Animation and film media can provide a platform for powerful messages and images entering public consciousness. This is primarily apparent in advertisement and product placement but can be more subtle in political persuasion.
Animation and political statement
Joanne Quinn’s “Britannia” is a prime and clear example of a political opinion being expressed through animation, using clear and striking visual references to illustrate this point. For example in figure 1, you can see how she has drawn the dog’s ‘blanket’ over sections of the UK to mark its ‘territory’ which stipulates an interesting point about old and modern British society.
Manipulating the technique called ‘Pixillation’ Mclaren perfects and creates a creative expression of the cause and chaos of warfare in the domesticated setting, making it more relatable to the casual viewer. Pixillation in essence is the application of stop motion animation to live-action actors. This is reminiscent of George mielies approach to filmmaking, in which the camera was used in a ‘stop motion- esc’ way to create illusionary magic (Russet and Starr,1976). The simplistic but effective story of these two neighbours fighting over territory and a single flower is heightened with the use of this technique as it adds a playful and blunt atmosphere to the piece; exemplifying and mocking the pointlessness/ childishness of warfare and selfishness. This can also be seen in the ‘cartoon’ stylisation size of the props around them.
An older and more historic form of political influence through animation is world war two animated propaganda, taking prime example is ‘Tokio Jokio’ which is a looney tunes cartoon from 1943 which mocks and depersonalises Japanese people. The inherent racial biases at the root of this cartoon, indicate how the American media wanted their wartime enemies to be portrayed in a way that would even be suitable for children to laugh and treat with disdain. As seen in figure 3, the stereotypes of Japanese people have been characterised as an almost ‘bugs-bunny-esc’ figure, further insinuating the ‘animalistic’ actions of the characters. Wartime animated propaganda is a broad topic that can be researched further for animation centred around politics.
Animated Documentary
The animated documentary can be argued in the validity of its portrayal of factual information, however, its narrative capabilities can in instances, succeed that of the live-action. In cases such as ‘Waltz with Bashir’ (Folman, 2008) and Tower (Maitland, 2016) this help visually displays traumatic events without the use of realistic and lifelike actors in their recreations, helping illustrate the severity and emotional process behind distressing events.
The animated documentary can also help convey more vague and artistic impressions of real-life events. For example, the animated documentary “Ryan” (Landreth, 2004), expresses in a strikingly visual way the mental and emotional degradation of the animation Ryan Larkin, with interesting techniques of modelling which make the characters appear to have ‘glitches’ (figure 5). The technologically aesthetic issues only help to accentuate the 3D medium they are created in and give a clear visual indicator of a character’s wellbeing and mood in a shot. This is unique to the animated medium, which executes storytelling even in the factual realms.
The consumption of media historically to the present day is overwhelming, and the power advertisements, political stances and certain ideologies that can be channelled through animation are authoritative. Generalising the genre and thinking about its stereotypical target audience of children, the conscious and subconscious ‘brainwashing’ that can occur from a young age is taken into serious consideration. Even as present as 2010, Western animation projects racial stereotypes in mocking and seemingly harmless ways that create impressions on children of the presentation of other cultures. In particularly the episode “Summer belongs to you” (Povenmire and Marsh, 2010) of Phineas and Ferb, they travel around the world showcasing stereotypes from all corners of the globe. In particular, the presentation of Asian cultures is quite poor, as the Indians own a rubber band factory and test the stretchiness of the bands by Bollywood dancing. When they visit Japan, they overaccentuate the stereotypes, for example, banging gongs, making all the characters appear the same e.t.c. there are parallels in these representations much like the ones in ‘Tokio Jokio” (MaCabe, 1943). The appearance of cultures is an interesting and important topic in animation that could be researched in further depth for a thesis topic.
Advertisement and consumerism are also large aspects of media portrayal, and inherently aid the sales and business prospects of companies. A prime example of an advertisement with damaging effects is this flintstone animated advertisement from 1960 (Hanna and Barbera), promoting Winstons cigarettes (figure 8). While contextually people around this age were not aware of the serious health effects caused by cigarettes, it is apparent that the inclusion of loveable, children’s animated characters advertising such a product inherently had harmful effects. The product placement in television shows with a large age range in suitability can only increase its sales, highlighting controversial and immortal business tactics.
The topics surrounding ideology, advertisement and political standpoints in media and, more specifically, animation pose an interesting prospect for further research and thesis topics.
List of Figures-
- Figure 1- QUINN, J (1993). [Screenshot]. Britannia. United Kingdom: Channel 4 Television Corporation.
- Figure 2- MACLAREN, N (1952). [Screenshot]. Neighbours. Canada: National Film Board of Canada.
- Figure 3- MCABE, N (1943). [Screenshot]. Tokio Jokio. United States: Leon Schlesinger Studios.
- Figure 4- FOLMAN, A (2008). [Screenshot]. Waltz with Bashir. Isreal, France, Germany, United States, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia: Bridgit Folman Film Gang, Les Films d’lci, Razor Films Produktion GMBH.
- Figure 5- LANDRETH, C (2004). [Screenshot]. Ryan. Canada: Copperheart Entertainment, Nation Film Board of Canada, Seneca College.
- Figure 6- POVENMIRE, D and HUGHES, R (2010). [Screenshot]. Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to you!. United States: Disney Television Animation.
- Figure 7- POVENMIRE, D and HUGHES, R (2010). [Screenshot]. Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to you!. United States: Disney Television Animation.
- Figure 8- BARBERA, J and HANNA, W (1960). [Screenshot]. The Flinstones Winston Cigarette Commercial 1. United States: Hanna-Barbera prodcutions.
Bibliography
.RUSSET, R and STARR, C. 1976. Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Page 125.