A Short Film That Still Packs a Big Punch

The Oscars will be presented on Sunday, which means it’s the one time of year when movie-goers pay any attention to all the fabulous cinematic short works out there. The rest of the year they may get short shrift, but the best short documentary, best short live-action film, and — everybody’s favorite — best short animated film will walk away with gold statues on Sunday night.

For best short animation, will Oscar smile on the favorite, “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse,” or a dark horse like “Ice Merchant”? 

For those who might not have a “short” memory, we’d like to resurface our favorite animated short: the 2018 Pixar film “Purl,” which launched that studio’s SparkShorts series.

The eight-minute film is a look at workplace diversity and inclusion. It starts with Purl excitedly arriving for her first day of work at B.R.O. Capital (the company name is as subtle as the film gets). Purl steps off the elevator with her box of desk accessories, including her knitting bag and her lavender “I’d Rather Be Knitting” coffee cup.

But as Purl looks around she realizes — shockingly — that she’s the only ball of yarn on the floor. And because of that, she constantly has the door slammed in her face, both literally and figuratively.

When she’s left behind as the rest of her department clears out for “two-for-one wings,” a despondent Purl decides to fight back — by becoming one of the boys. She becomes as loud, aggressive, and swaggering as pink yarn can possibly be. The film centers on the question of what Purl gives up in order to fit in.

The story was written and directed by Kristen Lester, the head of story at Pixar Animation Studios, and was based on her own experience in animation. “My first job,” Lester says in a behind-the-scenes clip, “I was like the only woman in the room. So in order to do the thing I loved, I sort of became one of the guys.”

That changed, she said, when she arrived at Pixar. “I started to work on a team with women for the first time,” she says, “and that actually made me realize how much of the female aspect of myself I had sort of buried and left behind.”

While the film is clearly about workplace diversity, it wrestles with questions of inclusion and belonging: Do employees feel welcomed in their jobs, and do they feel the psychological safety to be themselves? The film underscores the necessity of people being allowed to bring their authentic selves — the whole ball of yarn, if you will — to the workplace.

Pat Wadors, LinkedIn’s onetime head of HR, was an early champion of the importance of belonging. In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Pat offers six tips for creating a culture of belonging. One of them is to share stories. “Storytelling is my favorite technique to generate belonging,” Pat writes, “because we, as humans, are also wired to respond to stories.”

Fittingly then, in the final scene of the film, Purl is welcoming a new employee to B.R.O. “Tell us about yourself,” she encourages him. “We do love a good yarn.”

To receive blog posts like this one straight in your inbox, subscribe to the blog newsletter.