WTF - Hexxus & His Toxic Love
Show Notes and References
We’ll eventually do a Movie Night episode where we break down the 1992 classic animated film Ferngully in all its environmentalist glory, but today we’re going to specifically travel back to a memory you may very well have repressed - the TOXIC LOVE track from Ferngully.
It was brought to my (Kalyn’s) attention that my co-host (Christian) has never seen the film - yeah, throw him some shade - and this shocked me. Most people I bring this song up to either begin singing it immediately, or are instantly uncomfortable. It’s rather polarizing, and I would venture to guess even more risque than most people remember from childhood.
I thought ‘what could be more fun than following along as a fellow millennial hears the song for the FIRST time?’
Animating Hexxus
Hexxus was animated by Kathy Zielinski. The start-up studio went out of their way to recruit her to the project as she had just finished animating Ursula for Disney. She was only the second-ever female to be supervising animator for a character. She is also responsible for characters such as Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Jafar’s snake-likeness in Aladdin, and was a staff animator on MANY of our childhood favorites: Mickey’s Christmas Carol, The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, The Rescuers Down Under, Pocahontas, Prince of Egypt, Spirit, and so many more. She’s still animating today, in fact. Dreamworks stole her from Disney once and for all with a $5 million dollar contract.
Wayne Young, who birthed the idea for FernGully, is quoted as saying they had to “keep Kathy in a box” or she would’ve “scared the hell out of the parents, too”.
Toxic Love Lyrics
Mmm, sludge
Mmm, filth
Aah, fumes
Oooh, cack
Oil and grime, poison sludge
Diesel clouds and noxious muck
Slime beneath me, slime up above
Ooh, you'll love my (ah-ah-ah) toxic love
Toxic love
I see the world and all the creatures in it
I suck 'em dry and spit 'em out like spinach
I feel the power, it's growing by the minute
And pretty soon you're gonna see me wallow in it
I feel good, a special kind of horny
Flowers and trees depress and frankly bore me
I think I'll spew them all with cyanide saliva
Pour me a puke cocktail and take me to the driver
Filthy brown acid rain
Pouring down like egg chow mein
All that's foul, all that's stained
Breeding in my toxic brain
And after dinner I could go for something sweet
Revenge for all those years locked in a tree!
I'll crush and grind all creatures great and small
And put up parking lots and shiny shopping malls
'Cause greedy human beings will always lend a hand
With the destruction of this worthless jungle land
And what a beautiful machine they have provided
To slice a path of doom with my foul breath to guide it
Hit me one time
Hit me twice
Ah, ah, ah
That's rather nice
Oil and grime, poison sludge
Diesel clouds and noxious muck
Slime beneath me, slime up above
Ooh, you'll love my (ah-ah-ah) toxic love.
Reactions and Revelations
The internet, and our millennial contemporaries, are fairly divided when it comes to Hexxus and his toxic love. Love it or hate it, it’s hard to argue that he made an impression. Maybe on everyone but Christian.
Hexxus, particularly his skeleton “final form” was an image burned deeply into my subconscious. One of the more unsettling visuals from my childhood - and that’s saying something, in this twisted landscape. I also always felt intensely uncomfortable - as much as I enjoyed it - and didn’t realize (or at least know how to name the feeling) until re-watching in high school. It was only then I came to terms with the fact that my discomfort was due to the highly sexual nature of the song and performance. And when I say highly, I mean HIGHLY. Woof.
I thought it was funny that I (Kalyn) was the person leading this episode, because historically I’ve alwaysssss been one to beat around the bush when it comes to sensuality and sex. Growing up, sensuality was very awkward and uncomfortable for me in most settings because I grew up deeply entrenched in Christian purity culture! My only exposure was “sex is bad, don’t do it, don’t think about it, don’t go there.” Unless I was actually IN the intimate moment with the other person, I didn’t know how to handle any mention of the topic.
The discomfort was taught, too. Anytime a sex scene came on, my parents would deflect. “Who wants more popcorn??” It was avoided at all costs. I had a conversation with my friend where he said something to the effect of “Parents can’t cope with the intersection of their kids and sexuality”. I think that’s so true in purity culture especially, but it does more harm than good. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I definitely think differently about these kinds of things than I used to, and I’m so grateful for all of the parents and educators attempting to do right by this generation. There are so many amazing examples online now of parents and the way they are normalizing healthy sexuality and expression at age-appropriate levels. More power to y’all. I firmly believe, and statistics show, that a healthy, scientific, realistic approach to sex education actually prevents sooo many public health issues (issues that have higher rates in the Bible Belt than most other places, by the way.)
I still think it’s interesting that more often than not, sensuality and “villains” go hand in hand, in the secular world as well as within Christianity. In the binary world - it’s all “bad”, and that connotation coupled with my purity culture upbringing was REALLY hard to shake. All of that being said, the Toxic Love “feeling” was still one we weren’t developmentally ready for, which probably made it stick even more in our memory!
Listen to the full episode for all of our reactions and commentary!
References:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/ferngully-making-of
