Starting the Discussion
Final
Exam: Questions for Review
Answer
the following questions as fully and completely as you can. Be sure to use specific
examples from the cartoons you've seen to support your ideas and also to make
regular references to the texts as you formulate each answer.
- Use your reading as
well as the material from the lecture and discussion to provide a critical
perspective on one of the television cartoons (The Simpsons or Rocky
and Bullwinkle) we watched for class. First, put the cartoon into context
within the history of animation, and then analyze three or four of the cultural
assumptions that it uses as a basis for humor. (In other words, you need to
place the cartoon you've chosen into the dominant system of beliefs of its
time period (1980s or 1950s) and then explain how it satirizes or parodies
those beliefs in order to entertain its audience.)
- One of the longest careers
in American animation is that of Chuck Jones. We've seen some of his Looney
Tunes cartoons in class (Fast and Furry-ous; What's Opera, Doc;
Duck Amuck), but he also worked with Theodore Geisel on the World
War II Private Snafu cartoons, with the early UPA artists (Hell Bent for
Election) and later in television animation (How the Grinch Stole
Christmas). Based on your reading and your viewing of the Jones documentary,
what do you see as the crucial factors that made it possible for Jones to
adapt to changes in American animation for so many decades? Was it the kinds
of themes and ideas he expressed? Was it his style? His relationship to his
characters and his art? Something else?
- Drawing particularly
on Klein and Maltin, as well as on any other relevant reading you've done,
develop a definition of your own standards for judging animation. (You need
not be in agreement with any of the other critics, but you should be aware
of how their system of judging compares with yours.) Using some specific examples
to illustrate how your standards work is a given, of course. This is a subjective
question, and your answer will be judged not on a scale of right or wrong
but in terms of how well you define your standards and how well you present
the critical process by which you defined them.
- When Klein describes
a studio's style as "full animation," what does he mean? How is
it related to shifts in style in live action films? Both Warner Brothers and
Disney can be characterized as practicing distinctly different styles of full
animation in the productions of the 1940s. Using the cartoons we've watched
in class (plus any others with which you're familiar), compare/contrast the
two studios during this period, with a particular emphasis on the idea of
full animation and on how the drive for full animation influenced the artistic
direction of the studio as a whole.
- Define the UPA style,
as specifically as you can, using all the material at your disposal to do
so. Then, with reference to Gerald McBoing Boing and the freeze frames
in the Maltin text, explain why UPA cartoons, though simpler in style, were
no more inexpensive to produce than other theatrical cartoons. You should
conclude by suggesting the impact, good and bad, that the UPA style had on
the animation of the future. (Note: Here you may use examples either from
the class and/or from your own viewing. Last year's Academy Award winner for
best short cartoon, for example, as well as some of your own productions,
could be traced back to to UPA style, as could many other contemporary animated
productions.)
- When cartoons left the
theaters to become a staple of television programming, what changed in animation?
Using material from your texts, especially Stabile and Harrison, as well as
cartoons shown in class and the information in the in-class presentations,
explain why the Saturday morning children's programming became such a cultural
low point for animated programming. Conclude by briefly comparing the programming
of the 1960s and 1970s to what contemporary children are offered on Cartoon
Network or Nickelodeon.
- In his concluding chapter,
Maltin suggests that only animators like Disney, who could "bridge the
gulf between art and commerce" have a good chance of succeeding in animation
in the long run. Maltin, like Klein, gives Disney credit for bridging this
gulf for much of his career, as does Schickel in his 1996 introduction to
The Disney Version. Working from your knowledge of the work produced
by Walt Disney, assess how much of his success was in fact due to this ability
to walk the thin line between producing a commodity simply intended to be
sold to a mass audience and producing an individual artistic expression intended
to expand his audience's consciousness in some way. In your opinion, how well
has the studio he founded succeeded in walking the same line?
- Who Framed Roger
Rabbit and The Simpsons debuted within a year of each other (1988
and 1989), and both were attempts to take animation into a different direction.
Choose one of the two and explain, using all the background you have at this
point, how your chosen film broke new ground, how it can still be seen as
part of a time line with past animation, and how it influenced animation in
the future.
- In his concluding chapter
on the work of Walt Disney, Schickel quotes librarian Frances Clarke Sayers:
"He [Disney] shows scant respect for the integrity of the original creations
of authors, manipulating and vulgarizing everything to his own ends. His treatment
of folklore is without regard for its anthropological, spiritual or psychological
truths. Every story is sacrificed to the 'gimmick.' The acerbity of Mary Poppins,
unpredictable, full of wonder and mystery, becomes, with Mr. Disney's treatment,
one great marshmallow covered cream-puff. He made a young tough of Peter Pan,
and transformed Pinocchio into a slap-stick, sadistic revel!" Using this quote,
which quite evidently Schickel agrees with, as a focus, you should briefly
recap how Schickel has made his case against Disney, and then you should make
the case either for or against Schickel's position.
- As early as the 1940s,
according to Klein, advances in animation technology were beginning to be
integrated into live action films as special effects. Drawing on your reading
of Klein and Stabile and Harrison, trace the development of CGI from those
early days to the present, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which
digital animation is or is not a medium that encourages independent animators
to realize their own visions. (You should be able to use material from class
presentations, as well as the article on Matrix Reloaded and any
reading or viewing of your own to round out this question.)
- You've been reading
about animé in this class, and as a group we've watched both Akira
and Spirited Away. Using these two films as touchstones (not necessarily
in equal amounts), briefly define animé, and then contrast it with
contemporary US animation, with the aim of explaining why animé seems
to be so much more central to the imaginative life of the Japanese than animation
is to that of most Americans.
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