Episode 130 - Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith, 2011)
Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith, 2011).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
The Christmas special of the Fantasy/Animation podcast is finally delivered, and a perfectly wrapped episode it is too (!), with Chris and Alex enjoying the magic and mayhem of Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith, 2011) - the Aardman studio’s second foray into computer animation and a film that confronts head-on Christmas as a collective fantasy through the comedic conflicts between generations. Listen as they discuss tensions between old and new, magic and technology, in the film’s playful portrayal of the bureaucracy and labour of Christmas; Aardman’s own industrial image of craft and the symbolism of automation versus those presents delivered ‘by hand’; the narrative function of Santa Claus as an ‘actor’ and an ‘actant’, and his complex identity as a mythic figure; Arthur Christmas’ ambivalent images of generous consumerism; spectatorial positioning in relation to the intrusion of festive fantasy and ideas of belief; and how the film negotiates what it means to represent and reinvent Christmas onscreen.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Attebery, Brian. 1992. Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Holliday, Christopher. 2020. “Between Plasticine and Pixel: Aardman’s Digital Thumbprint.” In Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion, ed. Annabelle Honess Roe, 223-240. London: Bloomsbury.
Neale, Steve. 2000. Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge.
Rosewarne, Lauren. 2018. Analyzing Christmas in Film: Santa to the Supernatural. Lanham: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.