Skip to main content

The Platypus Likes PIxar

Thought for the day:

With the exception of Pixar, why is anime so much better than American animation?

Ok, so that question needs a lot of clarifying, but it's something I've been tossing around this past week.
Labels:

Comments

Gabe Moothart said…
I'll be interested to hear what you have to say. My impression of it from college was that it was a depressing and evil (if well-crafted) book.
3:38 PM
James said…
Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. I think a lot of it hangs on whether you see Bronte setting up Heathcliff and Catherine as A)tragice heroes or as B)moral degenerates. If A, then it is a well-crafted but wicked work. If B, then it is a well crafted and possibly quite moral work. Given that C. Bronte embraced and promoted it, we should be slow to embrace choice A. There is always choice C)that it is a deeply moral work, but that the author had insuficient power and experience to make that moral clear and attractive. After all, it is E. Bronte's first and only novel.
9:37 PM
luminarumbra said…
Because anime isn't afraid to paint people as they are, and the same goes for a lot of Pixar's characters (with the best example I can think of being the two protagonists of their most recent, "Up"). Most traditional American animation (particularly Disney) has the characters watered down, or made into caricatures of a particular archetype such that, after seeing them 50 billion times, they stop garnering much sympathy.

Although, if one watches a lot of unlicensed anime, one will find that it is also not immune to the aforementioned downfall of American animation. A large portion of that is filtered out before reaching the US distribution companies, and even more filtering is done if it is to ever end up on television.

Or, at least, that's my theory. It could simply be coincidence that any shows I stumble across in fansubs that are particularly amazing also get picked up by Adult Swim or SyFy or some such. ;)
7:08 PM
James said…
Sounds like a fair read of the situation to me. Why do you think American animation is afraid to portray people as they really are? Do you see this as a problem in American T.V. and film as well?
2:03 PM
luminarumbra said…
While I don't think any medium from storytelling is immune to it, I think the tendency is higher in American animation mostly because American animation is prettymuch solely aimed at kids. While every culture desires to protect its kids in some way or another, I think American culture is particularly prone to trying to protect our kids from the pains of everyday living. Ergo, no one ever dies, or at least no one likable, and never on camera. The main character hero always gets the girl, or if it is a heroine instead, she catches her man. In the end, things are happily ever after.

And since this is the standard, such movies like Disney's Treasure Planet and (to a lesser extent) Hunchback, as well as things like DreamWorks' Sinbad and even Madagascar (which was actually CGI, but fits my purposes) kind of get swept to the side, as they don't quite fall into that category. It's really a pity. Hopefully, between DreamWorks, Pixar, and the influx of anime, we'll see a change in the way Americans tell stories on screen, and perhaps even a turn toward realizing that simply because it's a "kid's" story does not make it necessarily good for children or not applicable to our adult lives, and simply because it's not a pretty story does not make it necessarily unsuitable for children.

Not... that I'm going to go out and show a 3-year-old Fullmetal Alchemist (though we are debating whether or not she's old enough for Fruits Basket... in Japanese to avoid the swearing).

I could go on, but this is your blog for postings. ;)
9:51 PM
James said…
Don't worry, in-depth comments are part of the fun! Thanks for going into detail. I think what you said earlier about "up" dovetails nicely with your analysis here. I hope Pixar continues to have the guts to make real art.
4:58 PM
luminarumbra said…
Agreed.
4:26 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more

The Platypus and Theological Localism

My wife and I were listening the other day to Dr. Fred Sanders give a paper of California Theological Localism.  It was one of the more technical pieces we've heard from him, and it was fun to stretch our brains a little.  If I understand it right, the main idea of Theological Localism is that place matters and will shape the theology of its inhabitants in certain ways.  This could be seen as determinative, or merely as fodder for apologetic engagement, both of which Sanders rejects as insufficient or problematic.  What exactly is wanted seems to be a theological engagement with place, specifically California, in a way that Sanders and company feel has been neglected.  If that's not clear, the fault is mine as a listener or a writer. Of course, the idea of a theology of place caught my attention and my immediate response was "someone should do this for New England."  New England, after all, is its own peculiar place with, by American standards, a long, va...
6 comments
Read more