The Mitchells vs. The Machines dropped on Netflix on April 30. The animated family movie is a great watch and has received favorable reviews and ratings from fans and critics alike.

The movie revolves around a road trip the Mitchells take to dropping their daughter off to her college, hoping to reconnect on the journey. Unfortunately, their plans are ruined as a product launch from Silicon valley giant Pal Labs goes horribly wrong, resulting in a worldwide robot uprising against the humans.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines features talented casts including Danny McBride, Abbi Jackson, Maya Rudolph, Beck Bennett, Eric Andre, and Conan O’Brien among others.

After the release of the movie, the cast have appeared in several interviews to talk about the movie and their characters. Here are some of the important things the voice actors said in the interviews.

Social Media And Family Life

One aspect that the movie touches upon heavily is the effect of social media on family life. Rick Mitchell, the father of the family, is averse to technology while Linda, the mother is obsessed with the idea of a picture perfect family that’s presented online so often.

Danny McBride, who voices Rick in the movie, spoke about technology and raising children to EW. He recounted the story of how the pandemic led to his son being unable to go to school or hang out with his friends to having a good time with his buddies playing Minecraft together.

McBride says watching it all unfold changed the way he viewed technology. “It’s not something we should keep them from. We should just understand how to make sure they’re using it in a way that’s adding to their lives and not distracting from it.”

Maya Rudolph, the voice actress for Linda, also shared her take on the subject. She said it was difficult to have a relationship with social media when you’re raising kids. She added it was the same for young people.

An LGBTQ+ Hero

Aside from painting the picture of a dysfunctional family navigating a turning point in their lives, The Mitchells vs. The Machines also introduces the first lesbian protagonist in a major studio animation film.

Director Michael Rianda spoke to Thrillist about it, saying he wanted to clarify that Katie, the movie’s protagonist, was gay.

We wanted to make it unambiguous. You have seen other movies where it’s wink-wink, nudge-nudge. It’s not a huge part of the movie, but it is in this movie. That’s who she is.

Rianda explained that the decision to have Katie be the character she is came about as they were striving to portray the Mitchells as a family as realistically as possible. Since queerness and different sexual orientations were normal in real life, they wanted to normalize it in animation. Especially since gay characters have had little screen time or presence in animated films.

Abbi Jacobson, the voice for Katie, also gave a nod to the idea that there wasn’t a voice like Katie in the animation space. The real life struggles and self-discovery her character goes through adds that x-factor to sell Katie is a unique but very real character.