The Boss Baby is now the subject of a philosophy symposium
Two Ph.D. students will hold the First Annual Boss Baby Symposium next January

Immanuel Kant. Jean Baudrillard. Boss Baby. Three names that burn bright in the cosmos of philosophical thought. Obviously, there is a “one of these things isn’t like the others” game going on. Conventional thinking tells us that the 2017 computer-generated animated comedy starring Alec Baldwin as an enterprising infant aiming for a corner office at Baby Corp might not be worth a second look. However, two Ph.D. students think otherwise. Jamie McCaffery of the University of Kentucky and Tore Levander of Fordham University happened upon The Boss Baby a few years ago, and its tiny baby hands, with that weird baby-grabbing strength, left an indelible mark. Now, they’re hosting a whole conference devoted to unpacking the mixed messages of a movie that posits that dog ownership is inherently threatening to the family unit.
As posted on the philosophy event site, PhilEvents, “The First Annual Boss Baby Symposium seeks to bring philosophical and interdisciplinary voices into dialogue about the enigmatic 2017 film The Boss Baby.” The listing continues:
This conference, the first of its kind, represents a rigorous attempt to respond to the question: “why are we so fascinated by this film?” We rise to the unlikely interpretive challenge posed by The Boss Baby with the academic rigor and precision expected of a conference, but welcome voices from all academic backgrounds.
This all leads to the question on everyone’s mind. Why The Boss Baby? It’s the hodgepodge of styles, themes, and messages that seemingly work against each other that’s made the film an obsession for McCaffery. “I really love interpretative nightmares and I think that Boss Baby is so in conflict with itself,” McCaffrey tells The A.V. Club. “Its messaging, the way that it tries to convey ideas, you almost can’t discern what the position of the movie is. And all the artistic decisions in the movie seem to be conflict with each other in such a way that as a viewer you are like ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel and therefore I must analyze.’”