivism is either false or a dubious stance to take.
To a lesser extent Yzma and Kronk also face this same debacle during the film. At two moments in the film Kronk waivers from killing Kuzco instead choosing to spare him and turn on Yzma in the final act. Yzma is right because she wants to kill Kuzco and that’s ok to her, but Kronk disagrees because he realizes Yzma is bad after a certain point. He doesn’t want to cross the line of killing someone he doesn’t need to. So, he is also, right? Kronk becomes a good guy helping beat Yzma, accidently, at the films end. He didn’t become right though because he was always right. It doesn’t make much sense.
In the end these characters journeys are a good way to view different subjective truths. Even though they are in direct discourse with one another they are true to themselves. This in turn causing many issues ethically, but leaving for a very fun and educational watch in this area.