tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/animation-2950/articles
Animation – The Conversation
2023-12-19T14:48:31Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220095
2023-12-19T14:48:31Z
2023-12-19T14:48:31Z
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a fast-paced slapstick extravaganza
<p>Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget combines the distinctive charm of the Great Escape-esque story that characterised the original Chicken Run (2000), with an action-packed plot, staged in a futuristic setting fit for the 21st century. </p>
<p>Picking the story up from where the original Chicken Run ended, this time the plot is inspired by Mission Impossible (1996) and James Bond – a caper film that sees the chicken protagonists breaking in, rather than breaking out.</p>
<p>Protagonists Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi) are now parents to the runaway teenage chick Molly (Bella Ramsey), who ends up in the clutches of her parents’ arch nemesis, Mrs Tweedy (Miranda Richardson). </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Tweedy has received a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_xcLLmM08">glamorous make-over</a>” for the sequel, while her chicken farm has been replaced with a futuristic chicken fun land – a compound that serves the meat-hungry food industry an assembly line of poultry. </p>
<p>Trying to save their daughter from becoming a chicken nugget, Rocky, Ginger and their fellow chickens venture to break into this high-tech bastion. With appealing new characters, emotional depth and distinctly British humour, this fast-paced slapstick extravaganza is both a technical and artistic achievement.</p>
<h2>Changes since Chicken Run</h2>
<p>Since being founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in 1972, Bristol-based studio Aardman Animation has been a global player in stop motion animation. From its Oscar-winning films Creature Comforts (1990), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) to its first ever feature film, Chicken Run, Aardman’s story is one of unrivalled success. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wrong-trousers-why-the-wallace-and-gromit-animation-is-still-a-family-favourite-30-years-later-219283">The Wrong Trousers: why the Wallace and Gromit animation is still a family favourite 30 years later</a>
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<p>The first Chicken Run set new standards, not only breaking records for audience reach, and global box-office profit, but also for its technical prowess. <a href="https://vimeo.com/263325572">During production</a>, 30 sets were used with 18 animators. This sequel is no less ambitious in its technical scope.</p>
<p>The original Chicken Run was shot with mounted film cameras, which meant that the Aardman team did not know the final look before the development process had completed. Since 2005, stop-motion features have <a href="https://www.dragonframe.com/introduction-stop-motion-animation/">predominantly adopted digital cameras</a>.</p>
<p>In this sense, Chicken Run was a historic milestone, as there is no evidence of any cleanup work in post-production. This means practically everything that the audience sees happened right in front of the camera.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AEOfT7hUcDs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the original Chicken Run (2000).</span></figcaption>
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<p>Today, many stop motion animation productions, both big and small, are using visual effects to tidy up mistakes, make the scope and breadth of sets larger and clean up puppet rigs. This became a huge benefit to the new production in terms of keeping the consistency and coherence of the physical scale difference between chickens and human. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://youtu.be/nD_xcLLmM08?si=tBo82GMAo5RBD30o">Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget</a>, a team of 30 animators and 45 units – led by lead animator Will Becher and director Sam Fell – paid particular attention to facial expressions, eye movement and newly adapted mouth features to augment the original character designs.</p>
<p>Due to the many diverse measures of unit within the film, the set designers, supervised by art director Matt Perry, focused on scaling, proportions and dimensions. These presented the team with <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81743939">unprecedented technical challenges</a> (architectural, human, and chicken) which had a direct impact on lighting and compositions.</p>
<h2>Challenges for the animators</h2>
<p>Whereas the original Chicken Run was set on a farm, Dawn of the Nugget takes place in a quintessentially human environment – the James Bond-inspired Fun-Land compound. </p>
<p>Part of this fortress-come-factory consists of a playground for chickens, with its own distinctive psychedelic colour palette. This environment is created at chicken-scale, while the control station and factory environment remain human-scaled. Consolidating and integrating these different dimensions into a coherent and consistent aesthetic, with sophisticated lighting and art direction, involved advanced hand-animation skills, as well as a degree of post-production to ensure lighting consistency. </p>
<p>Visual effects production for Dawn of the Nugget had to strike a balance between cleaning up and maintaining a characteristic hand-crafted, tactile style. Kirstie Deane, VFX producer, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81743939">explains</a> in the behind the scenes film that their team “cleaned-up elements” that are a bit distracting, but for the most part, all of those thumb prints and the hand-touched nature of the stop-frame remained untouched. </p>
<p>The fine balance between the physical and human nature of Aardman animation, and the need for rudimentary post-production to further film consistency and continuity, contributes to Dawn of the Nugget’s unique charm.</p>
<p>With its thinly veiled capitalist critique, the film manages to successfully lift the storyline into the 21st century, while maintaining a fluid, organic, yet tactile feel. Animated on every second frame, the film presents audiences with a dynamic visual rollercoaster of hand-animation, that never feels over-produced, but manages to instil its dialogue, characters and actions with an endearing comedy.</p>
<p>While the original Chicken Run was both critically acclaimed for its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509200601091433">lead female role</a>, it was also criticised for its stereotyped depiction of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220819214023/https://filmschoolrejects.com/revolutionary-spirit-of-chicken-run">gendered activities</a>, such as knitting and sewing.</p>
<p>The sequel has learned from the past. It centres around another strong-willed female protagonist – teenage chick Molly – and her strong relationship with the gender-fluid Frizzel reaches beyond gender stereotypes.</p>
<p>Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a visually captivating firework of handcraft and skill in stop motion. It’s a labour of love, that points as much to the past as to the future of the animation industry. The film builds on the core strengths of Aardman Animations. It features appealing character design, world-leading stop motion clay animation and a masterclass in British wit and humour.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Gingrich receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council for the research project p_ART_icipate led by the University of Greenwich</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Min Young Oh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Dawn of the Nugget has appealing new characters, emotional depth and distinctly British humour.
Oliver Gingrich, Programme Lead BA (Hons) Animation, University of Greenwich
Min Young Oh, Lecturer in Animation, University of Greenwich
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217714
2023-12-18T16:17:24Z
2023-12-18T16:17:24Z
Studio Ghibli’s layering of Japanese and western storytelling is key to their success
<p>Studio Ghibli films are often put into the rather vague category of “Japanese animation”. Many viewers expect the studio’s films to be rooted in the culture and stories of it’s home nation, Japan. This makes its foray into adapting western stories all the more intriguing. </p>
<p>Studio Ghibli has been critically lauded since 1985, with the release of its debut feature Laputa: Castle in the Sky. The studio later gained international reverence following the releases of Princess Mononoke (1997) and, more significantly, Spirited Away (2001), which won the Academy Award for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxU6xN8o9r8">best animated feature</a>.</p>
<p>Both the studio’s founders have long-standing interests in adapting western stories. Hayao Miyazaki was member of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5cg9q3">children’s literature club</a> at Gakushūin University, which often discussed English works. And Isao Takahata directed one of the first <a href="https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/World_Masterpiece_Theater">World Masterpiece Theater</a> series of European-inspired anime TV shows in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Their early films with Studio Ghibli were only aesthetically inspired by western art and architecture. In terms of story, they were typically based on Japanese tales or manga. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1985), for example, is set in a European metropolis but was originally a novel by Japanese author Eiko Kadono.</p>
<h2>Western inspiration</h2>
<p>This changed with the release of Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), directed by Miyazaki. It was the first of Studio Ghibli’s adaptations to take its plot directly from a European story – British author Diana Wynne Jones’ novel of the same name from 1986. </p>
<p>The work of Jones (who later revealed herself to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/sep/17/1">an admirer of Miyazaki</a>) shares many themes with Studio Ghibli films. This includes uniquely fantastical environments and situations, unexpected inversions of genre norms and determined female protagonists who possess as much agency, if not more, than any of the men surrounding them. </p>
<p>However, this doesn’t mean that her original story was left untouched. Miyazaki’s interpretation inserts a war plot that wasn’t present in the source novel’s story of body swapping and sisterhood, intended as a <a href="https://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/miyazakis-quiet-protest-15318.html">protest against the Iraq war</a>. </p>
<p>This example reveals an interesting element of Ghibli’s adaptations – that the source material serves as an artistic jumping off point for the directors to use in their own creative processes.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iwROgK94zcM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Howl’s Moving Castle was adapted from a western novel.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Despite this lack of narrative fidelity – or maybe because of it – Howl’s Moving Castle is now one of the studio’s most <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/howls-moving-castle-why-i-still-think-its-the-best-studio-ghibli-movie-to-date">beloved films</a>. </p>
<p>Tales from Earthsea (2006), in contrast, is one of the studio’s <a href="https://photogenie.be/studio-ghiblis-tales-from-earthsea-a-compromised-vision/">less successful works</a>. The film was inspired by the Earthsea Cycle series of novels by American author, Ursula K. Le Guin. When asked by the film’s director what she thought about the film, Le Guin <a href="https://www.ursulakleguin.com/adaptation-tales-of-earthsea">coolly replied</a>: “It is not my book. It is your movie.”</p>
<p>This is perhaps due to the filmmaker behind Earthsea being Goro Miyazaki, the inexperienced son of Hayao Miyazaki who was being positioned as a potential heir to the Ghibli throne. His lack of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-16844-4_8">animation knowledge</a> when compared to his peers may have contributed to the slow plot and simplistic morality that plague the film – though there’s still much to appreciate in its artistry. </p>
<p>For the next Ghibli release, Hayao Miyazaki was once again brought on to create a western-inspired animation. Ponyo (2008) is a version of The Little Mermaid so radically different that it’s almost unrecognisable from its source material. </p>
<p>Instead of a beautiful teenager longing for romance on land, the film follows a brilliantly wild toddler and how her free spirit carries her beyond the sea, falling for fellow tot Sōsuke in the process. In feminist terms, the text is totally reframed, transformed from patriarchal morality tale to a story that prioritises the joys of love and childhood, beyond gender roles.</p>
<h2>International success</h2>
<p>Ghibli has continued down the path of creating adaptations of western stories. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi – groomed to be <a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/studio-ghibli-an-industrial-history">Miyazaki’s successor</a> – has produced several. These include Arrietty (2010) and When Marnie Was There (2014), both based on classic British children’s novels from the mid-20th century. </p>
<p>As well as giving a recognisable foundation for western audience members, these stories allow for beautiful explorations of the Japanese countryside aesthetically reminiscent of rural England and contain the female-focused approach that Ghibli has become known for.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Boy and the Heron is the latest film from Studio Ghibli, released this month.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Ghibli animations like these have become not only a significant element of the studio’s branding, but of its enormous international success. Films like Spirited Away (2001) and Princess Mononoke (1997) that lean more into Japanese aesthetics, histories and stories are arguably more widely known, but they make up a surprisingly small portion of the studio’s filmography. </p>
<p>These “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02690055.2020.1721124?casa_token=ywVMxvZsdlEAAAAA:6c1kJ7mET6aSvidRWs-MuIUF1of0qwZ1cC7p0SVOUK5YHYcYoLj5gMNdZKvhdQUFsgmpNUcw4I8L-w">European palimpsests</a>” (as anime studies scholar Rayna Denison aptly deems them) have become Ghibli’s bread and butter in the latter years of the studio’s life. Beyond the obvious level of quality and artistic merit in their films, this may go some way to explain Ghibli’s enduring global popularity. The studio layers Japanese and western storytelling and aesthetics into a complex web that can be near universally enjoyed.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoe Crombie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
These stories allow for beautiful explorations of the British countryside, and the female-focused approach that Ghibli have become known for.
Zoe Crombie, PhD Candidate, Film Studies, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219283
2023-12-14T10:44:38Z
2023-12-14T10:44:38Z
The Wrong Trousers: why the Wallace and Gromit animation is still a family favourite 30 years later
<p>It has been 30 years since “It’s the wrong trousers Gromit! And they’ve gone wrong!” blared out for the first time in the Aardman Animations short film, The Wrong Trousers (1993). </p>
<p>Wallace and Gromit’s first outing in A Grand Day Out (1989) put Aardman firmly on the map for creating original, compelling and engaging animation productions. And almost four years later, The Wrong Trousers introduced viewers to the endeavours of Feathers McGraw, a silent criminal mastermind penguin. This animated short creates a particular joy and comfort in the viewer through the discipline of stop-motion animation.</p>
<p>For many fans, The Wrong Trousers is the ultimate comfort movie. Here are the elements of stop-motion animation that bring about this comforting feeling when watching this cherished animated classic.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EGSyw2dHhrc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The breakfast scene from The Wrong Trousers is a firm fan favourite.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The direction</h2>
<p>A large part of The Wrong Trousers familiarity and comfort comes from its direction and how shots are framed. The inspiration that director Nick Park drew from British weekly comics such as The Beano and The Dandy can be seen in the style of The Wrong Trousers.</p>
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<img alt="Nick Park" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nick Park was the director and writer of The Wrong Trousers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nick_Park,_BBC_Radio_2_Folk_Awards_2007.jpg">Bryan Ledgard/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Many shots are kept low to the ground, evoking scenes from The Bash Street Kids in The Beano, or The Dandy’s Banana Man. When Wallace is absconded by the Techno Trousers, a pair of robot trousers with suction abilities, the streets in these shots bend and curve away from the camera in dramatic effect, replicating framing that mirrors these comics.</p>
<p>Early in the film, Gromit uses the Techno Trousers to paint a ceiling by standing on it. This demonstrates the trousers’ ability to walk up walls via air suction. This clever directorial decision makes the role of the trousers in the diamond heist easy to understand, as well as the faults with the trousers during the heist, as they fail to grip to ceiling tiles in the museum.</p>
<p>Modelling clay – the material used to create most of the characters such as Gromit and Feathers McGraw – is a tactile and familiar material that many viewers grew up playing with. Despite best efforts by the animator, the clay will usually carry a thumbprint or a scratch mark from the hand of the animator as the puppets are manipulated, helping us to “feel” that tactile material on screen.</p>
<p>Other familiar materials or items are used throughout the film to evoke a similar feeling, such as transparent plastic wrap to simulate tea coming out of Gromit’s teapot and the brush strokes still visible on Wallace’s teacup. </p>
<p>These details alert us to the fact that what we are seeing is small and handmade – their imperfections are left intact as a subliminal reminder that they are real in their visual aesthetic, yet unreal in how they move.</p>
<h2>The physics</h2>
<p>In the real world we can identify a limping walk compared to a normal walk without necessarily being able to explain the difference in movement. Helping the audience to believe what they are seeing in animation relies on how things move.</p>
<p>With animation, all movement is created by the animator who uses many principles or rules of movement that slightly exaggerate real world physics. Exaggerated too much, the movement can stop the audience from engaging with what they are being shown.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h0Tjq4FiDXo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The museum scene from The Wrong Trousers.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Wallace’s entry into the museum while wearing the trousers (which are being controlled by Feathers McGraw) is a good example. His movements are exaggerated just enough to be understandable. Wallace walks along the outside of a vent on the roof of the museum, rotating a full 180 degrees when he reaches the end, letting him walk down the inside of the vent.</p>
<p>Later, we see Wallace walking on the inside of a window with his weight rotating the window, bringing him from the inside to the outside. Replicated in the real world, it is doubtful either of these manoeuvres would work, however the rules of physics are bent just enough through the animation to make us feel that what we are seeing might actually work.</p>
<p>The finale train chase sequence pushes the limits of the use of materials, direction and physics to dizzying heights, guaranteeing to silence a room as it plays. The house of Wallace and Gromit takes on the appearance of being unfeasibly large, as the duo chase Feathers McGraw, who has hopped aboard Wallace’s model train set. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jrmZIgVoQw4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The train chase scene from The Wrong Trousers.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Running out of track, Gromit starts laying track ahead of his train to continue the chase. We see and know that there isn’t enough track in the box he grabs, but we want him to catch Feathers – physics be damned! Rhythm and pacing tighten to heighten the anticipation of whether Feathers will be successfully captured, which of course he is.</p>
<p>Stop-motion animation can bend the reality of physics, while utilising familiar materials and direction styles. The Wrong Trousers acknowledges these characteristics and uses them to great effect. The audience is encouraged to suspend belief while having the comfort and subconscious familiarity of what they are seeing.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The BA Animation course at Sheffield Hallam University which I, Melvyn F Ternan am employed as a Senior Lecturer on, is in Partnership with Aardman Animations through their Aardman Academy partnership scheme.
I also manage the BA Animation course side of the "Nick Park, Aardman Award".</span></em></p>
The Wrong Trousers introduced viewers to the endeavours of Feathers McGraw, a silent criminal mastermind penguin.
Melvyn F Ternan, Senior lecturer in animation and digital media production, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218615
2023-11-30T15:50:10Z
2023-11-30T15:50:10Z
How Frozen became the catalyst for Disney’s shift from male-centric tales
<p>The landscape of animated musical films has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. Male storylines, once the hallmark of the genre, have taken a back seat, thanks to the revolutionary success of a film that centres around the relationship between two sisters: Disney’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-frozen-took-over-the-world">Frozen</a>. Released in 2013, it marks an important turning point in the history of animated musicals. </p>
<p>Frozen not only provided a song every five-year-old can sing, it was also the catalyst for the shift away from Disney tales that centred around the experience of a young male protagonist.</p>
<p>It set the stage for the rise of empowering culturally rich narratives in the decade that followed. Subsequent hits included the strongly female-centric <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/04/moana-review-disney">Moana</a> (2016), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/15/encanto-review-disney-lin-manuel-miranda-blandly-frictionless-fairy-tale">Encanto</a> (2021), and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/13/turning-red-review-pixar-fizzing-journey-through-female-adolescence">Turning Red</a> (2022), marking a new era in animated storytelling celebrating different kinds of voices and perspectives.</p>
<h2>Frozen: sisterly bonds and resilience</h2>
<p>Breaking away from the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/fairy-tales-children-stop-reading-parents-body-image-gender-roles-women-girls-sexism-a8067641.html">conventional princess-rescued-by-prince formula</a>, the film instead thrusts two sisters, Elsa and Anna, into the limelight.</p>
<p>Elsa, grappling with her magical ice powers, becomes a symbol of empowerment, challenging the age-old notion that a princess’s narrative must revolve around romance. This departure from tradition allows for a nuanced exploration of themes including self-discovery, sisterhood and more complex nuanced female characters.</p>
<p>Instead of focusing on romantic entanglements, the film prioritises the bond between the two sisters. Elsa’s struggle with her inner demons and Anna’s unwavering support forges a narrative centred on familial love and resilience. This thematic shift lays the foundation for future films, exploring the richness of relationships beyond romantic love.</p>
<p>The success of Frozen extends beyond the box office, leaving a permanent mark on popular culture. The film’s anthem, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk">Let it Go</a>, became a global phenomenon, symbolising empowerment and self-acceptance with an outstanding performance by self-proclaimed feminist <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/krystal-clear/frozens-idina-menzel-feminist-too-msna488146">Idina Menzel</a>.</p>
<p>Elsa’s journey resonated with international audiences, fostering a social evolution that demanded more diverse and inclusive narratives. Filmmakers took note, acknowledging the enthusiasm for stories that resisted gender norms while celebrating the strength of female characters.</p>
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<h2>Moana: strength and cultural authenticity</h2>
<p>Following in the snowshoes of Frozen, Disney’s Moana (2016) continues to push the boundaries of animated storytelling. The film’s eponymous protagonist embarks on a daring oceanic adventure, challenging the notion that only male characters can be the heroes of epic quests.</p>
<p>Moana’s journey is not defined by a romantic interest but by courage, leadership, and connection to her Polynesian heritage. The film celebrates cultural diversity, introducing audiences to a world beyond traditional Disney settings. Moana goes a step further, embracing cultural authenticity in its storyline. The film draws inspiration from Polynesian mythology featuring an inclusive cast that reflects the <a href="https://variety.com/2016/film/news/moana-box-office-feminist-disney-1201927383/">diversity of the Pacific Islands</a>.</p>
<p>By weaving cultural elements seamlessly into the narrative, Moana not only entertains but educates audiences about traditions and values, adopting a greater appreciation for diverse perspectives. The soundtrack, featuring songs by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gYhu7vMFk4">Lin-Manuel Miranda</a>, seamlessly blends a Pacific ambience with a classic Disney sensibility. This fusion enriches the narrative even further than the enchanting but Disney-safe melodies of Frozen.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LKFuXETZUsI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Encanto: familial love and struggles</h2>
<p>The success of Frozen and Moana set the stage for Disney’s Encanto (2021), another milestone. It continues the trend of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/27/opinions/disney-encanto-female-representation-hope/index.html">empowering female characters</a>, placing the spotlight on Mirabel, a young Colombian girl with no magical powers in a family full of gifted individuals.</p>
<p>The film breaks from a convention of singular heroines, embracing a narrative that stresses the collective strength of family. Encanto not only showcases the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIj6RE5mC8A">diversity of Latin American cultures</a> through its story, music and lyrics, it celebrates different strengths and struggles within a community.</p>
<p>By portraying a range of characters with distinct personalities and challenges, the film offers a more inclusive representation of life experiences. This departure from one-dimensional characterisations marks a retreat from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/">male-dominated stories of the past</a>, reflecting a commitment to multidimensional storytelling.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CaimKeDcudo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Turning Red: embracing diversity and reality</h2>
<p>This 2022 Disney animation follows Mei Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl, who transforms into a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited (which is practically always). Mei’s story is a coming-of-age tale about dealing with puberty, family expectations and finding one’s own voice. It is innovative in several ways.</p>
<p>First, it is the first Disney Pixar film directed solely by a woman, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7626019/">Domee Shi</a>. Second, it is one of the few animated films that centres on an Asian-American protagonist. And third, it frankly and honestly explores the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/10/entertainment/turning-red-puberty-periods-wellness-cec/index.html">challenges of puberty, particularly for girls</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XdKzUbAiswE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Turning Red challenges traditional gender roles through its portrayal of Mei’s relationship with her protective, overbearing and controlling mother, Ming. Mei’s transformation into a red panda symbolises her growing independence and a desire to break free from her mother’s expectations.</p>
<p>Mei’s best friends Miriam, Priya and Abby are strong independent girls who support each other through thick and thin. They also help Mei to embrace her red panda side. This refreshing animation challenges traditional gender roles and celebrates female bonds and friendship.</p>
<h2>Seismic shift</h2>
<p>The evolution of Disney’s animated musicals represents a seismic shift in the industry. These films have broken away from men’s stories, creating space for refreshing and culturally rich tales that resonate with audiences of all ages. The legacy of these trailblazing productions is testament to the power of inclusive storytelling, proving that there is immense value in narratives that look beyond traditional norms and celebrate the diversity of the human experience.</p>
<p>Exciting developments are on the horizon for Disney enthusiasts, with Frozen 3 currently in production, and the live-action adaptation of Moana under way. </p>
<p>Now ten years old, Frozen has helped give rise to a new era in animated musicals, one that embraces the richness of storytelling beyond the confines of gender stereotypes. We can all look forward to more enchanting destinations as Disney continues to weave a magical narrative around the themes of difference, empowerment and cultural authenticity.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Langston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The success of Frozen extends beyond the box office, leaving a permanent mark on popular culture.
Stephen Langston, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Performance, University of the West of Scotland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217593
2023-11-16T13:26:24Z
2023-11-16T13:26:24Z
Pluto: Netflix’s anime masterpiece explores how robots ‘feel’ when humans exploit them
<p>There have been many TV shows and films inspired by the dual fear and excitement surrounding advances in artificial intelligence (AI). But not many exhibit such masterful craft and profound humanity as the new Netflix anime miniseries, Pluto. </p>
<p>Pluto is adapted from <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Pluto-Urasawa-x-Tezuka-Vol-1/Naoki-Urasawa/Pluto-Urasawa-x-Tezuka/9781421519180">a manga series of the same title</a> (2003-2009), created by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki. The manga version – <a href="https://screenrant.com/netflix-best-anime-pluto/">considered a comic masterpiece</a> for its beautiful art and sophisticated storyline – incorporated fundamental elements from Osamu Tezuka’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/mech.8.2013.0313">celebrated manga series</a> <a href="https://tezukaosamu.net/en/manga/291.html">Astro Boy</a> (1952-1968), including the beloved android adolescent who was the titular character. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ez8lm9I26Y?wmode=transparent&start=12" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Pluto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pluto is set in a futuristic world in which humans and robots coexist, albeit within a hierarchy in favour of humans. Robots excel in various jobs ranging from nannies and butlers to architects and detectives, but they are treated as second-class citizens. </p>
<p>Although robots gradually gain their own rights codified into law, they are still exploited by humans, who downplay their worth and emotional intelligence. As much as humans depend on AI, they also feel threatened by it.</p>
<h2>An AI murder mystery</h2>
<p>Pluto, which has both Japanese and English audio versions, follows German robot detective Gesicht (Shinshū Fuji/Jason Vande Brake) as he traces the mysterious killings of robots and humans. The world’s seven most advanced robots (including Gesicht himself) and robot-friendly humans (including his creator) are the targets of this assassination scheme. </p>
<p>What’s most perplexing is that the murders appear untraceable. This suggests that the killer might be a very advanced robot, challenging the belief that robots can’t ever kill humans due to their programmed constraints. </p>
<p>This enigmatic case echoes the cautionary message found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – beware of human beings’ ambitious dreams and creations. While the story begins as a murder mystery, it evolves into a thoughtful drama about the conflicted relationships between humans and androids.</p>
<p>While Pluto draws on many familiar sci-fi concepts, it distinguishes itself through its meticulous character development and the depth of its micro-stories. Every character is complex, and the audience is able to get to know them and become invested in their fates. The anime’s unhurried pace also allows viewers ample time to contemplate its philosophical questions about consciousness evolution and the powerful impacts of emotions.</p>
<p>Despite all its brilliance, however, the series is not without flaws. It has a dated representation of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41305-017-0065-8">gender roles</a>, with no female characters – whether human or robot – playing an important part. None of them break free from the stereotypical role of nurturing, stay-behind support for their exceptionally capable and powerful male partners. </p>
<h2>Animation of the year</h2>
<p>Pluto maintains a melancholic tone throughout – but despite this overarching dark ambience, it is at times romantic and moving. It exalts love, friendship and compassion without falling into sentimentality, evoking an emotional resonance reminiscent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-blade-runner-2049-prepares-us-to-welcome-robots-for-real-85050">Blade Runner</a> (1982). </p>
<p>The series emphasises that life, or the process of living, imparts character and humanity, transcending biological organs and blood. Androids may initially be devoid of complex emotions, but they develop sentience through everyday experiences and interactions with fellow robots and humans. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blade-runner-2049-how-philip-k-dicks-classic-novel-has-stood-the-test-of-time-74940">Blade Runner 2049: how Philip K Dick's classic novel has stood the test of time</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Robots can even learn to appreciate music, as manifested by the charismatic North No.2 (Koichi Yamadera/Patrick Seitz), who was designed for intense combat but grows weary of warfare. The narrative underscores the simultaneous beauty and danger of emotions – particularly the destructive force of wrath. </p>
<p>With great technological advancements and comfort, this futuristic world is still torn by war. It poses the question: “Will war ever end?” – reminding us of the conflicts and tragedies happening in the real world. The anime suggests that an end to war is unlikely as long as hatred persists.</p>
<p>For me, with its beautiful art and riveting narrative, Pluto stands out as one of the best Netflix productions of all time. It’s certainly the best animated work of the year. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thi Gammon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Pluto follows German robot detective Gesicht as he traces the mysterious killings of robots and humans.
Thi Gammon, Research Associate in Culture, Media and Creative Industries Education, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215455
2023-10-24T19:17:33Z
2023-10-24T19:17:33Z
Scarygirl: the richly built world of this new Aussie film tells a story of human-nature connection
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553638/original/file-20231013-15-vm411r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2048%2C858&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arkie was created by illustrator Nathan Jurevicius 21 years ago. She has evolved into <a href="https://g.co/kgs/2KyCTC">graphic novels</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarygirl">console</a> and <a href="https://darkslope.com/productions/scary-girl/">virtual reality</a> games, collectable vinyl toys – and now an animated feature film.</p>
<p>Arkie (Jillian Nguyen) lives on a vibrant peninsula with her dad Blister (Rob Collins).</p>
<p>Blister has the ability to regenerate life, and uses this gift to tend to the organic life of the peninsula. When he is captured by Chihoohoo (Tim Minchin) and taken to the dazzling city of lights ruled by the notorious Dr Maybee (Sam Neill), Arkie is forced to leave the safety of the peninsula to save her father.</p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54281171">David Attenborough said</a> “saving our planet is now a communications challenge”. </p>
<p>Watching Scarygirl, I was struck by the way rich visual metaphors and ecological backdrop in animated films can be part of this communication solution.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l3Zbh_GPNCM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>An expanding and visual scary-verse</h2>
<p>With growing streaming demand for original content, Australia has been going through an <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2023/03-22-screen-industry-skills-programs">animation and VFX industry boom</a>. Scarygirl marks a 3D animated feature film release that incorporates Australian accents, colloquialisms and sensibilities for a global audience.</p>
<p>Animation and visual ways of expressing ideas about the world have <a href="https://g.co/kgs/aS6AXD">long been used to share messages</a> with a new generation.</p>
<p>Filled with fantastical world-building, character and creature design, the Scarygirl universe mimics our concern for the natural world and the need for human-nature connection.</p>
<p>With some darker themes in the story around biodiversity loss, the film introduces a healthy level of cynicism concerning capitalism, technological innovation and progress. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Arkie, a rabbit and an egg." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We follow Arkie’s journey as she discovers the world is not exactly as it seems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A feast for the eyes, Scarygirl emulates a toy aesthetic and feels like stop-motion. A visually communicated story has an immense power and influence over the way society is formed. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1387903">research</a> on how illustration practice works within society, Jurevicius told me illustration is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>like reinventing folk tales and fairy tales of cultures that aren’t necessarily real, or they are real, but they are a reimagining of tales that perpetuate the idea of storytelling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Personal experience is fundamental device in the way Jurevicius’ illustration, and now animation, shares metaphors and mythologies of the natural world and family life through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism">anthropomorphism</a> of the human condition.</p>
<p>In Scarygirl we follow Arkie’s journey as she discovers the world is not exactly as it seems. Jurevicius created Scarygirl out of “a deep love for a new daughter”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the biggest themes for me in this ever-expanding folktale is what it means to be part of a family in all its shapes and forms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jurevicius draws on Baltic heritage and traditions of storytelling in his work: we must keep telling stories of our own lives to shape history. Through animation, he articulates his particular experience of the world, capturing a version of reality.</p>
<p>As Arkie starts to explore beyond her peninsula, she comes to realise family can be built from the friends and allies you meet on your journey.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ads-to-oscar-winners-a-century-of-australian-animation-43697">From ads to Oscar winners: a century of Australian animation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Storytelling is a powerful tool</h2>
<p>At the heart of Scarygirl is the complex relationship between a father and daughter: how we resonate with and find a way through to connect with our parents’ views of us, find responsibility within ourselves, and develop confidence in our own identity and choices.</p>
<p>The film has an authenticity and earnestness built into the plight of Arkie as she seeks to make the best choices with the information provided.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A scary character." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animation has the ability to circumvent time, space and gravity and physical decay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Animation has the ability to circumvent time, space and gravity and physical decay or bodily change. Characters in animation become the masked version of ourselves. In Scarygirl, we explore the human experience through the eyes of an octopus, rabbit and hybrid Chihuahua. </p>
<p>Scarygirl is built within a deep visual universe which relies on physics, a toy-like texture and a strong use of light and colour to communicate the mood.</p>
<p>Animators have to make the fantastical world feel as real as possible so Arkie moves like a human. As we move through the acts of the story, colour indicates place and the stages of the story, like the darkness when she meets the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey">threshold guardian</a> Tweedweller (Deborah Mailman) and the tree of knowledge.</p>
<p>The magic of animation means creators can play with time and space and the narrative structure. There is a wonderful sequence in the middle of the film that utilises a 2D style to shift back in time when Arkie was too young to remember. </p>
<p>Illustration, animation and visual storytelling sit across all parts of our lives. Stories like this one can help us realise our connection to place, culture, the environment around us and the stewardship and responsibility we have to the natural world. </p>
<p><em>Scarygirl is in Australian cinemas from Thursday.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/21st-century-character-designs-reflect-our-concerns-as-always-40382">21st-century character designs reflect our concerns, as always</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Chand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Arkie was created by illustrator Nathan Jurevicius 21 years ago. She has evolved into graphic novels, games, toys – and now an animated feature.
Ari Chand, Lecturer in Illustration and Animation, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213839
2023-09-21T15:09:16Z
2023-09-21T15:09:16Z
The Canterville Ghost: Oscar Wilde’s ghost story gets new life in this funny and stylish animated adaptation
<p>Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost feels quite ghostly itself, doomed to walk the earth through its many adaptations. There have been at least 14 television versions, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15358618/">the most recent in 2021</a>, and it has not been long since cinemagoers encountered director Yann Samuell’s French-Belgian version, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4463248/"><em>Le Fantôme de Canterville</em></a> (2016). </p>
<p>Yet Oscar Wilde’s comic ghost story of 1887 was something of a late developer in this respect. While there was a comic opera in 1905 (<em>Das Gespenst von Matschatsch</em>) and a Spanish play in 1929 (<em>El Fantasma de Canterville</em>), no film version appeared until MGM’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036696/">loosely-adapted 1944 production</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MiAP7CorKIo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for The Canterville Ghost.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film took the rather unlikely path of turning Wilde’s lighthearted Victorian fantasy into a wartime tale of a cowardly soldier (Robert Young) finding his courage, aided by the ghost (Charles Laughton) and child star Margaret O’Brien.</p>
<p>Perhaps adaptations were slow because Wilde’s story seemed very much of its time. The Canterville Ghost owes something to the America v Britain comedy of Tom Taylor’s play, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Our-American-Cousin">Our American Cousin</a> (1858) that sees a rich American try to mix with British aristocrats. </p>
<p>Its main inspiration, though, was the many Victorian magazine stories in which the new inhabitants of old houses encounter troubled spirits. Peace is restored when some past wrong has been righted, often with the discovery of the ghost’s earthly remains.</p>
<p>Wilde imagined a somewhat different scenario. An American family, the Otises, buy Canterville Chase. The house is haunted by a 17th-century spectre, Sir Simon de Canterville. Having murdered his wife, and been killed in turn by her family, his lot is to haunt the corridors of the manor house until a prophecy is fulfilled. </p>
<p>But, in fact, it is the modern Americans who bedevil Sir Simon. They laugh off his horror routines, treat the house’s mysterious bloodstains with Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and offer him Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator to quieten the clanking of his chains. </p>
<p>The boisterous young Otis twins make his life a misery until their kindhearted sister Virginia frees the ghost from the spell that binds him with her tears and prayers. The 1880s was an era of real “dollar princesses” marrying English aristocrats and the story closes with Virginia receiving “the coronet, which is the reward of all good little American girls” when some years later she weds the young Duke of Cheshire.</p>
<h2>Updating Wilde’s world</h2>
<p>The 2023 Canterville Ghost film, directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6501716/">Kim Burdon</a>, is a clever and stylish animation. The distinguished cast includes Stephen Fry as Sir Simon, supported by Hugh Laurie, Emily Carey, Imelda Staunton, Toby Jones, Miranda Hart and Meera Syal.</p>
<p>The 1880s setting is changed to 1900 and the Otises arrive in a state of the art motorcar. Hiram Otis (David Harewood) wastes no time in having Canterville electrified, much to Sir Simon’s chagrin.</p>
<p>A number of characters are added to the story – most significantly the genial gardener, who is also the grim reaper (Laurie) and the vicar’s wife, Algernean Van Finchley (Hart), who is an amateur ghost hunter.</p>
<p>Sir Simon is made a more sympathetic figure. In this version, the story that he was a cruel aristocrat who killed his wife Eleanor is untrue and he was in fact devoted both to her and to the stage. The flashbacks to his past are beautifully rendered and appear to be inspired by <a href="https://craftsmanship.net/the-rise-and-fall-of-toy-theatre/">Victorian toy theatres</a>. </p>
<p>The film revolves around two love stories: that of Sir Simon and his beloved Eleanor, separated for 300 years, and the emerging romance between Virginia Otis (Carey) and their neighbour Henry, the accident-prone young Duke of Cheshire (Freddie Highmore).</p>
<p>Virginia is not the little girl of Wilde’s story, but a confident and athletic young woman in riding breeches, who wants a life of adventure, not to “be someone’s wife”. </p>
<h2>Stylish animation</h2>
<p>There are fine animated set pieces, including a lavish banquet thrown by the Otises that Sir Simon turns into a flaming disaster zone. But the standout sequence is in the “Garden of Death”, where Virginia secures Sir Simon’s release. </p>
<p>In Wilde’s story, Virginia’s experience in the garden happens off stage, but here it provides an extended action sequence in which the affable gardener reveals himself as the grim reaper. Sir Simon, Henry and Virginia have to duel with him as he morphs from one monstrous avatar to another. The garden itself is shown in a different visual style to the rest of the film, evoking the Golden Age children’s illustrations of artists such as <a href="https://www.artpassions.net/dulac/dulac.html">Edmund Dulac</a> and <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/kay-nielsen">Kay Nielsen</a>. </p>
<p>In the end, as in Wilde’s original, love does indeed prevail over death and Sir Simon is at last free. Virginia marries Henry and we see them fly off together into the future – she, of course, is at the controls.</p>
<p>With its stylish and imaginative animation, glittering cast and general good humour, The Canterville Ghost is a likeable film, presumably aimed at a family audience in search of a new take on a classic tale.</p>
<p>The credits suggest a complex international backstory, one involving British writers and directors (Space Age Films and Sprout Pictures), Indian animators (Toonz Media Group) and British and Irish government funding, as well as American finance and distribution. </p>
<p>The film itself, however, stays fairly close to Wilde’s vision of an Anglo-American world order, in which rich Americans mingle with the English titled classes. Perhaps that was meant to be part of its nostalgic appeal.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Daly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The stylish Oscar Wilde animation has a distinguished cast, including Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
Nicholas Daly, Professor of Modern English and American Literature, University College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212811
2023-09-07T14:53:19Z
2023-09-07T14:53:19Z
The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki’s latest Studio Ghibli film is a skilled remix of his greatest hits
<p>In the official pamphlet sold at Japanese cinemas for The Boy and the Heron, its 82-year-old director, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Miyazaki-Hayao">Hayao Miyazaki</a>, expresses concerns about his age: “Clearly, I believe the biggest problem is that the director is long in the tooth.” He needn’t have worried. </p>
<p>The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki’s masterclass in <a href="https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/animation/discover/cel-animation.html">cel animation</a>. This hand-drawn, traditional style – made by layering hand-painted images on celluloid on top of exquisite, painted backdrops – is Studio Ghibli’s signature. And in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki brings over half a century’s worth of his animated masterpieces together into a single coming-of-age story.</p>
<p>The Boy and the Heron will be available for UK audiences on October 8 and 15, as part of the <a href="https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=boy-and-the-heron-lff23&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=">BFI London Film Festival</a>, before its cinematic release on December 8.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f7EDFdA10pg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The first teaser trailer for The Boy and the Heron.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film is loosely adapted from Genzaburō Yoshino’s manga, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/04/how-do-you-live-genzaburo-yoshino-studio-ghibli">How Do You Live?</a> (1937), which was given to Miyazaki by his mother when he was a child. As this may well be his last film for Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki uses the story to play with memory, nostalgia and the animated form. </p>
<p>Miyazaki has a habit of retiring, having repeatedly done so since the release of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OiMOHRDs14">Princess Mononoke</a> in 1997, but The Boy and the Heron feels like an homage to his history in animation. As the official brochure explains, Miyazaki intends for audiences to see it as an “autobiographical fantasy”.</p>
<p>Exaggerating the young Miyazaki’s experience, The Boy and the Heron begins with the death of its protagonist’s mother, setting up a story in which the young boy, Mahito, learns to become heroic and accept those around him. </p>
<p>Miyazaki’s own mother, Yoshiko Miyazaki, suffered from tuberculosis during his early life and died as he worked on his first film for Studio Ghibli, Castle in the Sky (1986). Miyazaki paid homage to her in that film through the character of Ma Dola, the fearless matriarch of a sky pirate family.</p>
<p>In The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki returns more mournfully to this loss. In a heartbreaking sequence early in the film, Mahito runs to aid his mother as the hospital where she works burns uncontrollably. Miyazaki’s skill at representing elemental forces sings from every frame. The gently falling, still-burning soot and the heat distortions that surround Mahito as he sprints to the hospital deepen his fear and impending sorrow.</p>
<h2>Entering Heron Mansion</h2>
<p>After the loss of his mother, Mahito’s father moves them to the countryside and gives his son a surprise introduction to his new stepmother, Natsuko, who is pregnant. It is here that fairytale elements begin to creep in – not least in the seven old maids with whom Natsuko lives in their new home, Heron Mansion.</p>
<p>Despite the shift to Natsuko’s countryside idyll, war lingers on the fringes, echoing Miyazaki’s childhood. There are scenes of glass aeroplane canopies being brought to Mahito’s new home from his father’s factory. Miyazaki experienced similar events in his own childhood through his father’s work at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcXrZHJup88">Miyazaki Airplane factory</a>. </p>
<p>At Heron Mansion, Miyazaki begins to take Mahito through the looking glass. After purposefully hitting himself in the head with a rock, he hears a human voice coming from a grey heron, who implores Mahito to come with him. </p>
<p>When Mahito sees the grey heron-man disappearing into a mysterious tower, he is told that it was built by his great uncle, who “went strange in the head after reading too many books”. So begins Mahito’s adventure, as he follows the heron-man to strange, enchanted worlds.</p>
<h2>Ghibli’s greatest hits</h2>
<p>In these worlds, we see reproductions of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s greatest hits. In the first, Mahito is rescued from the sea by a fisher-woman who requires him to gut a huge fish. This is one of two scenes that has caused a stir among fans in Japan, <a href="https://cinemarche.net/column/kimitatihadoikiruka-kimochi/">who have claimed</a> that the film contains “creepy” imagery. The other is a moment in which the grey heron tries to induce Mahito to action by calling on frogs and fish to crawl all over him.</p>
<p>These moments have little effect on the young hero, but what does spur Mahito into action is the pregnant Natsuko’s disappearance. Mahito follows the heron into the world of magic and fantasy in order to save his new mother.</p>
<p>It is at this point that The Boy and the Heron becomes keenly attuned to the history of Miyazaki’s filmmaking. It presents worlds filled with strange, anthropomorphic creatures – this time mostly birds – in Miyazaki’s recognisable, personal style of fantasy.</p>
<p>We get refrains of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXuk9QqQkk">Spirited Away</a> (2001) when Mahito finds Natsuko in bed, surrounded by strands of paper that echo Yubaba and Zeniba’s flying paper minions. Towards the end of the film, too, we see rising seas that mimic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsR3KVgBzSM">Ponyo</a>’s (2008) famous flooding sequence. </p>
<p>Even Mahito’s character design and movements contain elements borrowed from another, earlier Miyazaki hero – Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke. The abstracted backgrounds in his great uncle’s tower may also remind audiences of Yoshifumi Kondo’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pVkiod6V0U">Whispers of the Heart</a> (1995).</p>
<p>If The Boy and the Heron is an autobiographical fantasy, as Miyazaki suggests, it works on multiple levels. It is a fantasy that echoes Miyazaki’s life but – more importantly – it is a reflection upon a life spent in animation. The film’s homage to Studio Ghibli’s greatest hits is a major part of its charm. It encapsulates the elements of fantasy that Hayao Miyazaki has used to charm audiences for more than 40 years.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rayna Denison receives funding from the UKRI and JSPS funding bodies for her research.</span></em></p>
The 82-year-old Japanese director brings over half a century’s worth of animated masterpieces together in this coming-of-age story
Rayna Denison, Professor of Film and Digital Arts, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209011
2023-07-05T11:31:45Z
2023-07-05T11:31:45Z
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is the latest film to give a monster a makeover
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27155038/">Ruby Gillman’s</a> story follows a fairly standard plot: an adolescent girl longs to go to prom but must overcome both her overprotective mother’s objections and conflict with a new popular kid at school. Oh, except the girl is actually a kraken. And her nemesis is a megalomaniac mermaid.</p>
<p>When you think of a kraken you probably think of a sea monster of enormous size, lashing out to sink ships that sail too close to it. It belongs to Norwegian folklore and written descriptions of the beast <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/hcsm/a/3f7pGvQSBQNC4kkC8MXsbQQ/?format=pdf&lang=en">can be dated to the 1100s</a>. But the new animated film writes a different narrative for this legendary creature.</p>
<p>The kraken has been portrayed as monstrous throughout literary and movie history. Hans Egede, a Norwegian missionary, described a kraken as covering the whole sea when it surfaced and capturing victims with its claws. Erik Pontoppidan, the Lutheran Bishop of Bergen, described it in 1753 as a <a href="https://fass.open.ac.uk/sites/fass.open.ac.uk/files/files/new-voices-journal/issue11/torjussen.pdf">giant octopus with long arms</a> whose descent to the bottom of the ocean to feed caused a whirlpool in its wake. </p>
<p>His description of the kraken influenced many later literary works, including <a href="https://poets.org/poem/kraken">Alfred Tennyson’s famous poem</a>, Victor Hugo’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilers_of_the_Sea">Les Travailleurs de la mer</a> (1866) and Jules Verne’s <a href="https://oxfordworldsclassics.com/display/10.1093/owc/9780198818649.001.0001/isbn-9780198818649;jsessionid=49AE142BAF13E95AF64D7A4368CE825F">Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas</a> (1870). </p>
<p>Somewhat more recently, the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/">Clash of the Titans</a> (1981) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800320/">its recent remake</a> (2010) have brought the kraken into the universe of Greek myth, where its battle with the hero Perseus forms both films’ epic conclusion. Even though the production crew of the original film knew that the kraken was Norwegian, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DPalDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA51&dq=%22as+a+name+for+a+sea+monster,+it+was+too+good+to+miss%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij-vn17vL_AhULVUEAHXxuDyIQ6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q=%22as%20a%20name%20for%20a%20sea%20monster%2C%20it%20was%20too%20good%20to%20miss%22&f=false">they decided that</a> “as a name for a sea monster, it was too good to miss”. </p>
<p>In the 1981 film, the animator <a href="https://theconversation.com/monsters-movies-and-biomechanics-celebrating-ray-harryhausen-149297">Ray Harryhausen</a>’s trademark “dynamation” figure paid homage to the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046876/">Creature from the Black Lagoon</a> (1954), with a long scaly tail and four arms. The 2010 version also gave it multiple CGI tentacles, in line with the historical descriptions.</p>
<p>Ruby Gillman’s approach to the kraken upends these representations, showing us a softer side to the beast.</p>
<h2>Not so scary</h2>
<p>Rather than being a single silent behemoth living in the deep, Ruby lives on land with her family. They try to blend in with humans and explain away any peculiarities by claiming that they are originally from Canada. The Gillman family take on human appearance, colourful skin tone not withstanding, and only transform into their gigantic form when in salt water. </p>
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</figure>
<p>Krakens are usually <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-life-origins-of-the-legendary-kraken-52058">brooding and destructive</a>, representing the immense power of the ocean to defeat human efforts to subdue it <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=x6o0DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT356&dq=%22the+faceless+corporation+or+government+agency%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzxpmI8fL_AhUKKewKHQzlCngQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q=%22the%20faceless%20corporation%20or%20government%20agency%22&f=false">as such monsters often do</a>. However, Ruby’s family have a role protecting the oceans and the world from hostile forces that seek to disrupt the balance of marine power.</p>
<p>As well as participating in the popular trend of recuperating and reclaiming monsters like vampires and werewolves, Ruby Gillman also follows the pattern of reversing hero and villain or monster. We’ve seen this in popular films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629">Frozen</a> (2013), where the handsome prince turned out to be the complete opposite of happily ever after.</p>
<p>In this case, the film’s antagonists turn out to be mermaids. In fairness, mermaids have never been quite as romantic as 19th-century fairy tales made them. Their roots can be traced back to the sirens of ancient Greece, who lured sailors onto rocks with their songs. </p>
<p>However, in Anglo-American culture, mermaids have become fantasy figures which adorn children’s clothing, accessories and toys.</p>
<p>The contrast with the live action remake of <a href="https://theconversation.com/disneys-the-little-mermaid-review-ariel-finally-finds-her-feminist-voice-206695">The Little Mermaid</a> (2023) is striking. Rather than Ariel’s positive message of kindness, care and loyalty, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27155038/">Ruby Gillman’s</a> mermaid Chelsea just wants the power of the Trident of Oceanus so she can control the seas. </p>
<p>By making krakens protectors and mermaids destroyers, the film continues a wider cultural trend of questioning who the monsters really are.</p>
<h2>Beastly biology</h2>
<p>Being a monster also taps into the film’s broader coming-of-age narrative and what it feels like to have a body that doesn’t behave as it once did. </p>
<p>Pixar’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8097030">Turning Red</a> used its heroine’s transformation into a giant red panda, sometimes cute but also monstrous, as a metaphor for beginning adolescence. For Ruby, discovering her body’s true potential when she first encounters salt water leads her to question everything in her life she has previously taken for granted. </p>
<p>Ruby must become comfortable enough with her powers to team up with her mother and grandmother to defeat Chelsea, inviting the film’s target audience to also embrace the things which make them different to others as superpowers rather than see them as monstrous deviance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27155038/">Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken</a> reinvents the mythic kraken as a guardian rather than a destroyer, presenting a fresh twist on the coming-of-age narrative by making puberty a moment to discover the strengths of your inner monster: a side of yourself you must embrace instead of fight. </p>
<p>The kraken might not be the first creature you would think of for exploring what it means to be in high school, but it offers a way of exploring our relationship to power and our responsibility to the natural world that feels particularly timely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Gloyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ruby Gillman is not the Monstrous beast of Norweigan folklore but an awkward teen going through a big change.
Liz Gloyn, Reader in Latin Language & Literature, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207439
2023-06-09T13:26:08Z
2023-06-09T13:26:08Z
Jurassic Park yn 30 a'r chwyldro effeithiau arbennig ddigwyddodd yn sgil y ffilm
<p>Mae’r mis hwn yn nodi 30 mlynedd ers ffilm a newidiodd y sinema am byth. Defnyddiodd Jurassic Park 1993 ddelweddau a gynhyrchwyd gan gyfrifiadur (CGI) arloesol i ddod â deinosoriaid yn fyw yn addasiad Steven Spielberg o'r nofel o'r un enw.</p>
<p>Daeth y ffilm yn ddigwyddiad yr oedd yn rhaid ei weld yn gyflym iawn a chafodd cynulleidfaoedd eu syfrdanu gan yr olygfa o weld deinosoriaid credadwy yn ymlwybro ar draws y sgrin fawr am y tro cyntaf. Nid yn unig y gwnaeth Jurassic Park <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uWiWCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=jurassic+park+cgi&ots=2GhA2wlixw&sig=lhUvmRpL2KYrbQWDfE1fRizz7FE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=jurassic%20park%20cgi&f=false">gamau enfawr</a> mewn gwneud ffilmiau effeithiau arbennig, ond fe wnaeth hefyd baratoi'r ffordd ar gyfer myrdd o gynyrchiadau dilynol a oedd yn cynnwys bwystfilod o bob lliw a llun.</p>
<p>Cafodd Jurassic Park ei eni yn 1983 fel sgript sgrin gan Michael Crichton. Fe oedd awdur a chyfarwyddwr y ffilm, Westworld (1973), oedd yn adrodd stori parc adloniant lle’r oedd androidau yn camweithio ac yn rhedeg yn benwyllt. Ond cyhoeddwyd ei stori ar thema deinosoriaid am y tro cyntaf fel y nofel Jurassic Park, a ryddhawyd ym 1990 ac a ddaeth yn werthwr gorau.</p>
<p>Dyna pryd y daeth i sylw Steven Spielberg. Erbyn y 1990au cynnar, nid oedd Spielberg yn ddieithr i wneud ffilmiau ffuglen wyddonol ar gyllideb fawr. Roedd ffilmiau fel Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ac E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) wedi dangos bod ganddo hanes o wneud ffilmiau hynod lwyddiannus. Roedd Jurassic Park, felly, yn berffaith ar gyfer ei gynhyrchiad nesaf.</p>
<p>Newidiodd addasiad Spielberg, a ysgrifennwyd gan Crichton a David Koepp, nifer o agweddau ar y nofel i roi diweddglo boddhaol i’r ffilm, ond gan adael digon o ddiweddglo rhydd i’w harchwilio ymhellach mewn ffilmiau eraill.</p>
<p>Wrth gwrs, nid Jurassic Park oedd y tro cyntaf i ddeinosoriaid gael sylw ar y sgrin fawr. Mae King Kong (1933) yn enghraifft gynnar o ffilm a wthiodd ffiniau'r hyn a oedd yn bosibl ar y pryd trwy gynnwys golygfeydd o'r gorila enfawr yn ymladd â deinosoriaid.</p>
<p>Daeth creaduriaid yn fyw o flaen y gynulleidfa sinema trwy gyfuno animeiddiad stopio-symudiad ag ôl-dafluniad (lle mae ffilm a saethwyd yn flaenorol yn cael ei thaflunio ar gefndir a bod actorion yn cael eu recordio yn perfformio o'i flaen). Roedd ffilmiau eraill fel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), The Lost World (1960) a The Land That Time Forgot (1974) wedi ceisio ffyrdd amgen o ddod â deinosoriaid i'r sgrin, gan gynnwys pypedwaith a hyd yn oed ffitio ymlusgiaid byw gyda phrostheteg.</p>
<p>O'r dulliau hyn, dewiswyd cyfuniad o animeiddiad stopio-symudiad ar gyfer saethiadau hir a phypedau animatronig ar gyfer sesiynau golwg agos i ddechrau gan Spielberg ar gyfer Jurassic Park.</p>
<h2>CGI ac animeiddio</h2>
<p>Cafwyd canlyniadau da gan brofion stopio-symudiad, yn enwedig wrth ddatblygu’r hyn a elwir yn “go-motion”, sef techneg a oedd yn niwlio modelau i ddarparu ymdeimlad o symudiad tebyg i weithred fyw. Ond roedd Spielberg a'i dîm yn dal yn awyddus i fynd ymhellach gyda'r hyn oedd yn bosib. Darparodd Dennis Muren o’r cwmni effeithiau arbennig, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), ymagwedd amgen drwy ddefnyddio modelu ac animeiddio CGI.</p>
<p>Ar gefn gwaith CGI arloesol yn The Abyss (1989) a Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), cynhyrchodd Muren a'i dîm gyfres brawf o ddeinosoriaid ysgerbydol. Fe wnaeth profion yn cynnwys <em>Tyrannosaurus Rex</em> gyda chroen ychwanegol gadarnhau ymhellach y sylweddoliad mai dyma'r ffordd i barhau ar gyfer y ffilm. Adeiladodd y dechneg hon fodel y deinosor o esgyrn, ychwanegu cyhyr ac yna yn olaf, y croen.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Golygfa'r T. rex yn dianc.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roedd yn ymddangos bod y tîm stopio-symudiad a oedd wedi'i ymgynnull wedi'i ddileu gan y dechnoleg arloesol hon. Fodd bynnag, y gwneuthurwyr modelau a’r animeiddwyr oedd yr arbenigwyr ar ddeinosoriaid a’u symudiadau. Fe wnaethant ailhyfforddi fel animeiddwyr cyfrifiadurol i barhau i ddefnyddio eu sgiliau ar y cynhyrchiad.</p>
<p>Mae Jurassic Park yn cynnwys 15 munud o ddeinosoriaid ar y sgrin, gyda thua naw munud ohonynt yn cynnwys animatronegau Stan Winston a chwe munud o animeiddiad CGI ILM. Gwelir llwyddiant y cyfuniad hwn yn yr olygfa <em>T. Rex</em> eiconig. Mae nifer o saethiadau animatronig yn cynnwys lluniau agos o’r <em>T. Rex</em> wrth i’r saethiadau uchder llawn ddarparu bygythiad a phŵer y creadur.</p>
<p>Mae'r modd y mae Spielberg yn cyfarwyddo'r olygfa - o adeiladu tensiwn atmosfferig y storm law, trwy'r datgeliad cychwynnol a'r ymatebion, yr ymosodiad hirfaith a'r ddihangfa ddilynol - yn tywys y gynulleidfa trwy ystod o emosiynau. Er bod y darnau CGI yn gymharol fyr, maent yn cael effaith enfawr ar y stori, heb sôn am y gred bod y digwyddiad yn digwydd o'n blaenau mewn gwirionedd. Mae'n gynrychiolaeth wirioneddol o bŵer sinema.</p>
<h2>Effaith</h2>
<p>Ar ôl ei ryddhau, daeth Jurassic Park yn llwyddiant ysgubol. Roedd hefyd yn gyfle perffaith i ddatblygu ac arddangos y datblygiadau diweddaraf mewn CGI. Roedd y wefr o weld rhuthr y <em>Gallimimus</em>, arswyd ymosodiad y <em>T. Rex</em> ac arswyd yr helfa <em>Velociraptor</em> wedi swyno cynulleidfaoedd ar draws y byd. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Golygfa rhuthr y Gallimimus yn Jurassic Park.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ysbrydolodd Jurassic Park nifer o ffilmiau â themâu debyg fel Dinosaur (2000) gan Disney a chyfres deledu y BBC, Walking with Dinosaurs (1999). Ond yn fwy na hynny, fe helpodd i greu chwyldro yn y defnydd o effeithiau arbennig CGI mewn ffilmiau.</p>
<p>O'r chwe munud hynny o ddeinosoriaid wedi'u hanimeiddio, mae CGI bellach wedi integreiddio cymaint â'r diwydiant nes bod bron pob cynhyrchiad ffilm a theledu yn cynnwys rhyw fath o CGI. Gall hyn olygu’n syml glanhau agweddau ar y ddelwedd a ffilmiwyd yn ddigidol gyda thynnu ac ailosod, estyniadau set, ychwanegu modelau set CGI neu gerbydau a phropiau animeiddiedig, at ffilmio gyda sgrin werdd a delweddau cyfansoddi, neu uno actorion o fewn amgylcheddau CGI llawn.</p>
<p>Mae'r ffilm yn parhau i fod yn bwynt arwyddocaol yn hanes sinema. Dyma gyhoeddodd fod creaduriaid CGI wedi cyrraedd, gan baratoi'r ffordd ar gyfer y deng mlynedd ar hugain dilynol o wneud ffilmiau ffantasi.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Hodges does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rhyddhawyd Jurassic Park ar y sgrin fawr ym mis Mehefin 1993 a newidiodd sinema am byth.
Peter Hodges, Lecturer in Contextual and Critical Studies for Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, University of South Wales
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204592
2023-06-08T16:28:34Z
2023-06-08T16:28:34Z
Jurassic Park at 30: how its CGI revolutionised the film industry
<p><em>You can also read this article <a href="https://theconversation.com/jurassic-park-yn-30-ar-chwyldro-effeithiau-arbennig-ddigwyddodd-yn-sgil-y-ffilm-207439">in Welsh</a>.</em></p>
<p>This month marks the 30th anniversary of a film that changed cinema forever. 1993’s Jurassic Park used pioneering computer-generated imagery (CGI) to bring dinosaurs to life in Steven Spielberg’s adaption of the novel of the same name. </p>
<p>The film quickly became a must-see event and audiences were left amazed by the spectacle of seeing believable dinosaurs grace the big screen for the first time. Jurassic Park not only <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uWiWCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=jurassic+park+cgi&ots=2GhA2wlixw&sig=lhUvmRpL2KYrbQWDfE1fRizz7FE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=jurassic%20park%20cgi&f=false">made giant leaps</a> in special-effects filmmaking, but it also paved the way for myriad subsequent productions that featured beasts of all shapes and sizes.</p>
<p>Jurassic Park originated in 1983 as a screenplay by Michael Crichton, whose previous foray into film as writer and director of Westworld (1973) featured an immersive amusement park where androids malfunctioned and caused havoc. But his dinosaur-themed story first found publication as the novel Jurassic Park, which was released in 1990 and became a bestseller. </p>
<p>That’s when it came to the attention of Steven Spielberg. By the early 1990s, Spielberg was no stranger to big-budget science-fiction filmmaking. The likes of Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) had demonstrated that he had a track record of making extremely successful effects-heavy but story-led films. That made Jurassic Park perfect for his next production.</p>
<p>Spielberg’s adaptation, written by Crichton and David Koepp, changed a number of aspects of the novel’s ending to provide a satisfactory conclusion to the film, yet leave enough loose ends for further exploration in the franchise.</p>
<p>Of course, Jurassic Park wasn’t the first time dinosaurs had been featured on the big screen. 1933’s King Kong is an early example of a film that pushed the boundaries of what was then possible by including sequences of the eponymous giant gorilla fighting with dinosaurs. </p>
<p>Creatures were brought to life for cinema goers by combining stop-motion animation with rear projection (where previously shot film is projected onto a backdrop and actors are recorded performing in front of it). Other feature films such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), The Lost World (1960) and The Land That Time Forgot (1974) had attempted alternative ways of bringing dinosaurs to the screen, including puppetry and even fitting live reptiles with prosthetics. </p>
<p>Of these methods, a combination of stop-motion animation for long shots and animatronic puppets for close ups were initially chosen by Spielberg for Jurassic Park.</p>
<h2>CGI and animation</h2>
<p>Stop-motion tests produced good results, especially in the development of go-motion, a technique which blurred models to provide a sense of movement similar to that of live action. But Spielberg and his team were still keen to go further with what was possible. Dennis Muren from the visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), provided an alternative approach by using CGI modelling and animation.</p>
<p>Off the back of pioneering CGI work in The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Muren and his team produced a test sequence of skeletal dinosaurs. Additional tests featuring a <em>Tyrannosaurus rex</em> with added skin further cemented the realisation that this was the way to go for the film. This technique built the model of the dinosaur from bones, added muscle and then finally, the skin. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The T. rex escapes its paddock.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It seemed the assembled stop-motion team had been made extinct by this innovative technology. However, the model makers and animators were the experts on dinosaurs and their movement, and they retrained as computer animators to continue to use their skills on the production.</p>
<p>Jurassic Park features 15 minutes of on-screen dinosaurs, of which approximately nine minutes feature Stan Winston’s animatronics and six minutes of ILM’s CGI animation. The success of this combination is seen in the iconic <em>T. rex</em> attack scene. A number of animatronic shots feature close-ups of the <em>T.rex</em> before the full-height shots provide the creature’s threat and power. </p>
<p>How Spielberg orchestrates the scene, from the atmospheric, tension building of the rain storm, through the initial reveal and reactions, the prolonged attack and subsequent escape, takes the audience through a range of emotions. Although the CGI sections are relatively short, they have a huge impact on the overall storytelling, not to mention the believability that the event is actually happening in front of us. It’s a true representation of the power of cinema. </p>
<h2>Impact</h2>
<p>On release, Jurassic Park became an instant box office success, becoming the highest-grossing film ever at that time. It also presented the perfect opportunity to develop and showcase the latest advances in CGI. The thrill of seeing the stampede of Gallimimus, the horror of the <em>T.rex</em> attack and the suspense of the Velociraptor hunt captivated audiences across the globe. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">“They’re flocking this way” - Jurassic Park’s Gallimimus chase scene.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jurassic Park inspired a number of similarly themed movies such as Disney’s Dinosaur (2000) and the award-winning BBC television series Walking with Dinosaurs (1999). But more than that, it helped bring about a revolution in the use of CGI in filmmaking. </p>
<p>From those six minutes of animated dinosaurs, CGI has become so integrated into the industry to the extent that nearly all film and television productions feature some form of CGI practice. This can simply mean digitally cleaning up aspects of the filmed image with removals and replacements, set extensions, adding CGI set models or animated vehicles and props, to filming with green screen and compositing images, or merging actors within full CGI environments. </p>
<p>The film remains a significant point in the history of cinema that successfully announced that CGI creatures had arrived, paving the way for the following thirty years of fantasy filmmaking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Hodges does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Jurassic Park was released on the big screen in June 1993 and changed cinema for good.
Peter Hodges, Lecturer in Contextual and Critical Studies for Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, University of South Wales
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201702
2023-03-13T19:46:59Z
2023-03-13T19:46:59Z
Oscars 2023: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio offers a new vision for animated films that explore our humanity
<p>In <a href="https://abc.com/shows/oscars/video/oscar-winners/vdka32809379">winning the 2023 Academy Award</a> for best animated feature, director Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio continues its remarkable run of accolades, from the Golden Globes to the Baftas.</p>
<p>Del Toro has used the platform afforded by his nominations to champion the medium of animation as true cinema, proclaiming in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzMQYyEwcNI">his Bafta award speech</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Animation is not a genre for kids. It’s a medium for art, it’s a medium for film and I think animation should stay in the conversation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His rendition of Pinocchio has certainly started a conversation, not least in gaining <a href="https://www.cartoonbrew.com/streaming/guillermo-del-toro-pinocchio-netflix-top-10-224361.html">an impressive audience</a> on Netflix. His film demonstrates that in the right creative environment – and with an innovator at the helm – a well-worn narrative, such as Pinocchio, can evolve.</p>
<p>Such revitalisation of the Pinocchio story was in part possible because – <a href="https://screenrant.com/pinocchio-guillermo-del-toro-movie-unique-adaptation-response/">as he says himself</a> – del Toro didn’t craft his retelling solely with children in mind. </p>
<p>His Pinocchio stands out because it deals with existential issues such as mortality, morality and what we define as consciousness, coupled with real-world historical catastrophes such as the rise of fascism and the children who have suffered under its jackboot.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Od2NW1sfRdA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a timeliness to this adaptation. Pinocchio – an innocent who is forced to see the harsh realities of war, death and societal collapse, yet retains a sense of optimism – is prescient amid intensifying global conflict and offers hope.</p>
<p>Del Toro is no stranger to awards success. In 2007, his breakout hit Pan’s Labyrinth <a href="https://www.thehugoawards.org/2007/09/2007-hugo-awards-announced-2/">won the Hugo award</a> for best dramatic presentation. He also won the best director and best picture <a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-2018-another-mexican-triumph-as-awards-move-towards-diversity-91786">Oscars</a> for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-shape-of-water-an-allegorical-critique-of-trump-93272">The Shape of Water</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>In some ways, Pinocchio’s win was predictable. The film has, without doubt, received more press coverage than its rivals through a powerfully sustained campaign.</p>
<p>Pinocchio’s fellow nominees – Puss in Boots, The Sea Beast and Turning Red – are typical of the state and quality of animation in 2023. They’re colourful, entertaining and wonderfully animated, but rather standard CGI creations, with none of the more complex tones of del Toro’s Pinocchio. </p>
<p>The outlier in the category was the astonishing and innovative <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98Afd7Nf3Y">Marcel the Shell with Shoes On</a>, a blend of live action footage and stop motion animation.</p>
<p>When I <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Guillermo-del-Toro-At-Home-with-Monsters/Guillermo-del-Toro/9781608878604">interviewed Guillermo del Toro in 2015</a>, he was transparent in his intention to shift between cinematic modes, stating that “animation is in many ways the future”. He believed that animated films should be universally held in the high esteem they receive in parts of Europe and Japan, “where they understand that animation is a medium, not a genre.”</p>
<h2>Pinocchio’s achievement of ‘randomness’</h2>
<p>Del Toro struck me then, and continues to do so, as an artist with an incredible determination to fulfil his vision across a body of work. As he told me: “I think [animation] is my desirable future – the only thing I want to make sure is that I find randomness.” </p>
<p>I interpret “randomness” here as the ability to recapture the charm of the perceived imperfections of stop motion animation, brought about by advances in digital animation. This combines with the sophistication of evolving stop motion practice, which now allows for nimble implementations of decisions made on set.</p>
<p>This ability to achieve “randomness” is evident in Pinocchio and may be attributed to a blend of abundant resources and technical and creative innovation. Thanks to the deep pockets of Netflix, Pinocchio’s production was vast, involving 40 animators (and nearly 1,000 days of shooting, including, at times 60 sets, 60 cameras and 60 stages), working on complex scenes, some of which took years to perfect.</p>
<p>The characters themselves were constructed from materials generated with a 3D printer, moulded around a metallic skeleton and connected to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUoS-CBi4iA">high tech rigs</a> which gave the animators the ability to react swiftly and precisely to direction while retaining continuity.</p>
<p>Additionally, the film also involved “live action video reference” points where crew members would be filmed experimenting with approaches to scenes, which gave them an opportunity to partly improvise moments that had – in the main – been planned for years. </p>
<p>This hybrid approach of pre-planned authorship and creative spontaneity allowed del Toro to achieve a fresh approach to animation.</p>
<p>Del Toro has proclaimed that Pinocchio’s journey through a tumultuous and dangerous world is the thematic third part in a trilogy which also included The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), which both feature children thrown into perilous situations as a result of fascist regimes.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jVZRnnVSQ8k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I would broaden this to situate Pinocchio in del Toro’s wider artistic impulses. Much of his work involves outsider figures, considered freaks by the wider world (Cronos, 1993 and Hellboy, 2004, for instance) who find love and acceptance from those able to see them beyond their outward appearance and deviance from the norm. </p>
<p>This in turn resonates with del Toro’s desire to ask audiences to see animation beyond a mode for childish tales and instead recognise its potency as a cinematic art.</p>
<p>Del Toro’s next project will be <a href="https://collider.com/guillermo-del-toro-the-buried-giant-stop-motion/">The Buried Giant</a>, an animated adaptation of the 2015 <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85613/the-buried-giant-by-kazuo-ishiguro/">Kazio Ishiguro novel</a>. It’s set in an alternative post-Arthurian Britain in which people are incapable of retaining long-term memories. An elderly couple set out on a quest to find a long-lost son that they fleetingly recall.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://ew.com/awards/oscars/pinocchio-guillermo-del-toro-wins-oscar-best-animated-feature/">his Oscars acceptance speech</a>, del Toro said: “Animation is ready to be taken to the next step … We are all ready for it.”</p>
<p>In a backstage interview, he stated that his film is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>About disobedience – and disobedience is urgent in the world now. How we can love each other in our failings, in our flaws, in our humanity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnochio is a pioneering film in the ongoing efforts to reframe the medium of animation. But it’s also symbolic of del Toro’s wider work to date – the perfect example of his passion for stories which illuminate our humanity, even in the face of dehumanising oppression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith McDonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Del Toro’s Pinocchio stands out because it couples existential issues with real-world historical catastrophes.
Keith McDonald, Senior Lecturer Film Studies and Media, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201054
2023-03-06T17:15:28Z
2023-03-06T17:15:28Z
Pikachu to depart: a brief history of the world’s favourite Pokémon
<p>In the run-up to <a href="https://www.polygon.com/pokemon/23616619/pokemon-presents-day-2023-direct-announcements-all-trailers">Pokémon Day</a> – an anniversary created to celebrate the <a href="https://www.gamingbible.com/features/nintendo-pokemon-red-blue-and-green-how-the-nintendo-game-boy-hits-were-made-20210219">first Pokémon video game</a>, released on February 27 1996 – a small but significant piece of news was announced. </p>
<p>There is to be a new Pikachu character, named <a href="https://www.thegamer.com/pikachu-is-dead-long-live-captain-pikachu/">Captain Pikachu</a>. This Pikachu will partner with a new human, Professor Friede, in an animated series based on the most recent video game: <a href="https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-gb/">Pokémon Scarlet and Violet</a>. </p>
<p>The pokémon has been a global marketing tool for Nintendo products for over 25 years. Fans are used to seeing Pikachu dressed in all manner of outfits, including 2019’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roy4o4tqQM">Detective Pikachu</a>. </p>
<p>However, the announcement followed a seismic shift in the animated franchise. Pikachu’s longtime child partner, Ash, finally achieved his goal of becoming a Pokémon Champion at the end of 2022. As a result, the Pokémon Company confirmed that the character would <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pokemon-ash-ketchum-pikachu-leaving-show/">bow out of the television series</a> in early 2023. </p>
<p>In response, fans on the social media platform <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/zo0rmi/so_is_pikachu_still_gonna_be_the_mascot_now/">Reddit</a> asked what would happen to Pikachu. How could he possibly continue without Ash in future stories? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pokemons-ash-wins-world-championship-after-25-years-heres-why-the-franchise-is-still-capturing-fans-194788">Pokémon's Ash wins World Championship after 25 years – here's why the franchise is still capturing fans</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Without the iconic character, Nintendo would lose more than just an important piece of intellectual property – they would lose the heart of what makes the franchise so endearing, so it’s no surprise to see Pikachu’s return, albeit in a different guise.</p>
<h2>Why is Pikachu so popular?</h2>
<p>Pikachu was not necessarily destined for great popularity. He was not a standout “pocket monster” in Nintendo’s first Game Boy Pokémon title, Red and Green, but was one among 151 creatures that children could choose to play with. </p>
<p>The Pokémon video game was quickly followed by the <a href="https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg">trading card game</a> in October 1996, where players could pick from a range of cards to battle or trade with a friend. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ign.com/games/pokemon-green-version">Early audiences</a> were entirely domestic as the game was not available outside Japan. However, when <a href="http://fj.webedia.us/features/father-pokemon-japanese-producer-masakazu-kubo-saluted-copyright-educator">Kubo Masakazu</a>, a comic book publisher and manga enthusiast, was hired by Nintendo to take Pokémon beyond the national market, he immediately saw the potential to build a global franchise and audience around one character: Pikachu. </p>
<p>Masakazu developed the animated television series and movies, focusing the stories on a trio of young travellers – Ash, Misty and Brock. Each traveller had a partner pokémon that would never be tucked away in a pokéball (devices in which pokémon are captured and stored), with personalities of their own. </p>
<p>As author Anne Allison described in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520245655/millennial-monsters">Millennial Monsters</a> (2006), this new empire of entertainment (games, trading cards, a TV show and films) was based on Masakazu’s vision of harmony. This was shown in the way humans and pocket monsters live side by side, treating each other with kindness and love. The bond between Ash and Pikachu is at the heart of Pokémon’s global success.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/pink-globalization"><em>Kawaii</em></a>, or cuteness, is a profitable Japanese cultural export and the Pikachu character personifies its success. Pikachu’s appeal lies in the character’s design, backed up by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8V00SkTvY">his emotional resonance</a>, which is developed in the animated series and films. </p>
<p>Pikachu’s colour and frame are easily recognisable and can be <a href="https://screenrant.com/pokemon-pikachu-design-changes-red-blue-detective-movie/">redrawn in any style</a>. The name is catchy and repeatable, whether or not you are a native Japanese speaker. The character is small and huggable and helps children develop feelings of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1368879032000162220">attachment, nurturance and intimacy</a> when they play with Pikachu toys. </p>
<p>These visual features are reinforced by Pikachu’s personality and powers. He is loyal to Ash, brave in front of countless challenges and conveys emotions openly through facial expressions, noises and constant affirmation of who he is: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY9gKpFmy64">Pika, Pika, Pikachu!</a>”</p>
<p>Famously, in the animated series, Ash’s Pikachu does not wish to evolve (the process through which a pokémon can change form, grow stronger and gain new abilities). This goes against the internal logic of the game where players must care for and evolve their pokémon to help them win more battles.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uJcOjOwV9Zk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ash explains why Pikachu doesn’t want to evolve.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Therefore, Pikachu’s strength comes from his individual identity as the Pikachu, not a Pikachu. Ash’s Pikachu is unique. So while countless others have been encountered in the games and animated series, they are not the same as his Pikachu. Or, more importantly, they are not the same as our Pikachu. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2010/06/transmedia_education_the_7_pri.html">multiplicity</a> of the character – that he is both the same as and different from other versions in the same entertainment universe – allows Pokémon to create new stories and scenarios without disrupting the overall backstory or inherent qualities of the Pikachu character. </p>
<p>This is how Pikachu has managed to be both the image of a global corporate brand and a distinctly familiar and individual partner on Ash’s journey. The children who grew up watching his adventures with Ash are now adults who can still reconnect with him because their relationship with the character was developed over multiple games, TV series and films. </p>
<p>Now that Ash is retiring, our Pikachu can too. His memory will continue in the minds of multi-generational fans while the <em>kawaii</em> Nintendo still wants to export will continue through the familiar design and distinct new personality of his successor: Captain Pikachu.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lincoln Geraghty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ash Ketchum is retiring from the Pokémon franchise, but this doesn’t spell the end of Pikachu.
Lincoln Geraghty, Professor of Media Cultures, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194788
2022-11-17T13:22:34Z
2022-11-17T13:22:34Z
Pokémon’s Ash wins World Championship after 25 years – here’s why the franchise is still capturing fans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495696/original/file-20221116-26-m5ye4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C1902%2C1066&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ash Ketchum and Pikachu with the World Championship trophy</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pokemon.gamespress.com/ASH-KETCHUM-BECOMES-WORLD-CHAMPION">The Pokémon Company</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty-five years ago, an animated ten-year-old boy was united with <a href="https://theconversation.com/creature-that-inspired-pikachu-is-being-blamed-for-an-ecological-crisis-but-it-may-be-innocent-159569">Pikachu</a>, his very first “pocket monster” and set an ambitious goal: to become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg6CiPI6h2g">“the very best, like no one ever was”</a> by winning the Pokémon World Championships. </p>
<p>On November 11, over <a href="https://twitter.com/PokemonNewsUK/status/1591016538341257217">200,000 Twitter users</a> joined in congratulating Ash on his victory. But now that Ash has achieved his goal, where does that leave the future of the Pokémon franchise?</p>
<p>Pokémon’s potential as a world-dominating franchise wasn’t immediately apparent in the early years of its development. The designer of the original Game Boy Pokémon games, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj2sY2ylrP7AhXKTcAKHTGLADcQFnoECEEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Fbiography%2FSatoshi-Tajiri&usg=AOvVaw0ujErrZpQwrW70cbNfpMKz">Satoshi Tajiri</a>, had more local goals at first. He had observed the stress that children in Japan seemed to be experiencing in the 1990s due to an “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/monograph/chapter/2554187">academic record society</a>” that prized hard study and achievement over play and imagination.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ash Ketchum stands holding a big cup trophy, with Pikachu on his shoulder and other large Pokemon surrounding them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495697/original/file-20221116-22-k49cef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ash Ketchum and his World Championship winning team of Pokémon, from the Ultimate Journeys Animation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pokemon.gamespress.com/ASH-KETCHUM-BECOMES-WORLD-CHAMPION">The Pokémon Company</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The original game design <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/monograph/chapter/2554187">drew from Tajiri’s memories</a> of growing up in the 1960s, using his imagination to create his own entertainment, and drawing from such common childhood activities as <a href="https://kokoro-jp.com/culture/1293/">bug catching</a>.</p>
<p>Pikachu’s name is often attributed to <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-42681-1_45-1">the Japanese word pika</a>, which was used to describe the flash of atomic weapons detonating. Early Pokémon culture was rooted in memories of post-war Japan, in contrast to the dominant trend at the time which removed Japanese associations from products destined for overseas consumption to make them <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10371399808727650?cookieSet=1">“culturally odourless”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white pixelated screen shows the Pokémon logo, with Ash Ketchum and Charmander standing beneath" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495698/original/file-20221116-22-f0ilz8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The title screen for the original Pokémon game, Pokémon Red.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pokemon.gamespress.com/Pokemon-Red-Version-Pokemon-Blue-Version-and-Pokemon-Yellow-Version/Focus/Pokemon-Red-Version-Pokemon-Blue-Version-and-Pokemon-Yellow-Version-sc">The Pokémon Company</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite these obstacles, Pokémon captured the global imagination. It became such a success that journalists and academics wrote of a “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/70278">Pokémon craze</a>” sweeping the media landscape of the 1990s. By 2004 however, scholars writing in <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/70278">Pikachu’s Global Adventure</a> described “the spectacular, complex, and unpredictable rise and fall of Pokémon in countries around the world” as they predicted the end of the franchise’s peak popularity. As you might have noticed, however, Pokémon didn’t go anywhere.</p>
<h2>Pokémon’s evolutions</h2>
<p>Pokémon’s ability to incorporate new developments in audience engagement has been key to its success. In its early franchising into animated television, film, and merchandise, the Pokémon phenomenon is a prime example of the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rzGqyHaUGYkC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=media+mix+steinberg&ots=HSnDTY1Gv8&sig=KnsYP4Onl03RhYHEbjHgCkgziVg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=media%2520mix%2520steinberg&f=false">media mix</a>” or “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aCp0DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT62&dq=media+ecology+lamarre&ots=nL9JXWDJbV&sig=72x9GJ3rAwviCS2EhC0MOWUh7bM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=media%2520ecology%2520lamarre&f=false">media ecology</a>” in which one story or character appears across a range of different media and entertainment products. </p>
<p>Pokémon proved highly adaptable across new platforms appearing in the 2010s and 2020s, with the development of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/pokemon-go-29173">Pokémon Go</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13548565221074804?casa_token=xqrY42wliFwAAAAA:P0Wkrhy_idzDNfbsGetERXfquHgQmSJkQ50-qwL2CsFs8BMNDD47xZNLT3qc7DIxT198wC70h2jj">Twitch channels dedicated to Pokémon trading</a>. You can even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48-qOC4fCdk">watch</a> a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13548565221074804?casa_token=xqrY42wliFwAAAAA:P0Wkrhy_idzDNfbsGetERXfquHgQmSJkQ50-qwL2CsFs8BMNDD47xZNLT3qc7DIxT198wC70h2jj#bibr54-13548565221074804">fish play Pokémon</a>.</p>
<p>The Pokémon storyline fits neatly into many of these newer ways of engaging with the franchise. A simple narrative involving the collection and training of various “pocket monsters” to compete at major tournaments nicely mirrors the “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-20975-042">completionism</a>” trend that researchers have observed in many gaming communities. </p>
<p>Fan groups similarly often collect, organise, and archive objects of their fandom, as in the Twitch stream <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjDuZi7l7P7AhWKS0EAHRu_BskQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitch.tv%2Ftwitchplayspokemon&usg=AOvVaw3QdMew2O8lzMKuHW0r6tHb">Twitch Plays Pokémon</a>, where viewers control and play the franchise’s first incarnation, Pokémon Red, and fans independently <a href="https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/download/2239/2973?inline=1">document the stream’s history and records</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pikachu appears on the left-hand side of the screen poised for battle. Backdrop shows a wooded area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495700/original/file-20221116-24-pu7fy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pikachu is a fan favourite character across the franchise.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pokemon.gamespress.com/25th-anniversary">The Pokémon Company</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pokémon’s character aesthetics and motivations also continue to appeal to gamers and viewers alike. Ash’s 25-year quest has been interpreted by some UK fans as a message to “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-49719746">keep trying</a>”, while each tournament win has been marked by fans noting the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49717728">time invested in Ash’s improvement</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tennis player Naomi Osaka smiles with her hair in a high ponytail, wearing a blue visor hat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495702/original/file-20221116-16-h4loo6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tennis star Naomi Osaka is a self-declared Pokémon fan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NaomiOsaka-smile-2020_(cropped_tight).png">Andrew Henkelman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As subsequent generations move on from the “academic record society” observed by Tajiri to our present-day understanding of the value of rest and mental health, Pokémon references even appear in the speeches of world-famous tennis pros. Naomi Osaka won fans outside the traditional tennis community in 2016 when a journalist asked her what her career goal was. She replied: “<a href="https://www.essentiallysports.com/wta-tennis-news-like-no-one-ever-was-naomi-osaka-finds-solace-in-this-pokemon-character/">To be the very best, like no one ever was</a>.”</p>
<p>Osaka later clarified the joke for the uncomprehending press and since has been regularly asked Pokémon-related questions in interviews. Relating herself to the Pokémon <a href="https://www.eurosport.co.uk/tennis/madrid/2022/studious-naomi-osaka-picking-up-nadal-tips-and-praise-for-superhero-iga-swiatek-wta-tour-diary_sto8902865/story.shtml">Snorlax</a>, Osaka expressed her love of sleeping, while emphasising her explosive strength and power, like the character when he wakes up.</p>
<h2>Growing the Pokédex</h2>
<p>The range of character types included in the franchise, from the energetic Pikachu to the slow and sleepy Snorlax, suggests that there is something for everyone to relate to, from the millennial striver to the laid-back gen Z.</p>
<p>Digital streaming platforms like Netflix make Japanese popular culture more accessible and actively generate suggestions for content that we might like to watch, meaning a broader range of anime and franchised content is now available to global viewers. Rather than creating competition for Pokémon stories, the ability to “<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nostalgiaanime/pdiobkjfjhacbceddljbnndgjkkjehig">nostalgia-watch</a>” 25-year-old episodes while also engaging with newer titles <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315612959-20/embodied-fantasy-affective-space-anime-conventions-nicolle-lamerichs">appears increasingly popular</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grand building with a large purple Pokemon ball amid its spires. Screenshot from Pokemon game play" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495704/original/file-20221116-26-6aaw4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New game, Pokémon Scarlet Violet begins in a school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pokemon.gamespress.com/Pokemon-Scarlet-and-Pokemon-Violet#?tab=screenshots-2">The Pokémon Company</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is unclear whether Ash’s adventures will continue past his ultimate win. Rumours circulating in fan communities include speculation that Ash could return as a teacher or mentor to new characters. This could be in the school which features at the start of the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiW5pyAmLP7AhW8Q0EAHeq3DtUQFnoECAsQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscarletviolet.pokemon.com%2Fen-us%2F&usg=AOvVaw3KomXQ8-XEPshUegKOyAP4">upcoming Pokemon Scarlet and Violet</a>, in a nice mirroring of Tajiri’s original inspiration to provide entertainment for stressed schoolchildren.</p>
<p>While we watch to see what Ash, or a new would-be Pokémon master, does next, the saturation of the franchise in our global everyday lives ensures that we won’t be short of Pokémon content any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Coates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Twenty-five years on from his promise to become “the very best”, Ash Ketchum has won the Pokémon World Championship. But for a franchise that’s always evolving, this is far from the end.
Jennifer Coates, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188636
2022-09-16T12:18:13Z
2022-09-16T12:18:13Z
Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’ continues to delight fans and inspire animators 20 years after its US premiere
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484891/original/file-20220915-25735-4sr3t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=208%2C7%2C1069%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics praised the film for its stunning visuals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/Spirited_Away_051.jpg?bwg=1569839416">Studio Ghibli</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature “Spirited Away” premiered in the U.S. 20 years ago, most viewers hadn’t seen anything like it.</p>
<p>Disney distributed the film. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/movies/film-review-conjuring-up-atmosphere-only-anime-can-deliver.html">But as one critic pointed out</a>, “Seeing just 10 minutes of this English version … will quickly disabuse any discerning viewer of the notion that it is a Disney creation.”</p>
<p>It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro who, when traveling with her parents, stumbles across what appears to be an abandoned theme park. As they explore, the parents are transformed into giant pigs, and Chihiro soon realizes that the park is occupied by strange, supernatural spirits. She ends up working at a bathhouse as she tries to figure out a way to free herself and her parents so they can return home.</p>
<p>The film went on <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/spirited-away-film-oscars-records-history-1235052088/">to win an Oscar</a> for Best Animated Feature. Twenty years later, it’s <a href="https://www.timeout.com/film/best-animated-movies">frequently</a> <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/40-greatest-animated-movies-ever-19817/fantastic-mr-fox-2009-3-208589/">listed</a> as one of the best animated films of all time. </p>
<p>Yet as <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/visual_art_and_design/our_people/directory/davis_northrop.php">a scholar of manga and anime studies</a>, I’m often struck by how popular the film became – and how fondly viewers remember it – given that so many of its elements would have been alien to American audiences.</p>
<h2>The manga revolution</h2>
<p>Many of the first anime films were inspired by manga, or Japanese comics.</p>
<p>Some of the <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/12/27/beginners-guide-manga">hallmarks of modern manga</a>, such as characters with big eyes, streaks to signal movement and different-sized panels <a href="https://immortalliumblog.com/the-importance-of-manga-paneling/">to convey action, character and emotion more effectively</a>, can be traced to the work of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12244368/osamu-tezuka-story-explained">Osamu Tezuka</a>, the so-called “<a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/tezuka-osamu-god-of-manga/">God of Manga</a>.” </p>
<p>Tezuka was influenced by his childhood and Japanese culture, but he was also inspired by American movies, television and comics. </p>
<p>When Tezuka was a child, he attended the performances of <a href="https://www.oldtokyo.com/takarazuka-gekijo/">Takarazuka</a>, an all-female theater group in Tokyo whose actresses tended to have well-lit, expressive eyes. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yPDHCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=pathe+projector+miyazaki&source=bl&ots=C961kgFDGy&sig=ACfU3U0AxM0ui5H20mba36S6o6XB_rJbsg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBmsaY4pb6AhVsSkEAHXK3DBkQ6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&q=pathe%20projector%20miyazaki&f=false">His father also showed him</a> American animation on a <a href="http://www.pathefilm.uk/95gearpathe.htm">Pathe projector</a>, and he was drawn to wide-eyed characters like <a href="https://media.allure.com/photos/58a2111cb02f3ebc310e2e78/master/pass/PBDBEBO_EC028_H.JPG">Betty Boop</a> and <a href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/c/ce/Profile_-_Bambi.png/revision/latest?cb=20190313173158">Bambi</a>. Together, they inspired the big, expressive eyes that would become characteristic of Tezuka’s work.</p>
<p>Tezuka’s debut manga, titled “<a href="https://tezukaosamu.net/en/manga/207.html">New Treasure Island</a>,” was published in 1947 and became a hit with Japanese youth. Soon an entire manga industry sprang up, churning out vibrantly creative and emotionally relatable comics in a wide range of genres.</p>
<p>Miyazaki was 21 years old when Tezuka’s popular manga “<a href="https://adultswim.fandom.com/wiki/Astro_Boy">Astro Boy</a>” appeared on TV in Japan in 1963. NBC soon picked it up, airing 102 episodes in the U.S. and exposing millions of Americans to Japanese anime for the first time.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h4SmuiiwCV0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Astroboy’ was the first TV show based on a Japanese manga to air in the U.S.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the ensuing decades, Americans enthusiastically embraced a range of manga and anime series through franchises like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214341/">Dragon Ball</a>,” “<a href="https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Narutopedia">Naruto</a>” and “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-54730487">Demon Slayer</a>.” </p>
<h2>Doing anime differently</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Miyazaki-Hayao">Miyazaki began his career</a> in 1963 as an entry-level animator for Toei animation. He went on to work on a number of animated TV shows and films before founding his own production company, Studio Ghibli, with his longtime friend and collaborator, Takahata Isao, in 1985. </p>
<p>Anime is often based on successful manga series, and it involves creating a vibrant character kingdom and the construction of a world that often lends itself to spinoffs like movies, television shows, musicals, toys and massive merchandising opportunities.</p>
<p>In this sense, many of the films that came out of Studio Ghibli were not really traditional anime. Most lack the merchandizing tie-ins that have become ubiquitous in franchises like “Pokemon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh.” And while some of Ghibli’s films originated as manga, many of them did not. Miyazaki and his team also broke from industry norms by hiring artists as full-time staffers, rather than as underpaid freelancers.</p>
<p>As Miyazaki once said, “Animation has the potential to be far more than just about business, or merchandising, or selling character goods; it can have its own ambitions.” </p>
<h2>When the line between good and evil blurs</h2>
<p>When “Spirited Away” was released, the only feature-length Japanese animated film most Americans would have likely been exposed to in theaters was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/10/akira-anime-japanese-cartoon-manga">Akira</a>,” which had a limited run in 1990. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences <a href="https://catalog.library.vanderbilt.edu/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991031382479703276/01VAN_INST:vanui">didn’t even award an Oscar for Best Animated Feature until 2001</a>, because Disney and Pixar so thoroughly dominated the genre. </p>
<p>Compared with traditional Western animation, manga and anime tend to reflect a more adult and complicated view of morality, rather than the “good versus evil” paradigm common in children’s media. </p>
<p>“Spirited Away” centers on a spirit world that, while present in various other manga and anime films, challenges non-Japanese audiences. It is unclear whether the spirits will harm or help the protagonist. Miyazaki, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/movies/film-review-conjuring-up-atmosphere-only-anime-can-deliver.html">New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell wrote</a>, captures “that fascinating and frightening aspect of having something that seems to represent good become evil.” </p>
<p>The world appears to be inspired by a class of spirits known as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami">kami</a>” that are venerated in the religion of Shinto, although Miyazaki has noted that he invented his own spirits, rather than use previously known kami. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11032374/">Demon Slayer</a>,” a 2020 anime film that was a hit in the U.S., <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-54730487">also contained characters</a> from the spirit world.</p>
<p>As kami expert <a href="https://www.popmatters.com/yokai-attack-the-japanese-monster-survival-guide-by-hiroko-yoda-and-matt-al-2496114419.html">Matt Alt</a> told me, “Only a place with countless shrines, each venerating their own locations and local deities, could have dreamed up something like ‘Spirited Away.’” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Girl sits on a train next to ghosts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484883/original/file-20220915-9420-1renes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The world of ‘Spirited Away’ includes supernatural entities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Spirited-Away-052.jpg">Studio Ghibli</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet thanks to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8geg4b/spirited-away-ghibli-miyazaki-15th-15-year-anniversary-best-animation-hannah-ewens">the beauty of the film’s visuals</a> – as well as the fact that, deep down, it contains universal storytelling tropes – Miyazaki can get viewers to buy into his world. No matter how strange <a href="https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Stink_Spirit">a shape-shifting sludge spirit</a> might appear to audiences, they can still relate to the spunky, and sometimes sullen, Chihiro. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Turning_Point_1997_2008/VB4hEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">As Miyazaki explained in an interview</a>, the film’s idiosyncrasies ultimately enhance its universality: “No one waves weapons about or has showdowns using superpowers, but it’s still an adventure story. And while an adventure story, a confrontation between good and evil is not the main theme either. This is supposed to be the story of a young girl who is thrown into another world, where good people and bad are all mixed up and coexisting.”</p>
<p>“In this world,” he continues, “she undergoes rigorous training, learns about friendship and self-sacrifice and, using her own basic smarts, somehow not only survives but manages to return to our world.”</p>
<h2>A lasting imprint</h2>
<p>While Walt Disney and other American creators made a huge impression on Tezuka, the influences of anime can be seen in countless <a href="https://collider.com/best-movies-inspired-by-anime-the-matrix-avatar/">American films</a> and <a href="https://www.absoluteanime.com/boondocks/">TV shows</a>.</p>
<p>This sort of cultural cross-pollination, which I detail in my book “<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/manga-and-anime-go-to-hollywood-9781623560386/">Manga and Anime Go to Hollywood</a>,” has been going on for decades. </p>
<p>Miyazaki’s films also have made a unique imprint on the imaginations of a generation of Western animators.</p>
<p>John Lasseter, the former chief creative officer of Pixar, <a href="https://www.awn.com/news/john-lasseter-pays-tribute-hayao-miyazaki-tokyo-film-festival">has said</a> that whenever he and his team got stuck for ideas, they would screen a Miyazaki film for inspiration. Domee Shi, the director for Pixar’s “Turning Red,” <a href="https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3169814/animes-influence-pixars-turning-red-spirited-away-director">specifically cited</a> “Spirited Away” as a huge influence. And a 2014 episode of “The Simpsons” <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2014/01/simpsons-miyazaki-tribute-annotated-anime-episode-says-goodbye-to-hayao-miyazaki-here-are-the-references-video.html">even contained a tribute</a> to Miyazaki. </p>
<p>Tezuka once said that a story was like a tree, which is only as strong as its roots.</p>
<p>To me, Miyazaki and his team achieved the highest level of filmmaking by not only creating gorgeous visuals, but by also crafting relatable lead characters, a compelling supporting cast and rich, enthralling worlds. Engaging viewers with a creative story arc, he always found a way to land with a timeless message.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Turning_Point_1997_2008/VB4hEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Miyazaki noted</a> that Chihiro ultimately returns to her ordinary world “not by vanquishing evil, but as a result of having learned a new way to live.”</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the class of Japanese spirits that those in “Spirited Away” evoke. It is “kami,” not “yokai.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Northrop Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Despite the fact that many of its elements were alien to American audiences, the film became a sensation.
Northrop Davis, Professor of Media Arts, University of South Carolina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185177
2022-06-16T12:32:22Z
2022-06-16T12:32:22Z
Lightyear’s same-sex kiss – the controversy that led to Disney’s first ‘real’ LGBTQ+ representation
<p>Disney-Pixar’s latest animated escapade is about to hit our cinema screens. It’s the origin story of one of their most beloved characters – Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear. In the lead-up to its release, online speculation soared after it was confirmed that Lightyear would include the <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a39814130/lightyear-toy-story-lgbtq-kiss-pixar-movie-history/">company’s first same-sex kiss</a>. The film’s producer, Galyn Susman, stated that the female character Hawthorne, voiced by <a href="https://www.broadway.com/buzz/stars/uzo-aduba/profile/">Uzo Aduba</a>, is in a “meaningful” relationship with another woman and a kiss occurs between them.</p>
<p>In response, several countries – including the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Egypt and Indonesia – <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/buzz-lightyear-origin-story-featuring-lesbian-kiss-banned-in-united-arab-emirates-12633242">recently announced</a> they would be banning Lightyear from cinemas due to its “violation of their country’s media content standard” (in short, the inclusion of LGBTQ+ themes).</p>
<p>Susman responded by saying that no scenes would be cut, adding: “It’s great we are a part of something that’s making steps forward in the social inclusion capacity, but it’s frustrating there are still places that aren’t where they should be.”</p>
<h2>Disney’s complicated LGBTQ+ history</h2>
<p>While this may seem particularly progressive in a Disney-Pixar animation, it isn’t the first time online speculation has created a sense of “queer hype” around a new Pixar film. In 2016, Disney released the trailer for Finding Dory and <a href="https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/05/find-ng-dory-lesbian-couple">fans spotted a supposedly lesbian couple in one of the scenes</a>. And after the highly anticipated Toy Story 4 was released, online communities highlighted a small glimpse of a lesbian couple dropping off their child at daycare.</p>
<p>Yet despite small inclusive moments such as these, LGBTQ+ communities and fans have often been left disappointed with the final product. So while the Lightyear kiss marks a huge step forward for Disney, which has shied away from any overt LGBTQ+ representation in the past, it’s not surprising that many viewers remain sceptical. Will this be another minuscule attempt to please the LGBTQ+ audience, or is it really a groundbreaking moment for Disney and Pixar?</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wHBBoUtJHhA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Susman’s insistence that Hawthorne’s kiss will be retained in all versions could be seen as a little ironic when considering Disney’s representational past. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/pixar-lightyear-same-sex-kiss-b2039345.html">According to some reports</a>, the same-sex kiss in Lightyear had originally been cut. However, it was later restored following the recent “Don’t Say Gay” ordeal that brought the company into the headlines.</p>
<h2>Disney and ‘Don’t Say Gay’</h2>
<p>In March 2022, the Florida Senate passed the <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF">Don’t Say Gay bill</a>, which forbids schools from discussing and promoting topics surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity. Given its huge cultural reputation in the state, fans and employees were left frustrated by Disney’s lack of response to, or condemnation of, the bill.</p>
<p>Following a staff walk-out and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paigeskinner/disney-dont-say-gay-bill">major social media reaction</a>, Disney changed its tune, halting all political donations to Republican and Democratic parties and giving a pledge to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/media/dont-say-gay-bill-disney-chapek-desantis/index.html">donate $5 million (£4.1 million) to LGBTQ+ charities and organisations</a>. The company’s CEO, Bob Chapek, also stated in an internal memo that the “biggest impact” the company could make “in creating a more inclusive world is through the inspiring content we produce”.</p>
<p>Responding to this, a letter attributed to “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar and their allies”, published by <a href="https://variety.com/2022/film/news/disney-pixar-same-sex-affection-censorship-dont-say-gay-bill-1235200582/">Variety</a>, suggested that “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Animated woman in space suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469103/original/file-20220615-18-5kx147.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alisha Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, is in a same-sex relationship in the film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imEbEmiBs6o&ab_channel=Pixar">Disney Media/Pixar</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disney did not comment directly on the letter but in another <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/statement-on-disneys-support-for-the-lgbtq-community/">internal memo</a>, Chapek responded by saying: “You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry.”</p>
<h2>Keeping the kiss</h2>
<p>Now, in a dramatic shift, it appears Disney is refusing to budge over Lightyear – opting to take the inevitable financial loss of not playing in those banned markets for the sake of wider LGBTQ+ awareness and values.</p>
<p>In hindsight, the backlash from Disney’s slow reaction to the Don’t Say Gay bill may have elevated this need for change, and for an improved and contemporary public image. But it’s still important to acknowledge that this change is happening. </p>
<p>A vastly wider landscape of queer media is forming amid popular streaming shows such as Sex Education, Heartstopper and Euphoria – and Lightyear might signal that Disney is (slowly) joining in. Disney’s major reputation and cultural impact have the power to shape viewers’ perceptions and awareness. With an audience primarily consisting of children and families, seeing a same-sex kiss between two characters could be very important for self-identification, and could contribute towards wider LGBTQ+ acceptance. </p>
<p>Criticism of Lightyear and its same-sex kiss will inevitably ensue, so it is important that Disney stands its ground by staying true to LGBTQ+ values. I and other Disney-Pixar LGBTQ+ fans and allies, frustrated at its previous lack of representation, will be watching Lightyear with eagle eyes, waiting for the glorious moment we’ve been anticipating – some true representation for the first time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Weaver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The company has been suspected of alluding to same-sex couples in the past but Lightyear’s kiss could be the first overt instance of LGBTQ+ representation.
Matt Weaver, PhD Student in Film, Media & Communication, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182206
2022-05-09T12:04:41Z
2022-05-09T12:04:41Z
Disney hasn’t found itself in this much trouble since 1941
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461854/original/file-20220508-52494-lp8lmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C7%2C2354%2C1799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee claiming that communists once 'took over' his studio.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cartoonist-walt-disney-shown-as-he-told-the-house-news-photo/514686200?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The family-friendly, controversy-averse Walt Disney Co. has walked into the buzz saw of the American culture wars, version 2022. </p>
<p>In April, officials at Disney objected to a Florida <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089221657/dont-say-gay-florida-desantis">law prohibiting instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity</a> in kindergarten through third grade. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded by signing <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/desantis-signs-bill-ending-disney-s-self-governing-status-in-florida-138345029985">a bill revoking Disney’s self-governing status</a>, a unique arrangement in which the company operated like an independent fiefdom within the state.</p>
<p>Traditionally, the custodians of one of Hollywood’s most reliable cash machines <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/57290/walt-disney-by-neal-gabler/">have been careful to sidestep political minefields</a> that might remind customers of a realm outside the Magic Kingdom. Better to wallow with Scrooge McDuck in <a href="https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Money_Bin">the Money Bin</a> than be caught in the crosshairs of Fox News chyrons.</p>
<p>Only once before has the Disney brand gotten so entangled in a public relations briar patch – in 1941, when the original iteration of the company was confronted by an internal revolt that pitted the founding visionary against his pen-and-ink scriveners.</p>
<p>The characters in the showdown were as colorful as any drawn on the studio’s animation cels: union activists, gangsters, communists and anti-communists, and, not least, Walt Disney himself, who, dropping his avuncular persona, played a long game of political hardball and slow-burn payback. </p>
<h2>Workers grumble as Disney’s star soars</h2>
<p>Even then, Walt Disney inspired a special kind of awe around Hollywood. </p>
<p>Billy Wilkerson, editor of The Hollywood Reporter, declared Disney “the only real genius in this business” in the Dec. 17, 1937, issue of the periodical. </p>
<p>Disney was hailed as the father of the first sound cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019422/">Steamboat Willie</a>” (1928); the first Technicolor cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022899/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Flowers and Trees</a>” (1932); and the first feature-length cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</a>” (1937). </p>
<p>“Snow White” marked the beginning of the extraordinary creative streak – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032910/">Pinocchio</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032455/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Fantasia</a>” in 1940, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033563/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3">Dumbo</a>” the following year and 1942’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034492/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bambi</a>” – on which the Disney mythos would be built forever. </p>
<p>In 1940, Disney plowed the profits from “Snow White” into a state-of-the-art animation studio in Burbank, California, where the comfort of his workers, so he said, was a high priority.</p>
<p>“One of Walt Disney’s greatest wishes has always been that his employees could work in ideal surroundings,” read an advertisement in the Oct. 10, 1940, issue of The Hollywood Reporter. “The dean of animated cartoons realizes that a happy personnel turns out the best work.”</p>
<p>But even by the standards of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Class-Struggle-Hollywood-1930-1950-Unionists-ebook/dp/B00GINVARU/ref=sr_1_8?crid=3DB58E1VWGE3L&keywords=hollywood+labor&qid=1651785731&s=books&sprefix=hollywood+labor%2Cstripbooks%2C162&sr=1-8ink">exploitative Hollywood shop floors</a>, Disney animators were overworked and underpaid. Forced to hunch over a drawing board for 10 hours a day, they had no desire to whistle while they worked. Instead, they wanted a strong union to negotiate on their behalf. Disney didn’t want any of it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman holds cartoon drawing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Disney animator works on cells from the film ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/disney-animator-works-on-cells-from-the-film-snow-white-news-photo/164231016?adppopup=true">Earl Theisen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The animators opted to be represented by the confrontational <a href="https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8cn760m/entire_text/">Screen Cartoonists Guild</a> rather than the pro-management “company union,” the American Society of Screen Cartoonists. </p>
<p>“Disney cartoonists make less than house painters,” <a href="https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher144unse/page/n473/mode/2up?view=theater&q=link">charged the guild</a>. “The girls are the lowest paid in the entire cartoon field. They earn from $16 to $20 a week, with very few earning as high as $22.50.” The guild demanded a 40-hour, five-day work week, severance pay, paid vacation and a minimum wage scale ranging from $18 a week for apprentices to $250 for cartoon directors.</p>
<p>To go nose to nose with Disney in the negotiations, the Screen Cartoonists Guild chose <a href="https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/in-his-own-words-herb-sorrell-and-the-1941-disney-strike/">Herbert Sorrell</a> of the Motion Picture Painters, Local 644, a longtime thorn in the side of studio management. </p>
<p>Sorrell was a broad-shouldered union man of the old-school variety. A former heavyweight prize fighter, he was not afraid to mix it up on the picket line with cops and strikebreakers. </p>
<p>Sorrell’s footwork in the boxing ring – not to mention the brass knuckles he carried – came in handy. In the 1930s, labor organizing in Hollywood could be more hazardous than stunt work. Many studio heads had already <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/black-friday-hollywood-in-1945-1235021178/">cut sweetheart deals</a> with the mobbed-up trade unions, notably the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, run by a Chicago-schooled gangster named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1955/11/05/archives/blast-in-truck-kills-willie-bioff-once-hollywood-racket-leader.html">Willie Bioff</a>.</p>
<h2>Animators put down their pens</h2>
<p>On May 28, 1941, the Screen Cartoonists Guild called a strike, and hundreds of animators <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjX7S35mn0&t=45s">walked out on Disney</a>. </p>
<p>Brazenly violating Disney’s copyright, the strikers repurposed Disney characters into pro-union spokesmen and paraded outside theaters playing Disney films. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/53/Disney_Strike.jpg/300px-Disney_Strike.jpg">There are no strings on me!</a>” exclaimed Pinocchio in one placard. The slogans were as clever as the visuals: “<a href="https://babbittblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/strike-01.jpg?w=350&h=376">Snow White and 700 Dwarfs</a>,” “<a href="https://www.awn.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline/public/image/attached/2586-sito01disneystrikers.jpg?itok=POnit4ST">3 Years College, 2 Years Art School, 5 Years Animation Equals 1 Hamburger Stand</a>” and “<a href="https://www.historynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Disney-Strike-2000x577.jpg">Are We Mice or Men?</a>”</p>
<p>Disney was enraged. <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380787808/">He claimed</a> that Sorrell had threatened to turn the Burbank studio into a “dust bowl” unless he caved to the strikers’ demands. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man with glasses poses holding a cigarette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Disney preferred to negotiate with Willie Bioff, a mob-connected union leader who was cozy with management.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-is-a-copy-photo-of-willie-bioff-famous-chicago-mobster-news-photo/515024512?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Behind the scenes, Disney offered the SCG a deal brokered by the gangster Willie Bioff. </p>
<p>Disney then placed ads in the trade press saying he had made generous offers to “your leaders” – that would be Bioff – and had acceded to most of the strikers’ demands.</p>
<p>“I am positively convinced that Communistic agitation, leadership and activities have brought about this strike, and has persuaded you to reject this fair and equitable settlement,” <a href="https://cronkitehhh.jmc.asu.edu/blog/2012/12/disney-and-the-1941-animators-strike/">Disney said</a>.</p>
<p>“Dear Walt,” <a href="https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=4085&start=54">Sorrell retorted</a>, “Willie Bioff is not our leader. Present your terms to OUR elected leaders, so that they may be presented to us and there should be no difficulty in quickly settling our differences.”</p>
<p>Eventually, the feds, in the person of the National Labor Relations Board, intervened. On July 29, after 62 days of rage on both sides, Disney settled – through clenched teeth. Disney and the Screen Cartoonists Guild squabbled intermittently until the end of the year, but Sorrell had won on the big points: better wages, job security and a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/closed-shop">closed shop</a>,” which requires union membership as a condition for employment.</p>
<h2>Disney’s revenge</h2>
<p>To Disney, though, this wasn’t just a dispute between management and labor. It was oedipal rebellion against the father in his own house.</p>
<p>In October 1947, Disney got his chance for revenge when <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=460vAAAAMAAJ&q=disney#v=onepage&q=disney&f=false">he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities</a>, which was investigating Hollywood for alleged communist subversion in motion picture content and within the ranks of organized labor. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man sits on steps drawing for two kids." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While waiting to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Walt Disney draws for the daughter of the chief counsel for the committee and the son of a committee investigator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/while-waiting-to-testify-before-the-house-unamerican-news-photo/514905244?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disney was called as a friendly witness, and friendly he was: While waiting to testify, <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/381119990/">he good-naturedly sketched pictures</a> of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for the children of the committee members.</p>
<p>At the witness table, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=460vAAAAMAAJ&q=disney#v=onepage&q=disney&f=false">Disney emphasized</a> that while today “everyone in my studio is 100% American,” the percentage had not always been so high. He named the name that had stuck in his craw since 1941. “A delegation of my boys, my artists, came to me and told me that Mr. Herbert Sorrell … was trying to take them over,” Disney said. Sorrell and his cohorts, charged Disney, “are communists,” though admittedly, “no one has any way of proving those things.” </p>
<p>Proven or not, Disney’s allegations were career-killers. Many of the activist cartoonists of 1941 fell victim to Hollywood’s notorious <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2018/june/blacklist-qa-tom-doherty.html">blacklist era</a>, when hundreds of workers on both sides of the screen were rendered persona non grata at the studios for their political affinities.</p>
<p>As a result, the Screen Cartoonists Guild softened its tone. In 1952, <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124070/drawing-the-line/">it voted to become affiliated</a> with the firmly anti-communist International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees – Bioff’s former outfit. As for Sorrell, he was hounded by charges of communist sympathies and ultimately barred from a leadership position in his own union.</p>
<p>Disney, you know about. After venting before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he navigated the company back to the 50-yard line of America’s culture wars. There the entertainment conglomerate stayed – until recently, when it wandered off Disney World into the swampland of Florida politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Doherty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The custodians of one of Hollywood’s most reliable cash machines have been careful to sidestep political minefields that might remind customers of a realm outside the Magic Kingdom.
Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181703
2022-04-29T12:21:31Z
2022-04-29T12:21:31Z
Gilbert Gottfried and the mechanics of crafting one of the most memorable voices of all time
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460333/original/file-20220428-12-yk51sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2982%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marlee Matlin covers her ears as Gottfried performs during the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump in 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ComedyCentralRoastofDonaldTrump/9f6393d4b209436788f830ae5dfd82cf/photo?Query=gilbert%20gottfried&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=154&currentItemNo=131">AP Photo/Charles Sykes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though Gilbert Gottfried’s voice has alternatively been described as “<a href="https://variety.com/2022/film/news/gilbert-gottfried-dead-dies-comedian-aladdin-1235231387">shrill</a>,” “<a href="https://www.looper.com/132868/whatever-happened-to-gilbert-gottfried/">annoying</a>” and “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/entertainment/gilbert-gottfried-death/index.html">grating</a>,” you can’t say it isn’t memorable.</p>
<p>Gottfried, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/arts/gilbert-gottfried-dead.html">who died on April 12, 2022</a>, didn’t naturally sound this way. Watch him perform as a cast member during on the sixth season of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idtrUge0wAQ">Saturday Night Live</a>,” and you’ll hear a voice that sounds downright angelic by comparison. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gilbert Gottfried’s brief run as a cast member on ‘Saturday Night Live’ occurred before the development of his signature voice.</span></figcaption>
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<p>But as he developed his comic persona, that distinctive sound made its way into his performances in stand-up comedy, advertising, television and film – perhaps most famously as Iago in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Aladdin</a>,” Mr. Peabody in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100419/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2">Problem Child</a>” and as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8PGzYwTsqM">squawking duck</a> in advertisements for the insurance giant Aflac. </p>
<p>Clearly, Gottfried figured out how to create a character that perfectly synced a personality with a voice that matched – a particularly valuable skill for actors that requires a combination of technique and instinct.</p>
<h2>The smooth operators</h2>
<p>In 2001, the Center for Voice Disorders at Wake Forest University <a href="https://newsroom.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2002/01/Americans-Speak-Out-Select-the-Best-and-Worst-Voices-in-America-In-Online-Polling">surveyed Americans</a> asking them who possessed the best and worst voices. The actors with the three best voices were James Earl Jones, Sean Connery and Julia Roberts. </p>
<p>The worst? Leading the pack was Fran Drescher of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106080/">The Nanny</a>” fame, followed by Roseanne Barr and – you guessed it – Gilbert Gottfried.</p>
<p><a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/theatre_and_dance/our_people/directory/tobolski_erica.php">As a voice specialist</a> who teaches acting, voice and speech, I work with students and clients who often want to sound more like Connery and Roberts, and less like Gottfried.</p>
<p>Three distinct subsystems are involved in vocal production: the larynx, <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/19708.htm">or voice box</a>, which houses the vocal folds; the lungs and diaphragm in breathing; and areas where sounds resonate, or the vocal tract.</p>
<p>Speaking well involves a mix of understanding this vocal anatomy, utilizing proper breathing techniques and learning how to speak without excess tension. Collectively, these elements are known as <a href="https://voicefoundation.org/health-science/voice-disorders/anatomy-physiology-of-voice-production/the-voice-mechanism/">the voice mechanism</a>. </p>
<p>If a student or client comes into a session seeking a more effective voice, it’s these fundamentals that will be addressed. When these elements work together, they create a balanced vocal quality, one that’s generally perceived as confident and professional – think <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIiNuLgUInk">Morgan Freeman</a>. </p>
<h2>Developing a character</h2>
<p>But there’s a special niche for voices that are unusual.</p>
<p>The very skills that an actor learns to create a melodious voice can also be manipulated for a character voice – which is exactly what Gottfried was able to do, along with other actors who developed memorable characters, such as Jim Carrey in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110475/?ref_=vp_close">The Mask</a>” and Eartha Kitt as Yzma in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHA2rNGUusU">The Emperor’s New Groove</a>.” Meryl Streep has been especially adept at creating unique voices for a number of roles, but one that stands out to me is her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnwG9lTd4-M">The Iron Lady</a>.”</p>
<p>Understanding what you can change – and how to change it – is the key. </p>
<p>In my voice-over class, for example, I introduce a range of vocal qualities that can be mined to develop new voices. Five of the most common are a hoarse voice, a breathy one, a creaky one – also known as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L7-9N1xQZA">vocal fry</a> – a voice that incorporates hypernasality and one that accentuates hyponasality, which refers to how most people sound when they have a cold.</p>
<p>One of the best and most immediate ways to change your voice is by placing it in a specific resonating area of the body – such as the sinuses or throat – or by changing how the vocal folds vibrate. </p>
<p>In a class on character voice, I coach students to direct the sound of their voice into their nasal cavity for a hypernasal sound, and into the back of their throat, the pharyngeal cavity, for a hyponasal sound. </p>
<p>To trigger a hypernasal sound, you could quack like a duck – “Aflac!” – or mimic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002121/">Margaret Hamilton’s</a> Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz” with the phrase “I’ll get you, my pretty!”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Wicked Witch of the West in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ possesses the hallmarks of the hypernasal sound.</span></figcaption>
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<p>For a hyponasal sound, pinch your nostrils together so no sound comes through the nasal passage, and you’ll sound like you have a stuffy nose. Widening the back of your throat while you speak will create a sound similar to that of Lenny from “Loony Tunes.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sounding droopy and dopey like Lenny can involve accentuating a hyponasal sound.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Want to sound like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001413/">Julie Kavner’s</a> rendition of Marge Simpson, who speaks with a creaky voice? Relax your throat and say “uhhh” in a very low pitch. The vocal folds are short and thick and create a slow vibration. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Marge Simpson pushes back against suggestions that she sounds like Vice President Kamala Harris.</span></figcaption>
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<p>To achieve a breathy quality, sigh out an easy “hahhh” with half voice and half breath. Marilyn Monroe singing “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH3oOVKt0WI">Happy Birthday</a>” to President John F. Kennedy captures this vocal quality perfectly. </p>
<p>If Gilbert Gottfried were to walk into my classroom and ask me to analyze his character voice, I would describe it as a combination of hypernasality and raspy, with a bit of stridency thrown in. He speaks in a relatively high pitch with little modulation and stays at a consistently high volume. </p>
<p>Of course, Gottfried perfected this sound, and it worked in tandem with his brand of humor. If you were to develop something similar, just make sure you could figure out when to hit the “off” switch.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gilbert Gottfried as Mr. Peabody in ‘Problem Child.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Tobolski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Though it was exceedingly grating, the late comedian was able to perfect a sound that worked in tandem with his brand of humor.
Erica Tobolski, Professor of Theatre and Dance, University of South Carolina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179912
2022-03-24T16:19:10Z
2022-03-24T16:19:10Z
Turning Red: Girlhood in animation should be allowed to be angry and messy
<p>Animation has been conceived as “for children” for decades even though animation pre-dates cinema (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1fUSqH5op8">the magic lantern show</a>, for example) and was <a href="https://theconversation.com/cartoons-have-always-been-for-adults-but-heres-how-they-got-tangled-up-with-kids-130421">originally made for adults</a>. However, while these films might be for children and often are about children, it’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-17620-4">not always the children who choose these films but the parents</a>. </p>
<p>The complexity of this has been exposed recently with Pixar’s new film, Turning Red. The film focuses on 13-year-old Mei Lee who has followed her mother’s strict guidance throughout her life but is now craving a wilder teenagehood. Her version of this includes hanging out with friends her mother disapproves of and attending a concert by her favourite boy band.</p>
<p>Things get messy when a hereditary curse makes her turn into a panda whenever her emotions get out of hand. For instance, in one scene Mei sees the convenience store clerk she has a crush on and the panda stamps its foot in glee, panting and shouting “awooga!” Unsurprisingly, this scene has become a popular meme and gif on the internet.</p>
<p>The film has been met with a lot of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/well/family/turning-red-periods-discussion.html">criticism from parents</a>. Mei’s rambunctiousness and rebelliousness have been seen as a bad role model for young viewers and the representations of a young girl’s menstrual cycles and burgeoning sexuality deemed “inappropriate”. But these are all things that happen to real girls Mei’s age, so why should they not be allowed in children’s entertainment? </p>
<p>Reactions to Turning Red show that some audiences still expect girls on screen to behave in certain ways. It raises the question: what type of female childhood is worthy of representation?</p>
<h2>No more timid women</h2>
<p>Pixar’s owner, the Walt Disney Company, has been central in debates about gender representation through their Princess franchise. These stories are usually about romance with the central female character a young girl who falls in love by the end of the film, preferably with a prince. The origin of this princess-type is Snow White who demonstrates throughout that she is the perfect young woman - beautiful and can tend to a home (as she does with the dwarfs’ house). While there have been alterations to this princess-type, including Belle’s intelligence in Beauty and the Beast, the older princesses are generally pretty and demure, devoid of rich interior lives. </p>
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<p>Responding to criticism, Disney has sought to make more empowered princesses. The most recent addition, Moana, was celebrated for her transition from “<a href="https://theconversation.com/moana-fulfils-disneys-long-journey-from-timid-princess-to-empowered-working-woman-69003">timid princess to empowered working woman</a>” (although, Moana insists she is “not a Princess”). Turning Red follows suit telling the story of an imperfect girl with relatable characteristics and conundrums. It also is a representation of the Chinese-Canadian experience, which is also not always represented on screen and adds more complexity to the character. </p>
<h2>Emotional girls</h2>
<p>There are distinct and accepted narrative traits of cinematic girlhood including “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137388926">heightened, disrupted emotions</a>”. While boys are physically adventurous in films, girls are frequently presented as emotional beings who struggle to come to terms with their various emotions as they age into adolescence and womanhood.</p>
<p>Tellingly, Pixar’s Inside Out mostly takes place within the mind of 11-year-old Riley who experiences emotional turmoil when her family uproots her life when they move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Within Riley’s mind are five main emotional characters that control her actions (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger). The film’s turning point occurs when Sadness takes over from Anger, leading Riley to confess her unhappiness and learn to accept her new life.</p>
<p>Notably, Anger is voiced by a male comedian (Lewis Black). Anger, as an emotion, is frequently denied for young girls. As film academic <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137388926">Lisa Downing</a> puts it, “our cultural projection of qualities of innocence and passivity onto childhood, and girlhood in particular, denies young girls the capacity to express violent actions or emotions”.</p>
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<p>Therefore, part of the response to Turning Red is about the anger Mei experiences and how this anger physically and emotionally tears apart her home, school and city. In Turning Red, girlhood anger is an indomitable force to be reckoned with. </p>
<p>The film even suggests that Mei should be proud of this side of herself. It is important that Mei is able to keep and contain this spirit. It could be said, then, that the panda, while messy and unruly, allows Mei to be her most authentic self as opposed to a traditional view (upheld by the other women in her family) that women should be respectable and demure. </p>
<p>The panda is not purely anger, but is this combustible set of emotions that cause the most strife in the film. Even in the climax of the film when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coi-ay19yhA">Mei’s mother’s</a> demands that she restrain her beast, Mei responds by gyrating and shaking her butt in an angry and freeing act of bold defiance. There is so much anger from mother and daughter but also love and fear that is not repressed for once but allowed to flow freely. This display is crass, destructive and full blooded. It is, what some might call, “unladylike”. </p>
<p>Princesses huff and puff, stomp their feet and cry in disapproval, frequently frustrated by those around them, but they do not get angry. It is an emotion that is rarely exhibited with violence and destruction in animated projections of girlhood. Instead of criticising girlhood anger, we should celebrate this unique, but accurate, reflection of girlhood and the complexities involved in growing up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Lobalzo Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Representations of girls on screen have become much better over the years but there is still a vocal audience who would rather they be tame and demure.
Julie Lobalzo Wright, Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177562
2022-03-23T18:04:29Z
2022-03-23T18:04:29Z
Bestia: Oscar-nominated film exposes how the powerful in Chile still don’t pay for human rights abuses
<p><em>This article contains references to sexual assault and rape that some may find distressing.</em></p>
<p>Chilean stop-motion animation film <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bestia">Bestia</a>, up for an Oscar in the shorts category, has exposed wounds in a country still grappling with the demons of its past. Bestia, directed by Hugo Corruvias, tells the chilling story of <a href="https://oicanadian.com/the-nazi-beast-ingrid-olderock-the-cruel-chilean-torturer-known-as-the-woman-with-the-dogs/">Ingrid Olderock</a> a Chile-born German known as “The Dog Lady”. Olderok was an agent of the National Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), which was created by Augusto Pinochet after overthrowing Salvador Allende in 1973.</p>
<p>Accounts by her victims alleged that she had trained her German Shephard Volodia to rape female left-wing dissidents during the Pinochet regime. The film is inspired by Journalist Nancy Guzman’s <a href="https://www.montacerdos.cl/products/ingrid-olderock-la-mujer-de-los-perros">book</a> La Mujer de los Perros (The Dog Lady). Guzman interviewed the now-deceased torturer in 1996.</p>
<p>The film exposes the depths of torture and corruption in Chile through the troubled mind and everyday thoughts of Olderok. After Pinochet fell, those who had committed the worst atrocities were let off scot-free and allowed to reintegrate into society. </p>
<p>The same happened again in 2019 after Chileans rose against continuing inequality and injustice. While the dictatorship-era constitution was abolished, politicians used it once again not to pay for their crimes. Bestia exposes how the powerful in Chile then and now can avoid punishment for such human rights abuses. </p>
<h2>The Dog Lady</h2>
<p>Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Bernhardt was raised in the German Colony of Peñaflor in central Chile where her grandparents settled shortly after the second world war. She went to a German school and she and her siblings were forbidden to speak Spanish or mix with Chileans. She told Guzman:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was a Nazi from childhood. Germany had never been stronger than under the Nazis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her 20s, Olderock became a policewoman, quickly ascending the chain of command thanks to her diligence and work ethic. She was Chile’s first female parachutist to jump 1,000 feet and a skilled markswoman. </p>
<p>Shortly after the 1973 coup, she presented a project to her boss: to train an anti-Marxist female commando. A year later, she was in charge of 60 trainees at the School of Santo Domingo, equipping them to shoot, follow, detain and torture left-wing female dissidents.</p>
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<p>In 1975, Olderock was asked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/08/manuel-contreras-head-of-chiles-spy-agency-under-pinochet-dies-aged-86">the head of the secret police</a> (DINA) to participate in the interrogation of prisoners. Volodia the German Shephard dog became Olderock’s most terrifying instrument of torture. </p>
<p>In the dank basement of an ordinary house in Santiago nicknamed <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/sale-of-venda-sexy-torture-centre-highlights-chiles-struggle-for-historical-memory-regarding-sexual-violence/">“<em>La Venda Sexy</em>”</a> (sexy blindfold), she is alleged to have directed the hound to sexually abuse and maul detainees, most of whom were killed and then disposed of. It wasn’t until 1981 when an attempt was made on her life by two members of the underground resistance, that Olderock’s name and heinous deeds became known to the public.</p>
<p>How was such a sinister character allowed to live in anonymity until she died in 2001? Put simply, Pinochet’s military <a href="https://apnews.com/article/7315b8a74254491786c02fa559b05fd6">pact of silence</a> and a culture of impunity that still thrives in Chile today.</p>
<h2>Urgent Reform</h2>
<p>Neither the military nor police force has been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/26/hrw-calls-for-urgent-police-reform-in-chile-to-address-abuses">reformed</a> since the start of Chile’s weak democracy. This period of transition began when Pinochet lost the 1988 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/10/06/chiles-pinochet-beaten-in-plebiscite-on-rule/cbc2e773-f1cc-4c37-bcb5-91b9de1e8084/">referendum</a> after which he was forced to concede power to a civilian government. </p>
<p>This transition toward democracy came with conditions attached. Pinochet demanded the silence of the survivors of torture, and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur450311998en.pdf">immunity</a> from prosecution for those that committed human rights abuses during the regime. This forced victims to live alongside their former abusers, like Olderock. To date, the whereabouts of around 4,000 people disappeared by the regime is still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/14/where-are-they-families-search-for-chile-disappeared-prisoners">unknown</a>.</p>
<p>With an unreformed military whose silence and crimes are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/09/chile-years-pinochet-s-coup-impunity-must-end/">protected</a> by the current constitution, a new generation of torture victims are having to live in silence. </p>
<h2>A Democracy Bathed in Blood</h2>
<p>Modern political developments in Chile have all been rooted in political agreements that guarantee immunity for the military, exclude important social actors and ensure the model implemented by the regime remains untouched. In 1985, the <a href="https://elpais.com/diario/1985/12/22/internacional/504054014_850215.html">national agreement</a> seeking a path toward democracy was signed by the Catholic Church, the regime and a small number of opposition groups. Groups affected by the repression, left-wing politicians and nongovernmental organisations were excluded.</p>
<p>In 1991, the “<a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/chile/">Rettig Report</a>” into human rights violations was published on the condition that retaliation violence from left-wing groups was included. Large sections of print were blacked out, protecting the identity of military personnel involved in human rights aberrations. </p>
<p>In 2004 torture victims were invited to give their testimonies to the “National Commission of Political Prison and Torture”. They were paid a paltry sum and the file closed for 50 years. </p>
<p>After the social uprisings over the cost of living in late 2019 dubbed “<em>El Estallido</em>” (social outbreak), Chile’s attorney general’s Office launched <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/chile">8,581 total cases of alleged police abuses</a>. This was in response to widespread military <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2020/10/eyes-on-chile-police-violence-at-protests/">repression</a> against protesters that resulted in over 500 ocular traumas, 35 deaths and tens of thousands of accusations of torture.</p>
<p>The 2019 “<em>Acuerdo por la Paz</em>” (<a href="https://chilereports.cl/en/news/2019/12/02/agreement-for-social-peace-and-a-new-constitution">peace agreement</a>) was a timely solution for the president Sebastián Piñera and his cronies. In exchange for a new constitution, he would get himself off the hook and create a mechanism to quell the uprising. As a result, many of the cases have been closed without prosecution.</p>
<p>Once again, the agreement was made by an elite group, mistrusted by the general public and <a href="https://radio.uchile.cl/2019/11/18/un-acuerdo-excluyente-sin-paz-ni-justicia/">excluding</a> important social actors. It also <a href="https://www.laizquierdadiario.cl/El-proceso-constituyente-nacio-como-un-pacto-de-impunidad-para-los-responsables-de-las-violaciones">side-stepped</a> the many human rights violations, adding yet another layer of impunity in Chile’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">imperfect</a> democracy.</p>
<p>During the dictatorship Chileans resisted impunity through <a href="https://www.forgingmemory.org/narrative/nueva-cancion-chile">song</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23970034">murals</a> and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/arpilleras-chile-marjorie-agosin">textile</a> art. In the digital age, a new generation of filmmakers and content producers continue the struggle against repression, cronyism and lingering injustices. In this context, Bestia serves as both testament and homage to Chile’s forgotten victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carole Concha Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A provocative short film about a woman and her dog, Bestia highlights the impunity enjoyed by Chile’s military and politicians
Carole Concha Bell, PhD Candidate, Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177004
2022-02-16T17:20:22Z
2022-02-16T17:20:22Z
Flee: animation is a powerful medium for documentaries about conflict and refugees
<p>The Danish animated documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8430054/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1">Flee</a> directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1853542/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">Jonas Poher Rasmussen</a> is a powerful feat of storytelling. So much so it has earned <a href="https://mubi.com/films/flee/awards">several awards and nominations</a>. </p>
<p>Flee tells the story of Amin Nawabi, a gay Danish citizen and former Afghan refugee who has become a succesful academic. Audiences travel with Amin as he recalls his childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan during the rise of the Mujahideen, and his family’s escape from the country as they fear for their lives in the late 1980s. </p>
<p>It is the first film in the history of the Oscars to be nominated for <a href="https://www.dfi.dk/en/english/flee-nominated-three-oscar-categories">best international film, animation and documentary</a>. These awards and nominations speak to the importance and potential of animated documentaries to reach global audiences and illuminate key social issues.</p>
<p>At first glance, animated documentaries may seem like a contradiction in terms. Animation is commonly associated with comedy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cartoons-have-always-been-for-adults-but-heres-how-they-got-tangled-up-with-kids-130421">children’s entertainment</a> and fantasy. Documentaries are associated with the representation of social and political realities by means of visible evidence. The first implies escapism and subjectivity, while the latter a degree of objectivity and a form of photographic or archival evidence.</p>
<p>Yet, animation has a long history of being used as a tool to express political and social commentary, and was used within documentaries as early as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0009620/">1918</a>. Flee follows other animated films from conflict zones that have found international success, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808417/">Persepolis</a> (2007) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185616/">Waltz with Bashir</a> (2008). These films use animation as means to mediate the realities of the trauma of war from a subjective point of view. </p>
<h2>Flee, the power of animation and the personal perspective</h2>
<p>The filmmaker, Jonas Rasmussen, has been a friend of Amin’s since they were at school together. Their relationship is key in creating an intimate portrait of the life of a refugee, as Rasmussen interviews his friend in a manner that recalls therapy. This allows Amin to tell his own story of fleeing Afghanistan as a teenager for Russia and his subsequent journey to Denmark. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WzUVeuX1u04?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In animated documentaries, the animation is usually a substitute for what live-action cannot depict. It tends to moves on an axis between realism and abstraction. In Flee the choice of using animation also emanated from the political circumstances of being a refugee. The form allows for the <a href="https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/flee-art-director-jess-nicholls-cinematography-live-action-1235126068/">necessary anonymity</a> that protects the protagonist’s identity (Amin is a pseudonym). </p>
<p>As the film relates to actual events it was important that the animation style maintain a connection to reality. The film’s aesthetic is therefore largely realist. Drawing scenes from the perspective of <a href="https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/flee-art-director-jess-nicholls-cinematography-live-action-1235126068/">an imaginary live-action camera</a>, the film follows many visual conventions of documentary films. </p>
<p>The film also intersperses news footage with Amin’s animated recollections. This provides the historical context and, combined with the realist animation, places Amin’s individual story within the social and historical realities shared by many asylum seekers fleeing Afghanistan in the late 1980s. </p>
<p>Where the liberating nature of animation takes full form is in parts of the film that engage with Amin’s traumatic memories. These are represented using more abstract and poetic imagery. </p>
<p>One of us (Yael) <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/animation-in-the-middle-east-9781786731715/">recently wrote a chapter in a book on animation in the Middle East</a>. She argues that animation functions evocatively to visualise the “invisible” nature of trauma, allowing us a glimpse into the protagonists’ subjectivity. This, we argue, is where the animation in Flee holds the potential to break the stereotypical representation of refugees, homosexuality, Muslims and Afghans.</p>
<h2>The role of film in humanising asylum seekers</h2>
<p>Films that present the points of view of asylum seekers <a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/07/in-limbo-understanding-the-painful-human-existence-of-asylum-seekers/">challenge anti-migrant views</a> in the media and politicians who portray them as criminals. Flee goes a long way to counter these harmful narratives that continue to shape the refugee experience today. While portraying an experience in the 1980s, the film transcends its historical moment through presenting pointed parallels with the geopolitics of our current moment.</p>
<p>In particular, the film resonates with contemporary events surrounding <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/20/failure-create-safe-routes-forcing-afghans-make-perilous-journeys-uk">failures to protect Afghan refugees</a> following the withdrawal of US and international forces in 2021, which led to the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/31/asia/taliban-control-kabul-airport-intl/index.html">Taliban’s seizing of control</a> of the country. </p>
<p>The film also highlights the differences in the contemporary refugee experience. Flee could be seen as a public relations boost for Denmark, a country that is seen to accept and integrate asylum seekers. However, the reality that Amin would face today is very different. With nationalism increasing around the world, policies that restrict migration and asylum are on the rise. Under current Danish asylum policies, it appears less likely he would have been granted asylum. </p>
<p>The Danish government is seeking to <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/06/denmarks-immigrants-forced-out-government-policies">prevent asylum applications</a> with new legislation that allows refugees to be deported from third countries where their applications are to be processed. This is a move that has <a href="https://eumigrationlawblog.eu/denmarks-legislation-on-extraterritorial-asylum-in-light-of-international-and-eu-law/#:%7E:text=On%203%20June%202021%2C%20Denmark's,refugees%20in%20the%20third%20country">concerned human rights scholars and EU institutions</a>.</p>
<p>Through the liberating lens of animation, Flee presents a heart-warming tale of a man who is given another chance to live, love and thrive. It shows us that the world has taken steps backward in recent years, showing a more welcoming Denmark of the past. Let’s hope that governments who set immigration policies heed this tale and learn the stories behind the statistics, before turning away the asylum seekers that western policies have helped to create.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Animation allowed the makers of Flee to tell a story that challenges the pervasive narrative of it means to be a refugee
Yael Friedman, Principal Lecturer in film theory and practice, University of Portsmouth
Deborah Shaw, Professor of Film and Screen Studies, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168849
2021-11-05T02:36:34Z
2021-11-05T02:36:34Z
Big Mouth, an animated series about periods, masturbation and anxiety. What’s not to like?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423519/original/file-20210928-14-1ycl0uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2041%2C1150&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Still : Andrew Glouberman, a character in the Netflix's animated comedy Big Mouth watches a condom demonstration from mother.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Animation and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ari-Chand/publication/307610006_Breathing_Life_into_a_Character_Vol_11_Issue_2_2016/links/592cec6e0f7e9b9979b38552/Breathing-Life-into-a-Character-Vol-11-Issue-2-2016.pdf">character design</a> allow us to hold a mirror up to society. We get to see humanity, warts and all, and understand the complexity of what it means to be human. But this reflection of ourselves ties back to a very old artform: the ideas of masking our real selves in the festivity of the Roman Catholic concept of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Carnival-pre-Lent-festival">Carnival</a>. </p>
<p>One of the strongest contemporary adult animated shows right now is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6524350/">Big Mouth</a>, the nuanced, lewd, coming-of-age series on Netflix. The show investigates the complex, awkward and often taboo experiences of pubescent teens: cultural identity, sexual identity and inclusivity, social media, pornography, periods, masturbation, anxiety and depression.</p>
<p>Through the use of carnival, Big Mouth tells complex stories about what it means to be a teenager with a monster-verse of shoulder angels. Shoulder angels (or representations of our conscience) have traditionally been a small angel or devil, representing good or bad. </p>
<p>Big Mouth draws on a rich history of adult animation while also making the genre entirely its own. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cartoon dressed up as Beyoncé in Lemonade." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430420/original/file-20211105-23-1undi0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Big Mouth uses popular culture references to explore complex ideas about teenagehood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NETFLIX © 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disarming the viewer through play</h2>
<p>Animation allows us to disassociate from reality and create a visual dimension to explore ideas: the drawings act as a mask through which viewers engage in a form of role playing, hidden identity and a sense of play.</p>
<p>Masks have been an important part of many cultures from the <a href="https://www.nihonsun.com/tengu-matsuri-in-tokyo/">Tengu Matsuri</a> mask, <a href="https://www.bahamas.gov.bs/wps/portal/public/Culture/Junkanoo/">Junkanoo</a> masks, <a href="https://philippines.travel/events/dinagyang-festival">Dinagyang</a> masks, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/day-of-the-dead">Dia de los Muertos</a> masks, Venetian carnival masks, to the masks of the Hindu Gods.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429861/original/file-20211103-15-1a5yqk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This engraving from 1875 shows a Carnival masquerade party in New Orleans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Wells Champney, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Carnival-pre-Lent-festival">Carnival</a> was traditionally a Christian celebration in the last three days before Lent, where the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1016/0304-4181%2887%2990036-4">sumptuary laws</a> – the restraint on consumption and luxury – were suspended. During this time, people could wear a mask and break from the conventional rules of society, their identity, hierarchies and become other-than-self. </p>
<p>Like the Carnival, the Russian philosopher <a href="https://g.co/kgs/3tU4Gj">Mikhail Bakhtin</a>’s notion of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095550811">Carnivalesque</a> is a literary device used to assist people in unshackling themselves: using a mask to explore the complexities of experience without consequence. </p>
<p>In animated form, Carnivalesque utilises <a href="https://g.co/kgs/U2eSCw">four techniques</a>: laughter, bodily excess, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billingsgate">Billingsgate</a> (or vitriolic language) and inversions of normal social roles. Big Mouth employs a range of these elements in the character design and dialogue to engage the audience in social commentary.</p>
<h2>From family fare to adult sitcoms</h2>
<p>The animated sitcom has been evolving since the middle of the last century, and with it questions of what is “appropriate” for viewers. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024404/">Betty Boop</a> first appeared in 1930s. Drawing influences from burlesque, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/06/17/betty-boop-the-original-lewdie-toon/e24d8859-1205-4f5b-ac41-6cc934c4707d/">lewd nature</a> of the show was highly criticised. Soon, censorship would play an important role in limiting sexually suggestive content.</p>
<p>From 1934 to 1968, animation was self-censored by the <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/early-hollywood-and-hays-code/">Hays Code</a>: a set of guidelines preventing profanity, suggestive nudity, excessive violence and sexual content. This gave rise to the closed morality tale built around the nuclear family and patriarchal structure presented in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/">The Flinstones</a> (1960-66) and the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055683/">The Jetsons</a> (1962-63).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Flintstones" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430422/original/file-20211105-28-15m2h9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoons of the 1960s were family-friendly morality tales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1989, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/">The Simpsons</a> moved animated content into the adult frame, each episode dealing with a particular cultural and moral issue. </p>
<p>With the advent of cable television, cartoons could move even more firmly into the adult realm. We saw the rise of absurdity in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105950/">Beavis and Butt-head</a> (1993-2011) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182576/">Family Guy</a> (1999-) and the introduction of crude language and sexual innuendo in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121955/">South Park</a> (1997-). 2001 saw the launch of US cable network <a href="https://www.adultswim.com/">Adult Swim</a>, with its suite of adult-focused content.</p>
<p>Even in this age, Big Mouth is not without its critics. It is often vulgar and has been criticised for sexualising puberty too much. Critics have asked: has it gone too far? Is this really how these issues should be explored?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gods-of-ancient-egypt-as-seen-through-bojack-horseman-156565">The gods of ancient Egypt as seen through 'BoJack Horseman'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Hormones become monsters</h2>
<p>At the heart of good animation is character design, with strong characters translating the human experience – goals, mannerisms, habits and worldviews – into moving abstract versions of ourselves. Animation manipulates the character to give a drawing life. We view the characters in the carnival as if they could be our experiences.</p>
<p>In Big Mouth, chemicals and inanimate objects become personified, allowing the show to explore complex topics.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pkfrBZFpS8U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcfKg23Xf_4">Maury</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U11H-3j3Ho">Connie</a> are “Hormone Monsters”, who become the internal conversation around the rushes of chemicals influencing teen decisions. Tito the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM3TB6dvSXo">Anxiety Mosquito</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7808478/">Depression Kitty</a> introduce the way mental illness can feel and operate. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13014326/">Gratitoad</a> and other characters explore the positivity we experience together, and eats anxiety. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjKGZGoLoNI">Pam the Sex Pillow</a> and the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7808456/?ref_=ttep_ep3">Shame Wizard</a> present ways we feel in response to other people. </p>
<p>In the new fifth season we are introduced to Lovebugs and Hateworms. All of these characters help communicate the relationship we have with our experiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pink fairy sits above a girl's shoulder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430421/original/file-20211105-19-1dqwq6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Season five introduces new Carnival characters to the cast, including Sonya the love bug.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NETFLIX © 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Breaking taboos</h2>
<p>Big Mouth creator Nick Kroll has described how using animation allows them to tell stories which they “might not be able to discuss” in live action shows starring actual teens or tweens. A character like a hormone monster or shame wizard, <a href="https://youtu.be/kt3EqlHcc0I?t=126">he says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>gives us a lot of latitude to have these more complicated discussions and delve into the subjects kids are dealing with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Growing up is never easy, but visualising complex ideas can enhance our shared experience. Watching a coming-of-age show as an adult allows us to reflect and better communicate the complex experience of puberty. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/21st-century-character-designs-reflect-our-concerns-as-always-40382">21st-century character designs reflect our concerns, as always</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Growing up is never easy, but visualising complex ideas can help. Animation and character design allow us to put a metaphorical mirror up to society.
Ari Chand, Lecturer in Visual Communication Design, University of Newcastle
Jack McGrath, Lecturer in Animation at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168311
2021-09-21T10:41:42Z
2021-09-21T10:41:42Z
The Prince – the great tradition of satirising the royal family is under threat as they become more ‘human’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422192/original/file-20210920-14371-a38tvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1914%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pressroom.warnermedia.com/na/image/prncs1ep0111screengrab94a">HBO Max.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The adult animated satire, <a href="https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/british-royal-family-series-hbo-max-the-prince-1203474443/">The Prince</a>, has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/30/the-prince-royal-hbo-series-backlash/">sparked outrage</a> for its portrayal of the British royal family as a mob of hyper-privileged halfwits, hopelessly out of touch with contemporary society. They are led by Queen Elizabeth II, imagined here as a bling-coated mafia boss. </p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/the-prince-the-great-tradition-of-satirising-the-royal-family-is-under-threat-as-they-become-more-human-168311&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>The Telegraph described the show as “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/hbos-prince-hollywoods-insult-royal-family-disgusting-puerile/">grossly offensive</a>”. While <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/30/the-prince-royal-hbo-series-backlash/">The Washington Post</a> reported that a torrent of complaints labelled it “wrong”, “disgusting” and guilty of fuelling “hatred toward Britain’s royals”.</p>
<p>But The Prince is far from the first instance of satire to poke fun at the royal family – nor is it the most biting in this 300-year-old tradition. </p>
<p>In many ways, royal figures are the perfect subjects for satire. Traditionally, the satirist seeks to reveal and skewer stupidity, ridiculousness and hypocrisy and, in most cases, speak truth to power. This process inevitably constitutes “punching up”. This means targeting those with more privilege and a higher status in society than the satirist.</p>
<p>However, in recent years the royals have been rebranded as vulnerable, despite their enormous privilege. This change might have significant consequences for the art of satire.</p>
<h2>Punching up</h2>
<p>The royal family’s position at the top of British society makes them an obvious satirical target. Perceptions of the royal family as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/13/britain-royal-family-prince-charles-monarchy">antiquated and politically redundant</a>, despite their immense fortune and revered status, are fertile material for satirists seeking to lampoon ridiculousness and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>For as long as the royals were seen as aloof, untroubled and of a different breed from the commoners over whom they ruled, satirists haven’t needed to concern themselves with questions about the harm such satire might do to the royal family as “real” people.</p>
<p>In fact in the 18th century, when satire of the royals was at its most scathing, scandalous and scatological (there was a lot of poo involved), it drew little attention from the monarchy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cartoon depicting a king receiving news on the toilet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422194/original/file-20210920-17-5g7ro5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taking_physick_-_-_or_-_the_news_of_shooting_the_King_of_Sweden!_by_James_Gillray.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>During this period, caricaturist James Gillray would regularly produce images of George III and his wife defecating. He also drew Queen Charlotte <a href="https://media.britishmuseum.org/media/Repository/Documents/2014_9/29_15/0c0e95b2_b364_451c_a4b6_a3b500fdc91a/mid_00138580_001.jpg">haggard and naked</a>, and their son George IV as a sexually ravenous libertine <a href="http://www.tara.tcd.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2262/10007/ROB1016.JPG?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">emerging from beneath a woman’s skirts</a>. Nevertheless, James Gillray was still granted a government pension. </p>
<p>The monarchy’s tolerance of such satire spoke to their strength. They were so secure in their position of power that they were untroubled by cheap jokes and toilet humour. There are even cases where the monarchy <a href="https://theconversation.com/spitting-image-a-warning-from-the-golden-age-of-satire-124546">directly benefited from such satirical abuses</a>.</p>
<h2>Royal targets or real people?</h2>
<p>Since the 18th century, royal satire has broadly shifted from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Juvenalian-satire">Juvenalian mode</a> (satire that is bitter, ironic, contemptuous, relentlessly extreme in its censure) to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Horatian-satire">Horatian</a> (satire that is amused, tolerant and wry). </p>
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<p>The latter is well exemplified by Harry Enfield’s The Windsors, which pokes gentle fun at royals, who are presented as dim-witted and detached, but ultimately harmless. It is to this Horatian tradition that The Prince is most openly indebted, with the show’s creator, Gary Janetti, even claiming that the show “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/30/the-prince-royal-hbo-series-backlash/">is meant with affection</a>”.</p>
<p>Though royal satire has become less scathing over time, it seems that audiences and critics have become more sensitive to jibes at this ruling elite, as the reception to The Prince demonstrates. </p>
<p>In some areas of the media, there is great concern that making fun of the monarchy might cause irreparable damage – that satire is in some way harmful to great tradition. More than anything, this perhaps speaks to the monarchy’s existential precarity when a light-hearted adult cartoon causes more concern to the crown than images of defecation, nudity and sexual promiscuity did 200 years ago.</p>
<p>The aspect of The Prince that has drawn the most fire is the decision to centre events around young Prince George, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9851387/Animated-satire-Prince-criticised-mocking-Duke-Edinburgh.html">with the Daily Mail</a> suggesting that children should be off-limits for satire.</p>
<p>Whether you agree, however, depends on whether you view George as the target of the show’s satire or its vehicle. </p>
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<p>There is a rich tradition of child characters being used in satirical fiction to draw attention to the hypocrisies, inconsistencies and contradictions of the adult world. For example, Evelyn Waugh’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/571/57153/a-handful-of-dust/9780241341100.html">A Handful of Dust</a> (1934) features a child who is able to decode the true meaning behind the words of adults and immediately shares them in entertainingly blunt statements. A more recent example is Family Guy’s precocious Stewie Griffin – a character The Prince’s young George seems, in many ways, to recall.</p>
<p>The biggest problem faced by The Prince is that many members of the royal family no longer present themselves as aloof, but have instead come to be understood in language associated with popular cultural discussions, such as those surrounding racism and mental health. </p>
<p>Prince William and Prince Harry have both spoken openly about the loss of their mother, Diana and the <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/prince-harry-on-his-mental-health-struggles-and-processing-his-mothers-death">effect this had on their mental health</a>. Harry and Meghan’s interview with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/oprah-winfrey-interviews-meghan-markle-prince-harry/">Oprah Winfrey</a> in March 2021 touched on questions of race, gender and suicidal thoughts. </p>
<p>Both Princes have also been involved with charities <a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/heads-together/#:%7E:text=Led%20by%20the%20Duke%20and,important%20conversations%20about%20mental%20health">raising awareness of mental health</a>. When younger members of the royal family, at least, become humanised in this way, satire on the institution as a whole becomes more complex. It might seem that the more the family appears to be made up of “real people”, the more distasteful satire directed at them appears to some commentators.</p>
<p>Given this new climate, where those figures at the top of society are able to position themselves as vulnerable, “punching up” is no longer as easy to justify.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Royal satire has softened over the last 300 years, but audiences are more sensitive to barbs against the institution.
Adam J Smith, Senior Lecturer in 18th-century Literature, York St John University
Jo Waugh, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164349
2021-07-14T15:01:39Z
2021-07-14T15:01:39Z
Luca, Disney and queerbaiting in animation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410786/original/file-20210712-70807-bxgarp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C28%2C1920%2C1028&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYfJxlgR2jw&ab_channel=Pixar">Disney/YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article contains spoilers for the film Luca.</em></p>
<p>Back in June, Disney released Pixar’s latest feature film, Luca. Set in the fictional seaside town of Portorosso, Luca is a story of adventure, escape, difference and found family. It’s also, <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a36825978/pixar-luca-queer-gay-representation/">according to many</a>, a narrative about a gay relationship – even if the film itself stops short of confirming that. </p>
<p>The themes explored in Luca have since led to <a href="https://www.insider.com/luca-lgbt-gay-queer-coded-2021-6">accusations</a> of “<a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jfs/2018/00000006/00000002/art00001">queerbaiting</a>” - a phenomenon in which LGBTQIA+ relationships are hinted at, but never clearly expressed. As a queer animation researcher, I know first hand how pronounced that problem is in film and TV.</p>
<p>The issue with Luca comes down to the difference between <a href="https://bookriot.com/what-is-queerbaiting-vs-queer-coding/">queerbaiting and queer coding</a>. Queer coding is when LGBTQIA+ creatives insert queer themes, characters and relationships into content without making them explicitly so, in order to fly under the radar of conservative censors and critics. Queerbaiting is when creators hint that characters might be queer in order to attract progressive audience but without providing any <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2021.1892808?journalCode=rpse20">real queer representation</a> that could risk losing conservative audiences. </p>
<p>Disney has yet to feature an explicitly queer protagonist in its feature films. So is Luca an example of queer-baiting?</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mYfJxlgR2jw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>We first meet the titular character, adolescent sea monster Luca Paguro, as he tends to the family’s goatfish. He stumbles on a human artefact, awakening a keen desire to leave his everyday life behind in search of adventure above the waves. This adventure arrives in the form of Alberto Scarfano, a fellow sea monster who lives on the surface. The two boys quickly form a passionate friendship, building a makeshift Vespa and dreaming of travelling the world together.</p>
<p>The film can easily be read as queer. Not only do Luca and Alberto form a close achillean relationship (a masculine attraction that may or may not include romantic or sexual feelings), the themes and story beats also touch on common LGBTQIA+ experiences. Because the sea monsters of Portorosso’s waters fear humans and forbid their children from entering the human realm, Luca must hide his excursions to the surface and, by extension, his relationship with Alberto.</p>
<p>Luca’s parents discover their son’s secret and try to send him to live with his uncle in the ocean’s depths, but the pair escape to Portorosso. Above the water, Luca and Alberto pass as human. Yet, like closeted members of the LGBTQIA+ community, they fear the day that their secret will be discovered. In a touching celebration of queerness and found family, the townspeople actually welcome Luca and Alberto with love and acceptance when they are outed as sea monsters, enough so that other long-closeted sea monsters feel safe enough to reveal themselves.</p>
<p>Yet despite these queer allusions, the film quietly reasserts the heteronormativity ingrained in Disney’s traditional storytelling. Instead of remaining together, Luca and Alberto are split when a third character, Guilia, entices Luca to follow her to school in Genoa in what is implied to be a far more mature and productive pairing. Luca, therefore, walks a very fine line between queer-coding and queer-baiting.</p>
<p>Like queer-coding, queer-baiting always has an element of plausible deniability. The trailer for Disney Pixar’s Finding Dory (2016) is an arguable example. In it, a pair of women stand over a stroller, leading fans to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/05/30/does-finding-dory-depict-pixars-first-lesbian-couple/85163270/">eagerly speculate</a> that Disney would debut its first lesbian couple. That Ellen Degeneres, who is a lesbian woman, voiced Dory only added to the speculation. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the film didn’t provide any conclusive proof one way or the other and director Andrew Stanton <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/06/09/does-finding-dory-show-gay-couple-filmmakers-discuss/85635846/">refused to comment</a> on the matter. Whether or not Disney intended to bait its LGBTQIA+ audiences is uncertain.</p>
<h2>Disney and queer representation</h2>
<p>Why would a studio include queer references in a film but effectively keep them hidden? The simple answer is profit. Sean Griffin, a film professor at Southern Methodist University who has written extensively on LGBTQIA+ issues in both animation and live action film, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv12pnpj2">argues that</a> Disney’s image is one of “conservative American family values – values which uphold the heterosexual patriarchal family unit”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cartoon character Steven Universe officiating wedding between characters Ruby and Sapphire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411205/original/file-20210714-21-cf4gob.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Other animation studios like Cartoon Network have featured clearly queer characters in shows like Steven Universe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfv8CaPINWw&ab_channel=StevenUniverse">YouTube/Cartoon Network</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He points out that Disney has recognised a “‘gay market’ for its product, and not a ‘gay agenda’”. In other words, Disney is willing to create animated films and television shows that suggest queer content, but only so long as it doesn’t damage its conservative image. </p>
<p>Disney has made some inroads in LGBTQIA+ representation in its animated work in the past few years. Pixar’s short film Out (2020) focuses on a gay man struggling to come out to his parents, while the feature film Onward (2020) includes a female background character who casually mentions her girlfriend. </p>
<p>The series The Owl House (2020 - present) also features a bisexual female protagonist, Luz, who dates another girl, Amity. Yet even Owl House showrunner Dana Terrace initially met with resistance when she tried to include Luz’s bisexuality. In <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/raya-and-the-last-dragon-kelly-marie-tran-gay-namaari-raya">an interview with Vanity Fair</a>, she stated: “I was … told that I could not, by any means, have any kind of gay storyline among the main characters.” Disney eventually relented and greenlit Luz’s and Amity’s relationship, but only after Terrace fought to include the storyline.</p>
<p>Other animation studios have featured queer protagonists to great success. Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe includes multiple queer characters and relationships, as well as the first mainstream animated gay wedding – although only after <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/raya-and-the-last-dragon-kelly-marie-tran-gay-namaari-raya">similar executive resistance</a> as The Owl House suffered. At Dreamworks Animation on Netflix, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-2020), the series ends with heroine Adora falling in love with and kissing her adversary, Catra. </p>
<p>Both series remain immensely popular and continue to turn a profit for their studios via merchandise. With such a growing list of examples to draw from, Disney is overdue in creating an explicitly LGBTQIA+ protagonist for its animated films.</p>
<p><em>Disney didn’t respond to a request for comment on this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kodi Maier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The latest Disney-Pixar film has been seen as containing queer themes, but what is the animation studio trying to achieve?
Kodi Maier, PhD candidate, School of Arts, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162566
2021-06-21T11:27:39Z
2021-06-21T11:27:39Z
The art of Aphantasia: how ‘mind blind’ artists create without being able to visualise
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407200/original/file-20210618-16-8hefm7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C963%2C678&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Glen Keane at work</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfUp0cy2zoM">Google ATAP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Glen Keane, the Oscar-winning artist behind such Disney classics as The Little Mermaid (1989), was once described by Ed Catmull the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256">former president</a> of Pixar and Walt Disney Studios as “one of the best animators in the history of hand-drawn animation”. But when he sat down to design Ariel, or indeed the beast from Beauty and the Beast (1991), Keane’s mind was a blank. He had no preconception of what he would draw. </p>
<p>This is because he has <a href="https://theconversation.com/aphantasia-explained-some-people-cant-form-mental-pictures-162445">aphantasia</a>, a recently-identified variation of human experience <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-05537-003">affecting 2-5% of the population</a>, in which a person is unable to generate mental imagery. Perhaps surprisingly, Keane is not alone in being a visual artist who cannot visualise. </p>
<p>When aphantasia was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945215001781?via%3Dihub">named</a> and publicised, a number of creative practitioners – artists, designers and architects – contacted the researchers to say that they too had no “mind’s eye”. Intrigued by the seemingly counter-intuitive notion, we gathered a group of these people together and curated an <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/cspe/engagement/extreme-imagination/">exhibition</a> of their work.</p>
<p>How is it, then, that a person like Keane can draw a picture of Ariel without a mental picture to guide him?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A swirl of indecipherable pencil lines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early-stage sketch of Ariel from the Little Mermaid by Glen Keane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4U9Ygtxh8&ab_channel=GoogleDevelopers">Disney/Google Developers/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Knowing vs picturing</h2>
<p>The first point to consider is that there is a difference between knowing or remembering what something looks like and generating a mental image of that thing. To draw it, you only need to know how it looks, or would look.</p>
<p>As the psychologist of art <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DWmtB9szhFsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Rudolf Arnheim</a> noted, a draftsperson working from memory “may deny convincingly that he has anything like an explicit picture of [the object] in his mind” – yet, as he works, “the correctness of what he is producing on paper” is judged and modified “according to some standard in the mind”. </p>
<p>We’ve found that aphantasics retain such standards. “MX”, the subject of the first <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19733188/">case study of acquired aphantasia</a>, could give detailed descriptions of scenes and landmarks around his native Edinburgh: “I can remember visual details,” he commented, “but I can’t see them”. </p>
<p>Aphantasia prevents the generation of mental images based on knowledge of what things look like, but it does not prevent that knowledge serving as the basis for an image made with pencil and paper. Keane can draw a picture of Ariel because he knows what humans (and fish) look like, and that information – plus the skills acquired through study and practice – steers his hand accordingly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A neat sketch of Ariel the mermaid, body foreshortened, swimming towards the viewer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A later-stage sketch of Ariel the mermaid by Glen Keane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4U9Ygtxh8&ab_channel=GoogleDevelopers">Disney/Google Developers/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeing vs imagining</h2>
<p>Another seemingly obvious but important point is that whereas mental visualisation takes place entirely within the brain, drawing is a partly external act, taking place in front of the artist’s eyes. When you draw, you perceive the marks you make. Each change, perceived, suggests the next, in a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-11133-004">feedback loop</a>. You don’t have to imagine. </p>
<p>Many of the aphantasic artists we spoke to emphasised this aspect of their creative process: they would need to “get something down” on the paper or canvas, or even start with a pre-existing image, which they can then alter, erase or add to. When Keane draws Ariel, he begins with what he calls an “explosion of scribbles”, then highlights and subtracts lines until he finds the form that he wants. </p>
<p>Designing the Beast was a similar process of trial and error. Keane started by copying the buffalo’s head that hung in his studio, then tried out features from various other animals – a gorilla’s brow, a lion’s main. A cow’s slightly drooping ears, he discovered, made the Beast less threatening. The eureka moment was when he added human eyes. For Keane, it was “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ftHVPJJ26I">like recognising somebody you know</a>”. Someone he knew, but couldn’t picture.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5a0Rl4D_UA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Creativity diversified</h2>
<p>The way that aphantasics like Keane work challenges the stereotype of the creative artist that has held sway over Western culture for centuries, at least since the Renaissance biographer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=43yEDKzADr0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Giorgio Vasari</a> declared that “the greatest geniuses…are searching for inventions in their minds, forming those perfect ideas which their hands then express”.</p>
<p>Vasari was referring to Leonardo da Vinci and his comments show how we have come to think of artistic creativity as being an internal capacity, the fruits of which are simply reproduced in the outside world. The artist of genius is distinguished by the richness of their mental conceptions as much as their artworks. </p>
<p>But there are historical reasons for the stereotype: career-minded Renaissance artists wanting to define themselves against the craftsman and his rule-following, manual labour, for one. </p>
<p>And while there are individuals who, experiencing vivid imagery, do mentally preconceive their artworks, Keane and his fellow aphantasics show that the creative process can just as easily begin with, and depend on, the material world around them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew MacKisack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The condition challenges the centuries-old idea that all great artists are able to envision what they’re drawing.
Matthew MacKisack, Associate Research Fellow, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.