Pinocchio is the hero of our time

HE LIES (but is found out). He quits school to become a celebrity. A high-spec automaton powered by artificial intelligence (AI), he isn’t quite human though it is hard to say why. Truly, Pinocchio is the hero of our time.

Imagine it: a leader denies going to a lockdown party, or that he lost an election when he did, or that he is about to invade Ukraine, and the fib is as plain as his lengthening nose. The fantasy of visible mendacity may help explain why Pinocchio is in vogue. Disney recently released a remake of its cartoon of 1940, which stars Tom Hanks alongside a CGI puppet and assorted cutesy animals (including the weirdly flirtatious goldfish from the original). Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated version had its premiere at the London Film Festival and is out on Netflix soon.

But it isn’t only the climate of impunity for lies that makes Pinocchio a fable for today. So does the eerie central conceit of the talking, walking puppet, lively yet not wholly alive, and the attendant issue of what makes a “real boy”. That question has never been more pressing, or more provocative.