The Hindu god who appears as a flying superhero in “Sanjay’s Super Team” is Hanuman.
The 2015 Pixar short follows Sanjay, a boy torn between his love of superhero television and his father’s Hindu prayers and traditions. During a daydream, Sanjay enters a temple where the statues of Hindu deities come to life to battle the demon king Ravana.
The divine team consists of Vishnu, Durga, and Hanuman. Hanuman is especially recognizable as a monkey-faced or animal-associated deity and is traditionally linked with extraordinary strength, devotion, and the ability to fly. Those qualities make him a natural fit for the short’s superhero imagery.
Sanjay’s Super Team was written and directed by Sanjay Patel, whose own childhood experiences inspired the story. It premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June 2015 and accompanied “The Good Dinosaur” later that year. Ganesha and Shiva are plausible distractors because they are major Hindu deities, but neither is the god featured in this film’s superhero trio.