#so yeah johnny is severely malnourished

[hoperays-song]

Analysis of Johnny's Character Design Pt.1

CW: Discussion of malnutrition, poverty, and childhood hunger

So, one of the first things that you notice about Johnny in terms of character design is how small he is. This is incredibly noticeable in Sing 1 when you compare him to his family, with him barely reaching his dad's shoulder when standing flat on the ground.

However, while that could be dismissed as Marcus being older, we do see Johnny around gorillas who are implied to be close to his age in Sing 2. And he is still noticeable shorter than them.

Now, most people's first thought would be that Johnny might be a different subspecies of gorilla. After all, those all have different height and weight ranges. But, we actually can't use this line of logic here as Johnny has been called a Mountain Gorilla. Which is the second largest gorilla subspecies in the world. And the least endangered gorilla subspecies are smaller than Mountain gorillas. Meaning that yeah, he should be much bigger than he actually is.

So why isn't he? Well, as I discussed in my analysis of the gang and why they likely turned to crime, Johnny and his dad would likely be below the poverty line, even with money from their crimes. Meaning that they would not have money laying around to cover their expenses in the slightest. And one of those expenses would be food.

There isn't a ton of research in malnourishment of gorillas that I found readily available online (which I think is probably a good thing since that means its not that common in nature so yay), so I will just be using the common indicators from humans and other great ape species.

Some of these indicators however, are blatantly obvious on Johnny once you know what to look for.

Hair Thickness and Shine

The first thing that is an indicator that Johnny is malnourished is his hair (yes, Gorillas have hair, not fur). Hair is actually used a fair bit by people in healthcare as a way to se what the potential health problems a patient is facing. Common things that can be diagnosed with hair as a symptom are things like anemia and thyroid issues. However, as your hair is very dependant on your health (think about those multivitamins that help your hair as well as other parts of your body), it is a way to see malnutrition.

When you are malnourished, your hair becomes brittle/course, thin, and dull. It loses pigmentation as well. It also tends to fall out, with hair loss being a huge indicator. And while we never see Johnny actively losing hair in the movie, we see the rest of the indicators.

See the similarities in the texture and shine quality of the hair? The child's face is censored for their privacy of course, but that photo comes from an article talking about malnutrition and childhood hunger in Nicaragua and is a before photo from their program.

But let's look at Johnny's hair real quick. It's very brittle/coarse looking but not thick. The coarseness might make it seem that way, but look at his hand. The hair is patchy, as if it is very thin and has been falling out. The dullness of his hair is pretty obvious, though, it does appear shiny due to the spotlight. Again if you look on his hand, it has no natural shine to it. The lack of pigmentation is going to look the most different between species obviously, but it's import to point out that Johnny's hair is way more brown here than we see it in Sing 2, aka, a loss of pigmentation. His hair is pretty bluntly saying he's malnourished.

However, these effects can be fixed! Typically, in a lot of cases that is, these effects of malnutrition on hair will disappear (or start to) after six months of nutritional stability. Which makes sense when we see Johnny in Sing 2! I put the time of the movies to be about a year apart, and this makes sense with the changes in Johnny's hair. It's thicker, no longer course, and has a shine to it. The amount of brown has evened out more naturally into his hair, looking more like natural highlights in comparison to a loss of pigmentation as it did earlier. These changes are especially obvious when you look at Johnny's hands. The hair there looks full and isn't patchy, and is the place where we can easily see the natural shine. Johnny has been eating regularly for at least six months. His hair has healed.

Posture

Now, this one is not used at all from what I can see online (or from when I bugged my medical friends) as an actual diagnosis aid. And I will admit the original study on this was conducted a very long time ago. However, several medical institutions do still seem to list diet as a thing that can effect your posture, so I'm going to run with it (I do not have a medical degree, I just know wayyy too many doctors).

The thing that effects your posture in terms of nutrition is your vitamin intake. Several vitamins, namely vitamin D and calcium, are essential for bone health. And your spine, surprise surprise, is made of bones. If you do not consume enough of these vitamins, your bones become weak and supporting body weight is difficult, leading to you likely having worse posture than normal.

And in Sing 1, which character has arguably the worst posture I have seen in my entire life? Johnny.

And again, this is a thing that changes drastically between the two movies. And is absolutely something I want to contribute to the clear change in the amount of food this kid is eating.

Sorry, this was the clearest photo I could easily find. But! Look at that difference! There is still a slight curve, which is in most people's posture, but it has greatly improved. His bones, muscles, and ligaments are getting the amount of nutrition they need to actually work properly and support his body.

Size/developmental Milestones

Now this is the most obvious one and the thing that kicked off this research deep dive. Johnny is obviously smaller than his father and uncles in Sing 1, who are the same subspecies as him. However, I will agree, that is not a fair comparison. Marcus, Stan, and Barry are mature adults and have finished growing. Johnny is still a juvenile-young adult in the gorilla lifespan (I place him as 17 in Sing 1).

However, that does mean Johnny should be closing the gap with them, or starting to, in terms of height and weight. But he clearly isn't. In fact, we see that he hasn't grown by Sing 2 either, when gorillas around his age are very clearly bigger than him.

Malnourishment stunts the growth of children significantly. In fact, that is typically one of the first signs doctors look for (think of how your height and weight are checked at every doctor visit). This effects millions of children worldwide every day and it is very very important to remedy this as quickly as possible.

Why? Because as a whole, stunted growth is largely irreversible. While the child can recover weight pretty easily, height isn't the same. Even if they do eventually get nutritional stability, it's unlikely that they will actually grow to the height they could have been before. And I feel like that is a prime example of what has happened to Johnny.

While in the year between the two movies Johnny has clearly had nutritional stability and has largely recovered in terms of health, he hasn't grown much, if at all. And Johnny is 17-18 years old (by my estimate, he could be as old as 19 in Sing 2 but that is the eldest I'm able to believe), he should still be growing. However, again, when we compare him to other gorillas his age, he is significantly behind in growth. And will likely remain that way his entire life.

So...

In summary, I believe that, despite the drastic measures taken by Marcus, Stan, and Barry to support him, Johnny did grown up malnourished, resulting in his growth being stunted. This malnourishment was replaced with nutritional stability in the year between the two movies, likely while he was in foster care and the debt of the garage was payed off by Nana or another capable party. Despite this dietary change between movies and Johnny's newfound health, his growth had been stunted for long enough that the damage was irreversible, leading to Johnny being so noticeably small compared to other gorillas who are around his age.

------Mentioned Analysis------ Gang's reasons for crime analysis:

[johns-prince]

John also had a lovely mix of masculine and feminine physical traits, though this wouldn't become obvious until 1968. When he was on the skinny side (which I loved, sue me) you could tell how beautifully delicate and dainty his bone structure was, way more than Paul's imo. He had those gorgeous long legs and graceful narrow hips that you most commonly find in fashion models. And I love that until at least 1975, he showcased his body beautifully, especially those legs.

Ironically I feel as if people didn't embrace John's femme beauty as well as they did with Paul. I don't know why. Most people seem to prefer him with the more masculine look of 1966. Which was great as well, he was gorgeous but I am a big fan of the 1968 to 1974 run. Btw, note to fanfic writers: please, show John's body some love, I know Paul is stunning but it's kind of exhausting reading 10 pages about how pretty he is and when it comes to my boy John he barely gets a paragraph 😂

Alright, I feel like I’m probably gonna rub a lot of people in this fandom the wrong way with what I’m going to say but this is my blog and you did send this to my inbox so here we go; At the end of the days these are my thoughts and feelings and I might not articulate them very well or I often ramble till I do!

I have my issues, and a complicated relationship with 1968-70s John Lennon. I love John, and thought him healthy and just right in his body type, basically up until 1968, and it’s spotty onward throughout the 70s. To me, John was naturally masculine looking, there’s not exactly an era or year that I could give you like you gave me [Specifically 1966? What about his teddy boy days? All of the early 60s? Hell even throughout the 70s, to me John still was masculine looking to me] He was a bit awkward in his teenhood, but all the boys were, and gradually grew into his adult body. Boy was built and sturdy, naturally thick and strong. 

So we’re probably split on this, because while you see the positives in 1968-1974/70s John, I only really see the negatives. You say skinny, I say malnourished and/or sickly. Depressed druggie who was pushing everyone and everything he loved away, and becoming pathetically dependent on an individual like Yoko [and the other vultures during that time who were terrible influences] 

George was skinny, John was not well and either starving himself or simply using drugs and alcohol as the basis for his diet. And diets.. don’t even get me started on that, the diets he was on, the unhealthy lifestyle that his wife only seemed to enable and help him get on. 

When I look at George, sometimes I get the need to feed him, like an old Mexican mother. When I look at John, who’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight for what it looked like for his body type, I don’t see delicate and dainty bone structure. I see a man who just, he’s not well, something’s wrong.

I’ll give it to you that 1974 New York photoshoot looked very nice, he had muscle again in his arms, though he was still relatively skinny, he didn’t look sickly, or depressed. So I can give you that period during the 70s, I will give you that [hey he was away from Yoko during this no fucking wonder he looked pretty good here] and that shoot was definitely a model moment, wasn’t it? [Not like he didn’t have many of those moments throughout his life] 

So there moments in the seventies where I think John doesn’t look half bad? Even relatively fine? Certainly, I’m devastatingly attracted to this man, dear God almighty have mercy on my soul yes I am. So I’ll agree that yeah, there were periods during the 70s in which John seemed to hold himself fairly well, I’d still climb it.

But I’m at least willing to admit that when John started his spiraling, in 1968, that he was Not Okay. And I personally believe he wasn’t all that okay throughout most of the 70s too... Maybe my issue isn’t with him being ‘skinny’ as it is I don’t like the underweight/severely underweight look on John, I just don’t. The incredibly unhealthy way he went about losing weight... Physically frail doesn’t fit him, and it only upsets me whenever I see photos of him that show how thin his legs became or how you can see his ribs, just how wasted away he’d look at times throughout the 70s, up until the last days of his life. 

You want a “skinny” or ''skinnier'' John Lennon? A healthy, ‘’skinny/skinnier’’ John Lennon for his body type, is ‘66 and ‘67 in my eyes, and even then it wasn’t a radical change in weight loss; John still looked like John.

And speaking of 1968-1969, or the White Album era; don’t think it isn’t lost on me when I see people making light of John’s unhygienic appearance during the making of the White Album. Boy was depressed and hurting for whatever reason, again, spiraling, and getting lost in Yoko and heroin as a means of escapism and someone to tell him ‘it’s alright it isn’t your fault it’s everyone else’s fault’. Of course he didn’t care much for his personal appearance or hygiene... I will say I appreciate your appreciation for him during that period, instead of getting the whole ‘stinky/smelly rat man.’ Maybe I’m too much of a ‘’stan’’ but I don’t find it very amusing or endearing. 

Don’t find me mocking or ‘’teasing’’ Paul’s depressed ass and his appearance during the breakup period/white album era-- but I suppose it’s because Paul actually tried and wasn’t on hard drugs, and had a good wife, so he was able to wear his depression and struggle with alcoholism a bit better, hmm? I don’t like Paul’s beard simply because I know it was the result of his lack of energy, depression, and falling into the drink-- he simply didn’t feel the need nor had the energy to care for himself, so that’s why he let it grow out. I don’t like it because of that, but that’s as much as you’ll get from me. 

Anyway... Maybe I just don’t see John as characteristically feminine/effeminate as Paul, although he has his moments of acting and wearing clothes that are campy and elegant or give off a softer appearance, specifically around 1968 and throughout the 70s. But otherwise, I can’t agree, John didn’t have the same mixture, or balance of masculine and feminine traits as Paul-- and if it’s only made obvious during the downfall turning point of The Beatles and John (1968), then I don’t think that really counts as a ‘’lovely’’ mix of masculine and feminine traits for the reasons I mentioned. So I’ve got to disagree. John's always come off as much more masculine, or naturally masculine, both physically and characteristically, to me.

You know maybe it’s just the blogs I interact with, but I feel like it’s the other way around. I know I can sometimes come off as aggressive but at the end of the day I don’t necessarily care what one person thinks or believes, since it’s all relatively subjective to our own ideas of things and biases, etc... I have my thoughts and beliefs and theories and whether people agree or disagree with them on tumblr dot com... Well, what’re you gonna do? Nothing, it’s not my problem. 

What I 100% agree on you with is about showing Johnny’s body a bit more love and attention to detail when it comes to writing about him in fanfiction! 

There’s his auburn red hair, a darker ginger, which was thick and fun to watch as it lit up like fire when sunlight hit him, and could easily go wavy and curl when left unkempt and natural. The splattered and scattered galaxies of light freckles up and down his arms, his shoulders, his back, even a couple on his face. His aquiline nose, a relatively square jawline and facial structure, thick, heavy eyebrows which really intensify expressions of rage and hurt, almond shaped eyes which are the color of honey-amber when the light hits them just right and outlined with thick, long lashes, blind as a bat without his glasses but can give a mean squint which either helps scare off trouble, or brings it right to him, especially when he’s got thin bitten lips that could pull off a devilishly cheeky smirk or a no-good, charming grin to showcase teeth with the upper front turned slightly in towards each other, gives that imperfection which truly just perfects it-- a face like that of a tragic hero in a Greek Romance, distinctive and handsome. How he just oozed filthy sex and genuine trouble, sweaty leather and smoky dancehalls and rock & roll that crawls up your spine like an orgasm. Hips that could roll like Elvis and strong legs, thick thighs which would make a lovely place to sit. Broad shoulders, strong arms that could easily manage to lift you up and manhandle you in any way he’d like. Big hands, almost like shovels-- beautiful hands, with fingernails usually bitten short and occasionally had black ink or charcoal under them from when he’d be working on art, and rough, callused fingertips from playing guitar till they split and bleed, add a lovely roughness to any gentle touching he might do. A naturally thick midsection, a normal, healthy layer of fat which covers the sinewy just beneath. Any hair is light, light and lightly colored, on his arms and legs and chest. Cute tush, nice butt, a nice boy butt, slightly muscular bubble butt. 

Fun facts; he had the largest feet out of all four Beatles. John isn’t circumcised. John and George share the same height. John has a surprisingly long tongue. John’s skin tone may be light, but for comparison, he’s much tanner compared to Paul-- he’s a bit more olive or wheat to his skin tone, and tanned very, very well. John’s cheeks could become easily red though. John liked the scent of citrus to wear--  he was also self conscious about the fact he could easily sweat and so usually wore such colognes or scents, didn’t want to smell bad. He started smelling of witch hazel when with Yoko. Despite his issue with sweating, he didn’t smell bad naturally. John was a true romantic, being an artist outside of being a musician/rock and roller-- he just didn’t like to show it, and growing up in his time, you couldn’t. John’s a swimmer, he loved to swim and loved the ocean.