With the division of nature and humanity, however, also exists parallels between both in Song of the Sea, demonstrating a continuation of the nature film trope of animals reflecting human beings. The anthropomorphizing of animals is the basis of human-animal relationships in the film, where animals take on distinctly human characteristics. Like the deer and critters of Bambi, the seals of the sea and Cú are given human eyes and body-shapes that do not reflect the actual forms of animals. By giving animals physical appearances like those of the humans in the film, viewers empathize with them as individual beings. This tradition of blurring the line between animals and humans recalls what Johnston and Matlin discuss in Walt Disney’s Bambi: “human…show more content… The essence of the Disney universe, the one thing that connects all life together, is love. In Bambi, this is shown in the literal love between animals in the rebirth of spring. In Lion King, Pride Rock falls apart under the leadership of Scar without love. In March of the Penguins, the narration explicitly states, “this is a story about love.” This love is about the interconnected nature of life itself, as the Great Seanachai in Song of the Sea reminds Ben, “Saoirse, and the selkie, all of us are connected.” The Great Seanachai represents this idea, as his hair strands each represent a story of life itself. Previous films such as Lion King and Brother Bear had elements of mysticism reflecting the nature of this love. For example, Rafiki in Lion King is witness to a cloud in the form Mufasa speaking to Simba, and the mystic elder in Brother Bear gives Kenai the spirit animal of the bear of love. Song of the Sea continues this trend of using magic or spirits to visually represent love. Story and song are particularly important in the film as means to express and even save the characters. It is when Saoirse sings that she regains her life, saves the faeries, and frees Macha from her sadness. It is also when Ben retells stories his mother passed on to him that the human child begins to…show more content… As the spirits depart in the aurora with Mac Lir to a golden island in the horizon, it appears as if this essential part of nature is leaving the human world. It was the commoditization of nature by Macha—her bottling up of feelings—that trapped the faerie spirits in stone, and once they are free, they leave with Mac Lir in what appears to be a permanent move. Once Saoirse decides to remain human, the division is set clear between spirits and humans, and her mother leaves forever. This is in contrast to Brother Bear, where the story sets up a permanent link between humans and spirits, and Kenai actually chooses to remain a bear once given the choice. Ultimately, the spirits have left in Song of the Sea, and the resulting world is one in which humans merely use animals as tools and toys. This is represented by the children wearing animal masks as they celebrate Halloween, and how while people like the ferry conductor have knowledge of Irish folklore, they live separate from it. John Berger in 1980 wrote about this phenomenon of the shifting nature of interaction with animals: “children in the industrialized world are surrounded by animal imagery: toys, cartoons, pictures, decorations of every sort. No other source of imagery can begin to compete with that of animals.” Children in the city interact with animals only