Allen, Brenda. “Family, Friendship, and Work in Ratatouille.” Screen Education Magazine. Atom, 2009. Web. 8 March 2014. < https://www.academia.edu/1630042/Family_Friendship_and_Work_in_Ratatouille >



In “Family, Friendship, and Work in Ratatouille”, Brenda Allen states that “Remy is more like an illegal immigrant: his position has changed from that of nurtured son to that of a foreigner in unfriendly territory. He must remain hidden or be hunted and hounded” (138), presenting an argument that I find to be agreeable. Despite differing from his many family members with his love for cooking, the numerous other rats still provide a nurturing environment for Remy – one in which everybody watches out for one another’s safety, works for the well-being of the clan, and maintains close relationships with each other. Even Remy’s father Django, who angers when his son recklessly allows himself to be around humans, cares dearly for Remy. But in leaving his tight-knit family behind for the sake of the culinary arts, Remy effectively alienates himself and begins to tread upon volatile ground – behavior which inevitably gets him into trouble. Being the leader of the entire family Django is viewed firmly as a rat who knows what is best for the clan, whose decisions are always followed without question with the belief that no harm will come of them, and it is when Remy breaks the traditional rat-family structure that Django is placed in a difficult situation. As said by Brenda Allen, “Django must choose between maintaining his credibility and supporting his son” (139-40). As the unanimously accepted head of the family Django is expected to hold fast to traditional values, those being that all humans are out to kill all rats and that therefore humans cannot be trusted, something which initially influences him to let Remy go and to see his son as a traitor of the traditional rat-family unit. If Django himself tore through the set of family values in order to encourage Remy’s dreams, he would be no better than the traitor in the eyes of the other family members – and to the rats, credibility as a leader is everything. Family is everything, and to break from the links of tradition is the highest offense.