It is rather sad to write this because I used to enjoy this movie a lot, but let me get this straight.
In this movies, monsters make energy for their cities by scaring children. They sneak into their rooms, scream in their face and then leave. They do this every day until the children yell for their parents, and absorb the energy from the noise.
The movie thinks this as a very smart joke and a great choice for worldbuilding, but there is a big problem for them: How is this not child exploitation?
They disturbs children's sleep and since the kid is being roared at the face by an uncanny figure, it would not be unreasonable to assume some of them end up traumatized. There are other double effects like a kid being unjustly diagnosed a psychotic disorder or even the death of a child with heart disease. This could ruin lives man.
Monsters Inc. is the sad and disturbing story of a bunch of monsters exploiting children to fuel their energy. At best, it fails to criticize child exploitation properly. At worst, it glorifies it.
This is more obvious in Monsters University (the prequel) because at least in the original movie they kinda learn to stop what they are doing because children have a soul.
The monsters are afraid of children for some reason, thinking they are toxic and may die if they touch them. Eventually, they learn that the children are not poisonous and even build a nice relationship with one of them. After defeating evil Mr. Waternoose, (who wants to subject children to a predatory machine called the scream extractor), the monsters decide scaring children is bad and they should make them laugh instead.
This is of course less problematic than scaring them but I feel it is still creepy. Instead of abusing children straightforward, make them think you are their friends, disturb their sleep, and keep using them for energy.
Are this monsters groomers, or what? Because they act like that for most of the movie. They are afraid of children but they want to use them anyway.
Why don't this braindead crabs pay their workers to make a lot of noise with drums and yells to absorb their energy instead? Why don't they scare people who play horror games and watch horror movies? Why don't they scare criminals?
All of this would be better options for a movie like this, and yet here we are.
