Category: FMP

In this week, I have kept looking at my chosen topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ and focusing on the discourses of design of anthropomorphic characters in animations by reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation:

In chapter 5, page 203- 204, it mentions about the tendency of creating anthropomorphic characters in opposite genders: the male tends to be defined as how they perform, and the female tends to be defined as how they looked like in a stereotypical way. Most of the time, male characters are more masculine, cunning and aggressive while in opposite binary, female characters are passive and sentimental.

The example of it is shown through the famous characters Micky and Minnie created by the well known Disney animator, that he described Minnie is drawn in the same structure as Minnie only she has been added more make-up on her face, and with a more female poses and costume to show her mannerisms to please audiences.

However it’s also been pointed out that anthropomorphic characters are over juvenilised through their signifiers to please the adult audiences.

Beside, there are also anthropomorphic characters interfere with the concept of ‘gender-bleeding’ shown in the animation such as Tom and Jerry, which ends up a complicating structure of relationship between characters in their story, and their sexuality becomes unstable to define the representation of genders of themselves.

in page 23 of Understanding Animation, it points out early animation uses Anthropomorphic characters include:

1. Gertie the Dinosaur 
2. Felix the Cat
3. Mickey Mouse

Disney company has developed the concept into achieving the hyper-realism in their future work. However, scholars Patrick D. Murphy and Richard Schickel argues these characters hide their natural terrors or wildness through cuteness, joke and musical cues in the performance. 

By looking at the proposal questions, I have started my response as shown below:

The essence of including anthropomorphism in animation

1. How anthropomorphism was structured under the cultural background
2. How do the anthropomorphic characters signify the meaning behind the political issue?
3. How anthropomorphic characters help to create gags in the film
4. The destabilisation of anthropomorphic characters in media studies

Brief Outline:

The use of anthropomorphic characters is commonly seen in old and contemporary media, including animation and films. This thesis will discuss the source of anthropomorphism in art history, the benefit of bringing it to the animation industry, the political meanings relating to a few anthropomorphic animated films, and the destabilisation of ethical issues potentially included in different media forms.   

My methodologies include researching related articles, reading well-known novels, and watching animated films, surrounding my chosen concept ‘anthropomorphism’. Eventually I will be gathering clues and comparing each element I have used in different topics to structure a result.

Hopefully, the reader can form a good structural understanding of anthropomorphism and add it to their creation of art.

Brief Literature:

Starting from the modernism period, where more revolutions happen in people’s lives due to the second world war, more hyperrealist characters show the feature of anthropomorphism appearing in the animation industry. By reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation and Animation and America, which provides me a concept of how these anthropomorphic characters bring new meanings and gags to the stories and audiences. Through reading George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, it displays anthropomorphic characters designed to reveal political issues of socialist revolution sarcastically. By reading the articles produced by Claire Molloy, they allow me to view potential risks hidden in the use of anthropomorphic characters in media studies.

Bibliography

Topic 1:

1. Wells, P., 2002. Animation and America. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
2. Singal, D.J., 1987. Towards a definition of American modernism. American Quarterly, 39(1), pp.7-26.

Topic 2:

1. Orwell, G., 2024. Animal Farm. Wordsworth Editions Limited.
2. Elaheh, F., 2011. Symbols, metaphors and similes in literature: a case study of Animal Farm. Islamic Azad University.
3. Letemendia, V.C., 1992. Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell’s neglected commentary. Journal of Modern Literature, 18(1), pp.127-137.
4. Fajrina, D., 2016. Character metaphors in George Orwell’s animal farm. Studies in English Language and Education, 3(1), pp.79-88.
5. Animal Farm (1954) Directed by J. Batchelor. [Feature film]. United Kingdom: Associated British-Pathé.
6. SnarkTheMagicDragon (2015) Revolt Of The Toys 1946. 20 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5a31idiJz8&t=480s (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
7. The M3 Media Collection (2021) The Tale of the Fox (1937) English Subtitles Best Quality. 25 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dCvmEY_9fo (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
8. Steve Cutts (2020) The Turning Point. 1 Jane. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7LDk4D3Q3U (Accessed: 5 March 2025).

Topic 3:

1. Wells, P., 1998. Understanding animation. Routledge.
2. mcanguish1977 (2013) How a Mosquito Operates (1912) Winsor McCay animation. 29 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cn30IeZPU&t=81s (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
3. Open Culture (2016) Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). 27 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32pzHWUTcPc (Accessed: 5 March 2025).

Topic 4:

1. Molloy, C., 2011. Popular media and animals. Springer.
2. Molloy, C., 2006. Discourses of anthropomorphism. Liverpool John Moores University (United Kingdom).

In the following few weeks, I will be keep reading the research article and ends up more points for my outline and literature reviews.

In this week I have added a few point to my research and reviewed more online journeys to pursue the knowledge, Beside I have finished reading the Animal Farm written by George Orwell, which is a good piece of example to link my topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ and political issue from the last century.

About the historic background when anthropomorphic characters started appearing in the animations and films, in the journey ‘Towards a Definition of American Modernism’, page 7-8 have pointed out:

( https://www.jstor.org/stable/2712627?seq=1 )

It is a culture to critique the contrast between the modernisation of technologies and dehumanisation as a representation of ambivalence.

From the same journey, page 10-11 point out:

Modernism raised early from symbolism and impressionism, which were built up through different art forms such as symbolist and paintings they emphasise on what they have been effected emotionally through the object instead focusing on the real thing. They explore beyond world structure under the positivism while sharing more unpredictable experience from human perception.

After reading journals around Animal Farm, here is what I gathered in my notes:

<Animal Farm>

Inspiring history located:

https://academicjournals.org/article/article1379412793_Fadaee.pdf/1000

The characters in Animal Farm were created by the author as metaphors for the Soviet Union leaders in beginning of the 20 century. Based on the analysis of characters in the story, the writer of the journey Symbols, metaphors and similes in literature: A case study of “Animal Farm”, page 5, found the resemblances of characters of the government’s leaders at the time to the following animals found in the story.

In Revolution on Animal Farm:

Orwell’s Neglected Commen

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831551?seq=1

P127-p128 points out the political meaning hidden behind the text by its author, and revealing the revolution of democratic socialist represented by the Animal farm:

In Character Metaphors in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Chapter four points out the real character which been metaphorically exposed by anthropomorphic animals: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180412075731id_/http://www.jurnal.unsyiah.ac.id/SiELE/article/viewFile/3391/3177

Real characters anthropomorphism: (p6)

Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell’s Neglected Commentary

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831551?seq=9

page 135: the concept of ‘socialism’ and its danger through the whole book, its benefits overlay on top of the Russian regime:

Page 137: Concepts in the book/animation

Difficulty of the socialist revolution: ‘if people outside still thought that that particular form of revolution could succeed without betraying its goals, nothing new could be accomplished.’

Page 136:

Unless everyone makes the revolution for him or herself without surrendering power to an elite, there will be little hope for freedom or equality. A revolution in which violence and conspiracy become the tools most resorted to, one which is led by a consciously or unconsciously power-hungry group, will inevitably betray its own principles.

Refer to the book: Failing to protest when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves, the other animals surrendered what power they might have had to pig leadership. Had they been “alert and [known] how to chuck out their leaders”31 once the latter had fulfilled their task, the original spirit of Animal Farm might have been salvaged. 

Page 137:

Conclusion:

Acceptance of the notion of class struggle could not lead to an instant transformation of society unless those who would transform it accepted also the difficult burden of political power, both at the time of and after the revolution. While the most corrupting force on Animal Farm was the deception practiced upon the other animals by the pigs, the greatest danger came from the reluctance of the oppressed creatures to believe in an alternative between porcine and human rule.

Which, the anthropomorphic pigs are a dangerous sign throughout the whole book.

Under my 4th question ‘ The benefits and drawbacks of anthropomorphism’ under this chosen topic, here is my notes based upon reading Claire Molloy’s journals:

ournal: Discourses of Anthropomorphism

http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5858/1/439070.pdf

Page 3 points out the emotions which are been added to the anthropomorphic animals are mainly working for humans’ interests of state, scientific, and commercial discourses:

Documentaries or films with subjective way of shooting are being controlled by popular culture.

In the other journal written by Malloy Claire, Popular Media and Animals, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TCR-DAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false  page 8:

She has also pointed out the representative animals in any media written by humans may not be seen their ‘reality’, their ‘reality’ is being formed through representation. It is working for culture

P12 points out the concept of anthropomorphism has destabilised the boundary between human and non-human.   

P20 points out the anthropomorphism could distant the issue happened within animal rights, instead, they treat them as an over sentimental thing. 

In the following week, I will be concentrating on producing the work to hand-in before the easter: