POLITICAL — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

The 21 (Tod Polson, 2024)

In 2019, MORE Productions was contemplating its first animated film project. Having worked on live-action features like The Ticket (2016) with Dan Stevens and Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016), MORE’s co-producers Mark Rodgers and Mandi Hart knew the world of live-action filmmaking well. They also knew it was not the best creative choice for the story they were seeking to tell - the story of 21 men (twenty Coptic Egyptians, one Ghanaian) kidnapped, tortured and ultimately martyred by ISIS in an infamous video published on February 15, 2015.

EDITORIALMandi HartDecember 6, 2024REALISM, STYLE, POLITICALComment

Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Posthumous & Posthuman Animation Online Seminar

Last week the BAFTSS Animation SIG presented another stellar online event. This time the SIG offered to explore the uncanny territories of posthumous and posthuman animation. Organized by Dr. Sam Summers (Middlesex University) and featuring works-in-progress by a doctoral student Alice Giuliani (University of West London) and Dr. Christopher Holliday (King’s College London), the Posthumous & Posthuman Animation seminar took place on Zoom on May 10th 2023.

EVENT REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaMay 19, 2023POSTHUMANISM, DIGITAL, ANIMATION, HOLLYWOOD, POLITICALComment

Review: Kenneth Chan and Andrew Stuckey (eds.), Sino-Enchantment: The Fantastic in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas (2021)

It seems that even film fans are becoming increasingly aware of the huge significance China is going to play in the next few decades of popular culture. In a global media landscape otherwise dominated by the United States, the huge significance of both the Chinese box office and the Chinese government’s cultural politics is shaping the fortunes of the globalised media industry.

BOOK REVIEWAlexander SergeantMay 4, 2023FANTASTIC, CHINA, ASIAN ANIMATION, POLITICALComment

Private Snafu: Going Home (1944): Politics and Propaganda

The American government utilized the rising popularity of animated films during the 1930s and 1940s to curate several propaganda shorts during the Second World War. The Private Snafu series aired from 1943-1946 and followed the eponymous Private Snafu whose mishaps functioned as a cautionary tale against misbehaving in the military.

SEQUENCE ANALYSISSarena DubignonJanuary 27, 2023PROPAGANDA, POLITICAL, WARNER BROTHERS, FILM HISTORY, HOLLYWOODComment

Political oppression and resistance in Jiří Trnka’s Ruka/The Hand (1965)

In 1965, the Czech draughtsman, book illustrator, puppet and toy designer, painter, animated film-maker and sculptor Jiří Trnka released his last short animation film Ruka/The Hand (1965). The silent 18 minute animation delivers a powerful and chilling dynamic; allegorically and metaphorically representing the influence of the communist political regime on the freedom of people through the framing of Trnka as the main character (a harlequin) and the accompanying image of the hand, which overpowers harlequin’s agency.

SEQUENCE ANALYSISRenée-Marie PizzardiJuly 29, 2022CZECH, POLITICAL, ALLEGORY, STOP-MOTION, SYMBOLISM, METAPHORComment

Surrealism and political critique in the animated medium: Fantastic Planet (1973)

The 1973 animated adaptation of Stefan Wul’s 1957 novel, Oms En Serie, recounts the enslavement and subjugation of the ‘Oms,’ (a term that is phonetically indistinguishable from the French word for men, hommes), by giant blue humanoid aliens, the ‘Draags.’

The Story of O.J (Jay-Z & Mark Romanek, 2017)

In this blog post I will explore the ways in which Jay Z’s 2017 music video ‘The story of O.J’ (2017) evokes the problematic politics of representation in animation, and the damaging effects that these representations have historically had on understanding of American black identity and culture.

SEQUENCE ANALYSISMeghna JohalApril 28, 2022RACE, AMERICA, MUSIC, POLITICAL, CARTOON Comment

Review: Nathan Waddell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Nineteen Eighty-Four (2020)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) as a novel has taken on a life divorced from its creator. In political parlance, the book—or terms from it—have been used to herald apocalyptic prophecies, no matter the political affiliation. For example, recently in the United States, Senator Josh Hawley, R-MO, used the term “Orwellian” to describe a publishing house’s cancellation of a book contract.

BOOK REVIEWAdam McLainMarch 4, 2022LITERATURE, GEORGE ORWELL, POLITICALComment

The Fantasy World of...Jessica Ashman

Jessica Ashman is a BAFTA in Scotland award-winning artist who works in animation, music, performance and arts education. In 2014 she graduated from the Royal College of Art with a MA in Animation and her work has been supported by Animate Projects, Jerwood Visual Arts Bursary, Arts Council England, UK Film Council and Channel 4's Random Acts.

THE FANTASY WORLD OF...Jessica AshmanApril 9, 2021GENDER, RACE, POLITICAL, REPRESENTATIONComment

Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century

In today’s visual culture, animation is at an interesting turning point, poised between fiction and fact, perhaps combining the two. We are increasingly confronted with ubiquitous animated images, videos, and gifs, for example, on smartphones, computers, in airplanes, doctors’ offices, schools, and many more, which are all used uncritically to represent or express real events, feelings, processes, and interactions.

EDITORIALNea EhrlichApril 24, 2020DOCUMENTARY, TRUTH, POLITICAL, VISUALISATIONComment

Contagion Animation as Contagious Animation

There is no accounting for taste at the best of times, but this past month’s constant stream of dire global pandemic news and projections has wreaked havoc on streaming algorithms, as quarantined audiences scramble to keep themselves occupied with a wide variety of new content. While many have opted to dive headfirst into big cat-themed true crime, others are eschewing escapist entertainment in favor of a morbid fascination with newly relevant fictional contagion narratives.

EDITORIALMihaela MihailovaApril 17, 2020ANIMATION, NEWS, REPRESENTATION, VISIBILITY, POLITICALComment

The Environmental Emergency: An Animated Success Story?

EDITORIALEmmanuelle DotNovember 15, 2019ENVIRONMENT, POLITICAL, ALLEGORY, METAPHOR, EDUCATIONComment

Fantasy and the Re-Animation of Othered Cultures

The intersection of fantasy and animation is increasingly also an intersection of nationalities and cultures. The world’s best known animation studios often look beyond their own cultures for inspiration, exploring and representing people, mythologies and folklore from across the globe. Japan’s Studio Ghibli, for example, frequently adapt Western sources, creating fantasy-inflected variations on European countries (Howl’s Moving Castle [Hayao Miyazaki, 2004]) or indeterminate settings bearing both Japanese and European influence (Kiki’s Delivery Service [Hayao Miyazaki, 1989]; Arrietty [Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010]; When Marnie Was There [James Simone & Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2014]).

EDITORIALRachel BrookJanuary 25, 2019ANIMATION, AUDIENCE, POLITICAL, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD, WORLD CINEMAComment