Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Imaginary Conquests: Folktales, Film, And The Japanese Empire In Asia, Richard M Davis

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article highlights three family-targeted films made under the wartime Japanese empire: Yamamoto Kajir ō ’s musical comedy Songokū (1940) and Seo Mitsuyo’s animated Momotarō films, Sea Eagles (1943) and Divine Warriors of the Sea (1945). Significantly, these films are based on two fantastical premodern stories—the Chinese novel Journey to the West and the Japanese Momotarō legend, respectively—whose quest narratives map onto Japan’s contemporaneous military expansion into mainland China and the islands of the South Pacific. Despite the films’ seeming alignment with ultranationalist ideology, I argue that the geopolitical trajectories of their narratives are rendered ambiguous by their various reception …

Mythology In Children's Animation, David L. Emerson

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In recent years, there have been several animated films, ostensibly for children yet appreciable by adults as well, which have made attempts to incorporate various mythologies of the world into their settings and plots. There is considerable variation in the amounts of mythology included, from offhand mentions to integral components of the story. There is also a wide range of the degree of faithfulness to the mythologies being depicted. This note gives an overview of some of the most well-known and readily available animations from 1992 to 2017, and show how the mythologies of many different cultures are represented. Some …

Orientalism, Resistance Or Global Harmony? Entangled Strands In The Film Isle Of Dogs, Soonkwan Hong

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

5 Or 6 Amphibians: An Animated Short Film, Nicholas Lockwood

Honors Theses

My art project, “5 or 6 Amphibians”, explores a feeling I have had at Union - that of being split between too many things. It is six minutes of rotoscoped animation, presented on an array of nine screens. It is the culmination of my interest in time-based art, especially film and animation, as well as construction and technical knowledge.

A Cauldron Of Chaos And Cultivation: Rediscovering Disney Animation Of The 1980s, Thomas Price

Film Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis examines the four transitional Disney animated features of the 1980s The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), and Oliver and Company (1988)— in order to reassess the significance of this period in Disney history. The Walt Disney Studio is internationally hailed for its animated features produced over the last eight decades, however, the animated films released in the 1980s have been ignored and neglected due to the negative evaluations of scholars and historians who favor Walt’s era and the 1990s renaissance period. A closer examination of the films reveals that …

Representative Biodiversity: The Ecosystem Of Cartoon Network, Carl Suby

Film Studies (MA) Theses

As a capitalist organism the television program, as explained by Todd Gitlin, uses its slant to sell itself to advertisers with similar leanings on contemporary social issues to maintain its flow of revenue. However, this concept of slant does not account for the broader network, which, like the singular program, cultivates a catalog of programming into a singular slanted message becoming an ecosystem of shows relying on each other to maintain viewership. The successful televised ecosystem will then be home to programs who enjoy long runs and display an easily recognized shared slant. As an example of the televised ecosystem, …

To Listen: Semiotics, Deaf Representation, And A Silent Voice, Kristen Stedman

Senior Capstone Theses

A Silent Voice, a Japanese film released in 2016, serves as an example of how deaf communities in media can be more accurately portrayed.

Semiotics, the study of how we assign and derive meaning from language, images, and cultural phenomenon, often overlaps with film analysis and representational studies. These three fields are inherently interrelated in the power of film in conveying messages about an issue, location, or group to a wide audience. Too often, inaccurate portrayals of minority groups in film lead these groups to be simplified culturally, fostering misunderstanding and conflict between groups. Just one group that is …

“Goth Barbies”: A Postmodern Multiperspective Analysis Of Mattel’S Monster High Media, Danianese Woods

Dissertations

This research examines the historical, cultural, and social context in relation to the monster characters of Mattel’s Monster High, a franchise about animated dolls that are the offspring of famous horror monsters. The animated dolls are an intersection of complex gender and racial identities that are constructed in a postmodern reality. The goal of this research is to formulate a more complex understanding of the social and cultural contexts, relationships, interactions and meanings within production, circulation, and distribution of Monster High media.

The preferred reading of the Monster Highseries is postmodernism. Monster Highdisplays a multitude of postmodern …

A Study Of Animating To Music, Brianna Phylice Edmonds

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I have always had an interest in musicals. I enjoy the way storytelling can happen through a single musical segment. I have always been interested in how music can set the tone in an instant. Because, of this I decided my thesis would be more of a conceptual one. My vision for my thesis project was to create a sequence that is animated to music and will tell a story through a sequence that is set to music.

Modes Of Cartoon Corporeal Performance, Gregory Langner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation project works to introduce and interrogate a phenomenon I am calling cartoon corporeality. The phenomenon refers to the varied ways in which cartoons “escape” their usual two-dimensionality through performance, appearing to manifest in physical environments in ways that should be understood as culturally impactful. Cartoon corporeality encompasses different modes of performance wherein the explicit visual presence of a cartoon subject informs an immediately observable physical impact through the body of the performer. I interrogate the phenomenon by focusing on four select modes of cartoon corporeal performance: videogame play, cosplay, theatrical adaptation, and the active weaving of cartoons …

The Puppets Look Like Flowers At Last, Evie Metz

Theses and Dissertations

The urge to uncover aspects of human condition permeates my work, from the fundamental curiosity of a child tearing apart their doll to uncover what lies within to continuing a quest in uncovering basic human urges through my puppet animated dramas and tragedies. There is a controversial line between the childlike and the adult-like that can be ambiguous, and at some times more discernible while other times less. I create handcrafted stop-frame puppet animations that explore self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, shame, and envy within unpredictable life scenarios. These are animations about inner life, attempting to resolve conflicting elements of …

Animated Encounters: Transnational Movements Of Chinese Animation, 1940s-1970s By Daisy Yan Du (Review), Li Guo

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

In her groundbreaking monograph, Daisy Yan Du offers a rigorous discussion of Chinese animation by highlighting the historical course of Chinese animation and how animated filmmaking contests the notion of nationhood and opens up a spatialized conception of intercultural encounters and collaboration. The book contains a theoretical introduction essay, four substantial chapters, a concise epilogue, and three appendices on animated films by Mochinaga Tadahito, on leaders of Shanghai Animation Film Studio, and on major publications on Chinese animation. It contributes valuable discussions on the “disjuncture between politics and aesthetics in the sense that politics cannot fully control arts” (Du 2020, …