OPINION: Does Mike Wazowski blink or wink?

If you had a Pixar-filled childhood, one question may have been haunting you since 2001: does Mike Wazowski from “Monsters Inc.” wink or blink? The adorable one-eyed green monster is the ultimate sidekick to Sully in the “Monsters Inc.” franchise, saving the monster world from being revealed to the human world.

By definition, to blink means “to open and close the eye, especially involuntarily.” Clearly, Wazowski blinks. One must blink to clear away small dust particles and hydrate the eyeball. Blinking also keeps the eyes safe from especially bright lights and other potentially harmful stimuli. Since Wazowski has one eye and blinking is an involuntary and necessary action, he must be using his only eye to do this action.

Winking means “to close and open one eye quickly, typically to indicate that something is a joke or a secret.” If you type the word “wink” into Google Images, every picture of winking has one eye open and the other shut. Even the winking emoji has one eye open while the other one is closed. Since Wazowski has one eye, there is no way he could wink and have someone take the wink the way it is usually perceived as a voluntary gesture.

While I am a firm believer that Mike Wazowski blinks, it is pretty amusing to see what he would look like with two eyes and how he would be able to wink. Despite your own thoughts on the winking or blinking controversy, I hope this makes you think about your childhood films a little more in depth.