Comments for Post #11 and Post #12

Comments for Post #11 and Post #12: Kristy's Blog, Josh's Blog, Gabrielle's Blog and Jesse's Blog.

Post #12- Toy Story 2 and the Representation of Childhood and Growing Up

Just as one of the lines of Toy Story 2 states, toys don't last forever, neither does childhood. Childhood overall, just as the high school and college years of a person's development, represent a simpler time. This is a time that will attempt to be remebered for its enjoyment. Toys embody this view, for they are the things that make children the most happy.
The life and death of the relationship between children and their toys represent the maturing transitional state of man from an idealitic, carefree mindset to a more serious, real world oriented complete with real problems of their own.

A child- toy relationship really begins at birth, with their first toy. This time allows children to help become aquainted to the world, while feeling conforted, soothed and even enthralled. This process can also begin when the new toy has been given to a child. Since Toy Story 2 brings the Indian in the Cupboard-esque manner of having the toys come to life, this is the point at which these toys form their unconditional love for their owners. Much like dogs, these toys possess honor of true loyalty.

The height of the child-toy relationship is one Woody had with his own Andy until he was broken. The child starts also unconditionally loves the child and the toy becomes real. This is when the children have the most idealic, carefree state.

The child-toy relationship begins its downfall when a toy is first viewed as broken. In some cases the toy actually does break and in others the toy is just viewed as being outdated. This contrast can be made by looking at Weezy and Jessie. Weezy actually become broken and forgotten about. Jessie was more forgotten about and then become outdated.

Although Toy Story 2 is ultimately shows how the toy's legacy can be passed down by it being passed down, the story does leave out the final step in the cycle of a toy's life. That is it's death. If Jessie had not been offered a second chance first by the toy musuem to live forever, than by Woody to join him and Andy to have a more terminal but enjoyable life, she would have died as a toy. However, her relationship with her owner Emily died when she was put out to good will. That day represented Emily entering her teen years and becoming more serious and real world oriented.

Post #11- The Homogenization of Geography in Animations

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmarron, along with several other animations disregard the geography of their settings. Instead of accurately portraying the geography , the animations feature more exciting geographical landscapes such as waterfalls. Animations homogenize cartoon's geography in order to make drama and provide for a wider range of story options.

The first reason why this geographic homogenization comes from the need to create drama. As with Pocahontas and Spirit the featuring of a waterfall in a setting not complying with the geographic integrity adds drama. During climatic song lines main characters are often featured enjoying the waterfall. Another element that apparently geography contributes to the drama of the story is the cliff. Although there are no cliffs in Jamestown, Pocahontas sings Colors of the Wind on top of one.

The second reason why animation's geography is changed is to allow for greater story options. Clearly it is more exciting to make it seem like the setting takes place in the mountains, Great Plains, Yellowstone etc, but Spirit should have featured the acutally place of the Cimmaron river which is in the Southwestern area of the country. If both Spirit and Pocahontas were more like The Simpsons in respect to the fact that part of story is not grounded in history then they could get away with amorphous and/or no descript geography. Geographical representations are much a part of the historical integrity of a film as anything else is.

Post #10- Truly An American Tale

As those of you know who went to class last week, we watched An American Tale about a mouse family immigrating to America. One of America's foundations centers on the principle that America is a land of opportunity for all; it is a place for a fresh start and with hard work anyone can become a success. Yet, An American Tale portrays another side of the American Dream, one where the streets are not paved with cheese and there are cats.

Immigrants to America, as soon in the movie, expect automatically to have an easier life, alas this is hard to pull off when you arrive to a new country with nothing more than a few possessions. Some things do no change, money does not fall from the sky and not everyone accepts you. New Americas faced poverty, abusive ill-paying jobs and the general public taking advantage of them. Sure hard work will help these immigrants move up in the world, but it is not a guaranteed success as it was perceived.

This is not the America they envisioned, but immigrants stayed because they came to America for freedom. Nowadays freedom is something that native born Americans do not give much thought to. Sure we can vote, go to school etc, but these immigrants felt as if they earned their freedoms by enduring what they did. Often times this is why minority groups such as women, racial, ethnic and religious minorities will sometimes stick up for each other's rights because they know the pain and suffering it took to achieve such rights in the first place.

Comments for Week #9

Here are my comments for this week: Bonnie's Blog and Rawand's Blog.

Post #9- Where would we be in the study of cartoons without directors and artists commentary?

I decided I would watch Finding Nemo with the Director's Commentary to give me something to write about for this week's post. I have watched some Director's Commentary before and had found it interesting, yet this time around it proved to be more useful to me when relating what was discussed in the commentary to the study of history of animation. Director's Commentary of their movie reminds the viewer that the animated story they are witnessing is not just a shallow children's tale, but rather plays on a deeper set of themes that maybe harder to follow due to just being too sucked into the general aura of the story.

Even without seeing the Director's Commentary of Finding Nemo, everyone knows that the story is one of a journey and about the dichotomy of fear verse hope and pessimism verse optimism in life. Yet the director always points out the subtle nuances of his exploration of the themes throughout the story. It is always intriguing to have someone point out such differences that are so painfully obvious, yet you missed them anyways. An example of this would be how Nemo's father, Marlin is overprotective, which is contrasted to Nemo's fish school class which is adventurous. Additionally, the Director's Commentary often leads to discovering unanswered questions, as why does Nemo have a 'bad' fin? Director Andrew Stanton points out that this is a visual manifestation of whatever the little thing in their child's life that a parent thinks a child can not handle.

Along with insight into the greater meaning of the picture, Director's Commentary often leads to enlightenment about the technical process of how the movie came to be the finished product that it is. This includes exploring subjects such as general animation techniques, research for how things look in real life and attempting to reproduce that in the movie, and general film 'grammar' of using certain shots and certain musical scores. First off one of the things anyone notices about Finding Nemo is the use of lighting in the shots. The artists in charge of this tasks go through a little segment of how this lighting is construction. It turns out that different types of lighting, such as caustic, key and fog lighting were used in combination to create the final effect. Other discoveries that can be made thanks to the DVD Director's Commentary include how the plants of the reef were simplified into three major types (tall, vertical; big, flat horizontal; and big, round) in order to better animate them.

Random Aside to My Posts on Appropriateness of Cartoons

I actually found this article in the Washington Post by reading an article in the Explosion. It strikes me as odd just even the first sentence, "The other day I found my 6-year-old son watching an Internet cartoon called "Happy Tree Friends."[1] The author then goes on to state how horrible these cartoons on the internet are, yet she why is she not closely watching her own son's use of the internet. I am not going to get into all of my argument again, but does this not prove my point about its parents responsibilty not the government to monitor their children's use of the internet, TV viewing etc.


[1] Ellison, Katerine . (23 Oct, 2005) What's Up Doc?... A Bloody Outrage That's What. The Washington Post online. Retrieved 26 Oct 2005 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/21/AR2005102102315.html?sub=AR.

Comments for Week #8

Check out comments on Zeke's blog and Bryanne's blog

Post #8- Will Shrek 3 be as good as Shrek, or even Shrek 2?

When first viewing the original Shrek movie, the first thought that came to mind is how impressive the computer graphics were in presenting a stylized, realistic world. Yet, this post is not going to be about the merits of Dreamworks computer graphics techniques.

The story of Shrek, one that of overcoming odds, accepting yourself, and beauty is only skin deep sends children decent life mottos. Even Shrek 2 presents these good mottos, yet most of them overlap with themes from the first movie. Nonetheless it is a hard call to decide which movie is better, though a good argument could be made for favoring the first Shrek, just because of it's originality. But will Shrek 3 be as good as Shrek, or even Shrek 2?

Personally when reading the very minimum details offered on Shrek 3's plot it seems as if new themes will be discovered. It seems as if Fiona's father is going to die in the next installment, which will help throw in some themes in responsibility, as well as a dash of Arthurian tales. [1] All of this seems well and good, but it will be tough to not out do or poorly do the stylized Shrek presentation, seeing how this is the third time around.

Relating this to previous post about the appropriatness of cartoons viewed by children, Shrek 3 should definately continue Shrek's tradition of including more adult geared jokes. As far as jokes go nothing presented in the previous movies have been too of color. Many of them happened so quickly it is also fair to say younger children would not even pick up on these jokes. In fact it is fair to say that Shrek is the perfect mix of humor and plot of kids and adults alike.

[1] Shrek 3. Movie Tome. Retrieved 26 Oct, 2006 from http://www.movietome.com/movietome/servlet/MovieMain/movieid-115188/Shrek_3.

Photo thanks to QMovies: Shrek 2 Review.

Comments for Week #7

Check out my comments on Zeke's blog and Lisa's blog.

Post #7- The FCC and What the Government Thinks is Appropriate for Children to View

(This post sprung out of the previous one that discussed The Smurfs. I would sugguest you read my previous two posts before reading this one.) Jesse and Zeke's comments from my previous post were intrgiuing that more reasearch on the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) was in order. If you can't tell I am a government major. These discussions on what is appropriate for children to watch relevant to today's cartoons, since cartoons are increasing not just for children anymore. This post will discuss the FCC regulations on what can be viewed on TV and whether or not something qualifies to be regulated, as well as my own personal views on the subject.

As the FCC's factsheet on Obscene, Profane and Indecent Broadcasts state,

"The Supreme Court established the definition of obscenity. The Supreme Court’s definition is designed to cover hard-core pornography. Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test:

An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value...

The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as 'language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.' Indecent programming contains patently offensive sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity. As such, the courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely. It may, however, be restricted in order to avoid its broadcast during times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience....

The FCC has defined profanity as 'including language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance.'…

In making indecency and profanity determinations, context is key…

Information regarding the details of what was actually said or depicted during the broadcast...

The date and time of the broadcast…

The call sign, channel, or frequency of the station involved..."[1]

Additionally, restrictions by law demands certain measures be taken between the hours of 6 am and 10 pm.

Furthermore, the FCC offers a variety of tools for parents to control their children's viewing on TV.[2] These include using the V-chip techonology to block specific channels or programs,[3]
a lockbox to block specific programs choosen by parents and asking cable companies to fully block channels viewers have not subscribed for. Additionally, much like the movie rating system, the FCC has detailed guidelines of the ratings available to those interested. The FCC also provides a link the Coalition for Independent Ratings Services if parents wish to consult an outside source.

Now with all this said a few things needed to be added. First off, as with anything spawned from vague Federal legislation, the FCC guidelines for inappropriate viewing or listening for children are also quite broad. (Yes I know I only quoted from the fact sheets, but trust me I have read a lot of Federal legislation and it is usually quite broad. If you are interested I can help you look up some of those laws.) Personally, this causes problems such as groups complaining about seemly insignificant issues in the programing their children are viewing/hearing. The FCC provides tools for parents, but can not under any circumstances force parents to use the tools, let alone force parents to apply them in the same manner across the country.

Now as for the discussions to certain time slots and appropriate programs should be allowed in certain time slots. This could only be done with more Federal legislation that would be written in a broad manner. This would then leave it up to the FCC to really interpret these laws, which could be good or bad. As Eminem states in his song, Without Me, "So the FCC won't let me be; or let me be me, so let me see; They try to shut me down on MTV; But it feels so empty, without me[4]" Yes many artists and TV producers claim the First Amendment and freedom of speech, which the FCC will always be conflicting with.

Ah the basic dichotomy of American government, freedom versus regulation. This is why children's programs should be regulated by the children's parents, not solely by the goverment. All the government should be doing is only providing basic aid, with the tools listed above and perhaps basic guidelines on what should be allowed in certain time slots (ie after school and early prime time).

[1] Obscene, Profane & Indecent Broadcasts. (08, Oct 2005). Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved 17, Oct 2005 from http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/obscene.html.

[2] Abernathy, Katleen Q. Focus on Consumer Concerns: Protecting Children From Objectionable Programming on Television. (15 Jan. 2004). v.2, #2. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved Oct 17, 2005 from http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/abernathy/news/children.html.

[3] The V-Chip: Putting Restrictions on What Your Children Watch. (28, Sept 2005). Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved 17, Oct 2005 from http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/vchip.html.

[4] Eminem. (2002). Without Me. The Eminem Show [CD]. Interscope Records.

Comments for Week #6

Check out my comments on these blogs: Nghinh's blog and Scott's blog.