Review: Don Corrigan, Nuts about Squirrels (2019).
Fig. 1 - Don Corrigan, Nuts About Squirrels: The Rodents that Conquered Popular Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2019).
Don Corrigan’s light-hearted Nuts About Squirrels: The Rodents that Conquered Popular Culture (McFarland, 2019) makes the case for a squirrel as the dominant rodent of American popular culture (Fig. 1). Corrigan looks at squirrels in various forms of media, such as videogames, cartoons, and comics (105-151). He also discusses “Legendary American Squirrels” (152-171) and “Squirrels in Myth and Folklore” (172-181). There is a lot of content for animation scholars here, such as detailed analyses of Sandy Cheeks from SpongeBob SquarePants and Rocky and Bullwinkle in “Chapter 6: Cartoons and Animated Movie Squirrels” (105-126). There is much less content for fantasy scholars, apart from a useful consideration of the superhero “Squirrel Girl” (127-131). The book feels like it is aimed at the general public, especially those who are fascinated by squirrels but who have not considered just how big an impact they have made on American culture. At 227 pages, Nuts About Squirrels offers plenty of content and comes with a postscript (“Squirrels Unlimited”), as well as chapter notes, bibliography and index.
There is an undeniable gap in the research when it comes to squirrels in popular culture and, initially, one cannot doubt the author’s point that squirrels are prominent in media. There are few books about squirrels’ impact on culture or history with the vast majority of writing on the creatures either residing in nature guidebooks or children’s books. However, one has to have a huge affection for the titular rodents to not be overwhelmed by this book. The author’s appreciation for squirrels is self-evident but the arguments he presents are not compelling enough to convince everyone else why they should be concerned with squirrels. While Corrigan makes valid points as to why squirrels make good subjects for animation, advertising and other media, more often than not, he does not link his arguments besides pointing out how the squirrels are “energetic” and “lovable”. Corrigan’s particular fondness for adjectives and alliteration, such as “Texas twang and titter”, “loathsome lampreys”, “squirrels are downright dreamy” distract the reader from his analysis. Further, while Corrigan settles for a thematic approach, he merely lists instances of squirrels in different media while providing brief insights without making a sustained academic argument. It would have been far more beneficial to use individual case studies and branch out to other themes. For example, there is an interesting argument to be made on the world’s obsession with squirrels, but the author misses the opportunity. While the scholars of the fantastic might find interesting Corrigan’s analysis of cinematic monsters, where he explains why a movie about “rampaging squirrels” has never been made (squirrels are not scary), a problem with Corrigan’s analysis is a too brief a discussion of this interesting topic. As he moves on far too quickly from subject to subject, the audience is never given a chance to immerse themselves in a thorough discussion.
Corrigan writes about the squirrel’s symbolic value in Native American myths and builds a concept of this creature from pre-Columbus America, both repurposed for modern capitalism and resistant to it. Woodland is continuously destroyed, but media content grows, so squirrels face the irony of becoming more of a presence on our screens while facing the threat of extinction in real life. A closer analysis of the opening sequence of the first Ice Age (Chris Wedge, 2002) would suggest this appeal, as concern grows about environmental catastrophe, we may see the squirrel’s persistence to survive (Fig. 2). Louisa Mellor shows in her article concerning Scrat the Squirrel in Den of Geek (2016) what Corrigan might have achieved if he had delved further. Quoted in her article, the film’s director Chris Wedge suggests Scrat was “born of trying to achieve something and not quite achieving it and then thinking you’d achieved it… it’s a universal struggle we all have”. The film’s character designer Peter de Seve concurs: “We’re all chasing after something and I think we all relate to that. We’re never going to get everything we want and he’s never going to get that acorn”. Mellor discusses the character of Scrat through an introduction to Musée Ludique’s book showcasing Blue Sky artwork which “draws on Epicurus, Spinoza and the myth of Sisyphus” (2016). Somehow Mellor manages to take a minor character from the Ice Age franchise and turn it into a deeper statement on the human condition. This combination of philosophy, introspective and textual analysis is a frustrating glimpse into what Corrigan could have done by using a few select squirrels rather than attempting a buckshot approach.
Fig. 2 - Ice Age’s Scrat.
Scrat is one of the many creatures who is left unanalysed, as is Bucky the Squirrel from Emperor’s New Groove (Mike Dindal, 2000) and the heart-breaking squirrel sequence in The Sword and the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1963). These creatures are used to say something more about the human condition, whether it is Bucky tormenting the vain narcissistic Kuzco or Arthur learning about unrequited love through an interaction with another species. Perhaps the light-hearted tone established by Corrigan in his acknowledgements prevents him from immersing in darker and deeper conclusions about the presence of squirrels on our screens. For his light-hearted tone, Corrigan chooses a case study of Sandy Cheeks from SpongeBob SquarePants. Corrigan demonstrates an impressive knowledge of the character and shows skill in establishing Sandy’s tough personality through her Texan identity and bodybuilding habits. Corrigan emphasises that their bond is that of physical competition, (but also hints at a physical attraction: “Sandy does find opportunities to prominently display her muscular body for SpongeBob […] There is no question that SpongeBob takes notice whenever the squirrel girl sports her hot purple clothing […]” (119). A discussion of the relationship between Sandy and SpongeBob would have been a fascinating read, but its potential is left unexplored.
Corrigan’s venture into complex themes concerns media theory, but the book’s foundation in academic literature is questionable at best. The author chooses Marshall McLuhan (Fig. 3) as their academic cornerstone and uses him to describe how the presence of squirrels in different media determines how they are presented. This is the conflation of two separate McLuhan theories. The first is McLuhan’s “medium is the message” mantra which appears in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). The second theory, that of “hot” and “cool” media, differentiates media based on how much people can interact with them. Therefore, “hot media” refers to newspapers or print photographs which require less involvement from participants while “cool media” refers to television, seminars, which require more interaction. Corrigan does not expand on McLuhan’s concept with a convincing reason of what it has to do, but only explains how squirrels are presented in each medium: “hot medium of newspapers picks up stories of squirrels as adversaries” and the “cool medium of television transmits stories of squirrels as entertaining planetary companions” (8). However, this is a misreading of McLuhan, because it assumes the content of these media is what determines their message. Instead, the famous “the medium is the message” means that the content does not matter.
Fig. 3 - Marshall McLuhan.
Further, McLuhan is a controversial choice but would be less so if Corrigan used him as a gateway for other, more contemporary theorists or at least referenced one other theorist. Instead, McLuhan is the sole academic source upon which Corrigan bases the foundations for his study. This is a missed opportunity for great dialogue between theorists. Plenty critics take issue with McLuhan. Dwight McDonald, Tom Wolfe and, most prominently, Raymond Williams, who said of McLuhan’s famous slogan: “For if the medium — whether print or television — is the cause, all other causes, all that ordinary men see as history, are at once reduced to effects” (Williams 1974, 130). One would think that among these effects would be squirrels. Corrigan may have decided this would detract from the focus of squirrels, but to solely use McLuhan may leave the academic reader unsatisfied. While McLuhan deserves to be examined, his status as a controversial philosopher is bestowed the same examination as other interesting ideas in the book: by far not examined enough. McLuhan offered this pronouncement to defend his cerebral writing: “Clear prose indicates the absence of thought”; as opposed to philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s: “[A]n obscure or bad style means a dull and confused brain” (1891, 22). While Corrigan writes clearly, his passion for squirrels will delight only those already converted. While this book might leave some perplexed, it book should be on the shelf of anyone who adores the fluffy rodents.
**Article published: February 4, 2022**
References:
Long, Kim. 1995. Squirrels: A Wildlife Handbook. Denver: Johnsons Books.
Mellor, Louisa. 2016. “The Ice Age Movies and the Story of Scrat.” Den of Geek, July 5, 2016.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1891. The Art of Literature. London: S. Sonnenschein & Company.
Vary, Adam B. 2005. “The battle for kids’ TV: After the Buster and SpongeBob controversies, is there a place for queer lives on children’s TV”. The Advocate 934, March 2005, 64-65.
Watt, Melanie. 2006. Scaredy Squirrel. Toronto: Kids Can Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1977. Television. London: Routledge.
Biography
Andrew Corsini is researching American cartoons in the 1960s as a part of his PhD thesis at Oxford Brookes University entitled “Good Grief: Consumerist Cartoons and American Sixties Society”. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.corsini.3.
