Tutorial

Staff Notes:
Ronan, in this tutorial you discussed how you have been looking atDumbo – Disney – depictions of race and gender in golden age cartoons. Need to take care here . Theoretical framework is of key importance.

Look up Paul Wells – Introduction to Animation – representations of race and gender in animation. Also., I recommend Sturken and Cartwright 'Practices of Looking' which has a section on representation of race.

Look up Hayes Code – the Hayes Code relates subversive potential of animation. Questions of regulating animation. Animation has always been seen as slightly dangerous to children.


Target 1: Try and look more critically at images/works, and develop a critical vocabulary (Deadline: )
Target 2: Reading film/animation journals and magazines will help you to further develop your own writing (Deadline: )
Target 3: Update your statement of intent to reflect the progress made and more detailed intentions of the production. (Deadline: )
Target 4: (Deadline: )
Target 5: (Deadline: )

Popeye

Another classic cartoon I have looked at is Popeye. If you look at what I would call the proper cartoons, you can see that most of it is made up of violence. Each episode has the same basic story line being Popeye’s rivalry with Bluto to try and win over Olive Oil, who isn’t the most attractive woman in the world. In the first episode Popeye destroys an entire train line probably killing hundreds of people, just to save Olive, and in the 7^th episode in order to keep silence for a baby to sleep, he goes on a sort of killing spree. He punches a harp player to death, massacres a whole music school, sinks an entire cruse ship, knocks out a man on the wireless, destroys a construction site full of people, flattens, every car in a traffic jam, and above all this, he gives his pipe to the baby to smoke.

Popeye and Bluto constantly have to prove their manhood. This is illustrated the most in probably my favourite episode entitled, can you take it? This one is all about Popeye trying to join a club of men who just beat each other up. There is also a smoking competition, something you would never get away with in kids cartoons today. That is one of Popeye train marks as well, his pipe that never leaves his mouth. The whole of Popeye is so un-PC, but I love it. I never view it as anything other that just good plain fun. It’s not setting out to offend anyone.

 

Something else that makes me love Popeye is just the clever use of animation and how anything can happen. Things that do make sense, but still are completely absurd. There is a great bit in eat my spinach where Popeye punches a bull and when the bull lands on the ground it has turned into a meat market. In another episode Bluto is about to hit Popeye with a tree, but Popeye knocks him into the air. The tree comes down with Bluto and forms a coffin round him. Those sorts of silly things just don’t happen now, cartoons are just not fun.

Another thing you can see in Popeye which I love is the clever use of animation that I don’t think is used enough today. The overall shape of each character is so odd for a start. Whenever Olive is in trouble her arms wave in the most unnatural way as if she had about thirty separate bones in them.

There is a bit in family guy that illustrates the bazaar look of Popeye brilliantly.

 

Dumbo

The first thing I have looked at is the 1941 Disney film, Dumbo. This film is rated with a U certificate. I hadn’t seen it for many years now, but remember loving it when I was a child. On viewing it again, it struck me how bazaar the film was. I loved the classic animation style of the time, with the movement characters so fast paste and flexible no matter what their body shape.

The emotions that come across in their faces bring tears to you eyes, like the part when Dumbo goes to see his mother who has been incinerated, it’s very emotional. The style of animation can be quite dark in places, and I remembered finding a lot of it a little scary when I was young, but not being old enough to really understand, so I never got nightmares. There is a lot of rain in it, which adds to the horror. The part when they are putting up the tent I could see might give nightmares as it is very dark and the workers also are a tad scary. But in all these parts you usually get a break in the darkness with a little comic relief, like Dumbo making a little mistake, and the audience will go “awwww, how cute.” That is a common factor throughout the film. Dumbo is shown to be a cute little creature, an innocent minor. This adds to the character and you can really relate to him. But even with the cuteness of Dumbo, I think if you were to make this film now in the same style of dark animation, it would be rated as a PG. I don’t think that children would be as scared as the as the people who put certificates on films think, this has been proven as I never suffered from watching it over and over, but because things are too strict now. People do I think wrap kids up in cotton wall and are over protective sometimes. Another thing that stood out to me on viewing was the issue if race. When putting up the tent, the men are all black migrant workers. The owner of the circus and the performers are a white, and also the people who come to visit, like the children who torment Mrs Jumbo, are all white. This is something that had never occurred to me when I picked this film out to review, but again says a lot about the time it was made in and what was acceptable. I don’t think it was a deliberate attempted at being racist, it was just how things were at that time. The crows are also quite obviously black stereotypes, but still, I don’t think it was intended to be making fun of them; it was just used as their characters.

 

The next issue in this film that would certainly not be allowed now is the views on smoking and alcohol. One of the most famous parts of Dumbo is the song, “the elephants on parade.” This whole sequence in induced by Dumbo and his mouse friend Timothy drink too much campaign after the clowns spill it in the water bucket. It also shows the clowns constantly drinking too. If this film was made, it would have to incorporate the sequence in some other form, or cut it completely. I think that would be the most likely as when you do watch it is one of the freakiest bits in the film. A lot of people say that that part always scared them as a child, especially the part with the elephant made entirely of heads. They crows in the end are also smoking; something that would not be allowed at all in cartoons now. In those days however it was nothing. One of the crows wakes Timothy up by blowing smoke at him, and then repeatedly does so. Now if you tried putting that in a kids cartoon now people would be saying that it was encouraging children to smoke.

Some of the dialogue used is also very un-PC. On several occasions Dumbo is described as a freak because of his oversized ears, and on the side of his mothers prison it say mad elephant. You also wouldn’t get the level of abuse that the animals receive in the film nowadays. Circuses now don’t use as much animal acts; it is more gymnasts and clowns because of animal rights movements and the issue of animal cruelty. The film is of its time really, but that is still the way people envision circuses, even today. If you were to make a film involving a circus now, you would most probably include all the traditional animal acts in it even if they aren’t true of the time, because that it’s what people expect to see.

 

I think because of all the guide lines put down in, not just animation but in society itself, you would not be allowed to make a film like Dumbo now. it may seem a very sweet innocent film on the suffice, but when you scratch deep and take another look, there are many things that would not be allowed. This I think is a terrible shame, and means that some brilliant films might not be able to be made. If you’re only just thinking “oh that’s a good point, I never thought of that watching it. but now you say that, its true,” it just shows that it really doesn’t matter if you include smoking and drinking in a film like this because people don’t really think about it that much, they just want to enjoy the film. Ok so it might get a PG, but that doesn’t mean you have to cut so much out of it.