This post got a lot of attention with some of you guys being like “but I like *insert movie here*”. First off, being critical of the terms and animal behavior theories used in animated media, which is often CHILDREN’S media, does not mean we have to automatically dislike said media, you can still enjoy things! But it doesn’t mean that things can’t improve going forward.
The term “Alpha” and the theory of hierarchal dominance in dogs and wolves was made popular by a few people. First, in 1910, in “Training Dogs” by Colonel Konrad Most, which is mostly about training military and police dogs, describes punishment based methods and dominance over dogs. Second, in the 1930s and 1940s Rudolph Schenkel, a Swiss animal behaviorist, conducted a behavior study on captive wolves in which he incorrectly concluded that wolves fight to gain dominance and the winner is the “Alpha”.
Schenkel’s findings were problematic because instead of replicating how wolves live in the wild (A related family group with parents and puppies) he brought together many unrelated wolves that were not a family and thus they naturally did not have family bonds and fought for territory as wolves often do in the wild. Naturally, wolves are a bonded mating pair and their offspring. That’s it. There is no alpha, no fighting for dominance. this or that. Once a pup reaches adulthood and is ready for a mate of its own they simply leave the pack to start their own, sometimes other related wolves stick around their family pack.
Schenkel’s findings and the spread of his inaccurate information has done a lot of damage in the dog world. From the Monks of New Skete to Cesar Millan to the people today that still think they need to be the boss of their dog even when training dogs with positivity and reward has been documented well before the theories of dominance or ‘alpha’ came to be (Around 1848 we have descriptions of training with gentleness and rewards for gun dogs) that damage continues to be a harmful way of training our dogs and people still believe that they need to treat their dogs in this (unscientific) way.
David Mech, who studied wolves in the wild and consolidated his findings in a study in 2000 said this: “Attempting to apply information about the behavior of assemblages of unrelated captive wolves to the familial structure of natural packs has resulted in considerable confusion. Such an approach is analogous to trying to draw inferences about human family dynamics by studying humans in refugee camps. The concept of the alpha wolf as a “top dog” ruling a group of similar-aged compatriots is particularly misleading.”
and where does this lead us with animation where I so often see this term still thrown around? Well it’s lazy storytelling. Instead of doing further research to bring their characters depth, nuance, and uniqueness studios, writers, etc. slap the alpha theory and its labels around like it means something, like it’s relevant and this only perpetuates the myth that these animals, incredibly family oriented animals, are like this. And yes, the term ‘alpha’ is still sometimes thrown around when discussing the breeding pairs of wolf packs, but for the general public they don’t think Parent and Babies, they think Alpha Fighting for Dominance.
Instead of exploring the deep and complex cultural ways your character might have been raised, the hierarchy of their society and their relationship and feelings about such cultural family hierarchy, all excellent topics for an animated property both in children’s and adult realms, slapping the ‘alpha’ terms and theories into your property cheapens it. “hur dur he’s aggressive so he’s the alpha/leader!”. LAZY. Explore the leader of your family group as a kind, but tough individual trying to raise her offspring for a difficult life ahead, or a soft and gentle leader who nurtures his offspring but finds it difficult to let them go (*cough cough finding nemo*). There are so many ways you could go with this without perpetuating outdating science the peer of eugenics and other theories we KNOW are crude, poorly researched and unscientific. You don’t need to use the term alpha, your audience, yes even children, are smart enough to understand who the leader is (given your writing is decent).
As somebody with a deeply rooted interest in canine behavioral science as WELL as somebody that has a BFA in Animation, adding the ‘Alpha’ terms to animals that are supposed to be protagonists completely takes me out of the movie/tv show. In How to Train Your Dragon 2 I loved the contrast between Hiccup’s relationship with Toothless, whose relationship and training built on trust and reward, and Drago who uses punishment based training methods. But at the end of the movie when Toothless gains a power up and becomes the ‘Alpha’ by defeating the Bewilderbeast I was sitting in the theater like….
Because while it wasn’t something that most people notice or care about, for me it was like “well we did all this research on animal behavior/how they move etc. and have built up this wonderful contrast between the protagonists methods (ultimately positive reinforcement) and the villain’s methods (dominance theory) but when it came to hierarchal structures we kinda just stopped the research there.”
For me, a more interesting take on Dragon Society Hierarchy would have been to take it more from existing reptilian social structure since the dragons already seem to widely tolerate each other even if they aren’t family, like alligators who live in large groups called congregations. Would it have made for as direct a concept as “Toothless defeats the big bad and now HE’S the leader of ALL the dragons?” No, but sometimes the easy path, the direct path, is not the best path. Let DIFFERENT concepts take hold for once and take your story somewhere new and exciting. Make animal behaviorists and scientists excited while teaching resonating lessons and telling good stories. Please. I beg you.
