Ouroboros: Classy-sounding name for an article, don't you think?

When I thought the film version of Mamma Mia! was going to be the sole focus of this column, I had the urge to name it “The International Language of Cheese.” But then I ended up going to a double feature, and that changed my perspective and my title.

The ouroboros is the symbol of the snake eating its own tail, and I liken that to the artistic motif of self-referencing.

Along around the advent of the original Saturday Night Live, storytelling — particularly comedy — began referencing itself, sometimes ironically and sometimes not so much. Satire always referenced current events, but now whole stories used other stories as reference points, and films began commenting upon themselves and their place in the storytelling cosmos. This was epitomized by the detached irony of Bill Murray; he didn’t lose himself in a role, he took a step back and commented on what was transpiring and how he felt about it. David Letterman took the momentum and built a franchise around it, with his late-night talk show dedicated to a sardonic send-up of itself. While Jay Leno blandly played it straight, Letterman was snakily eating himself.

I have historically avoided the stage musical of Mamma Mia! (more on that later), but when I first heard of it I flashed back on a 1994 film called Muriel’s Wedding. Notable mostly as the breakthrough role of the bountifully gifted Toni Collette, this movie also made shameless and referential use of the music of ABBA. Muriel was a pudgy and self-deluded anti-heroine who lost herself and her woes in a joyous addiction to that particular music. At that time — five years before Mamma Mia! (I’ll never get tired of that freakin’ exclamation point) — ABBA had not yet crossed over into Second Coming status, and was still largely tolerated like an overexpressive aunt with visible panty line.

And the mawkishness of the tunes bespoke that same quality in Muriel. But the exuberance of the music elevated its use in the film beyond mockery, and we were somehow privy to Muriel’s joy by finding ourselves (at least slightly) buoyed by them Swedish disco tunes.

Though I have stayed away from the stage version of Mamma Mia!!, I have had it from very respected theater colleagues that the show wins you over. I have no reason to doubt these people or their sanity, and I entered the cinema with some wistful hope that a similar fate awaited me. It is an odd sensation, watching a musical where none of the songs have anything to do with the story, yet they hold the audience’s emotional attention because everybody has heard them coming out of their radios since 1975.

As Mamma Mia!!! proceeded, I found myself increasingly unsettled by the bad choreography and witless squandering of Meryl Streep, not to mention poor Julie Walters’ unchecked mugging. There are two points of reprieve, in which the over-the-top lunacy outweighs the inanity: “Dancing Queen” done on a Greek dock with, apparently, every female villager fluent in Travolta-era disco steps; and a second finale (forget the wrong-noted first one) wherein the virally catchy song “Waterloo” fights for dominion over aging leading men in glitter bellbottom jumpsuits. In all fairness, I can see how this whole enterprise might be unavoidably infectious as live theater, with an orchestra wearing you down — but the movie sacrifices that without a lot to compensate. Feta is Greek cheese, and it’s a feta accompli (I’ve been waiting a lot of years to use that) that cheese rules the day in this movie. That might not be gouda news for the subtle palate.

The reason I opted for the ouroboros theme has less to do with Mamma Mia!!!! than with the other film I saw, Disney/Pixar’s Wall-E. Granted, this animated feature has been open for a while now, but if you haven’t seen it yet, just go. Period. I’m not sure there has previously been a feature cartoon with this much unique craftsmanship in both the visual art and the storytelling, and there is an emotional resonance — complete with an iconic internal reference — to the finale that took me completely by surprise and left me a blubbering pile of goo.

The obstacles inherent in Wall-E are huge: computer animation telling the story about a dystopically trashed Earth traversed by a dirty robot and a cockroach. Merry Christmas, everybody! Yet Wall-E’s creative team is up for the challenge. From an early point, the narrative is infused with references to Hello, Dolly!, the most traditional of exclamation-added musicals. These references are used so judiciously — first in counterpoint to the bleak surroundings, then as genuine aspiration — that you fall in love all over again with the innocent heart and plucky aspirations of the musical. And the very end — which I will not give away — provides an ultimate ouroborotic Disney link to its own Snow White past.

It’s probably unfair to compare the cheesy aspirations of the MM!!!!! Euro-popsicle to the elegant reach of the Disney/Pixar vision. I’m a big fan of cheese; some of my most memorable quesadillas have featured it. But it’s nice when our pop culture shoots for the stars instead of the dairy case.