HW 30:Animation as Political and Social Constructions

The second session that I attended at the Keene State College Citizenship Symposium was titled, Animation as Political and Social Constructions. The speakers of this session were Jiwon Ahn, Sander Lee, and Mark Timney. I unfortunately missed most of Ahn’s talk because I was coming from another class and it caused me to come in later and I missed the beginning. Lee talked about two different cartoons that compared the aspect of the German Nazi times. The first he talked about was a Disney cartoon that featured Donald Duck. In this cartoon Donald was working for Hitler at what seemed to be a sweat shop making different kinds of ammunition, he was tired and going insane, but instead of having one of his normal temper tantrums he continued to obey Hitler and work. At the end of the cartoon, Donald wakes up in American flag pajamas and discovers that what he thought was to be an arm in the air was just his statue of lady liberty. Lee thought that this cartoon made it out to seem that the only force able to defeat the terrible Nazis is the more powerful Americans. The other cartoon that he showed us was a Warner Brothers cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny. Bugs seemed not to be afraid of Hitler and posed as a Russian that the Germans feared and caused them to run away very scared. He compared these two cartoons and how they approached the idea of the German power. Bugs cartoon was more humorous and the Disney cartoon was a little more serious showing the power that the Nazi’s had over Donald. The second speaker that I got to see was Timney and he talked about a good citizen and compared it to South Park. He showed us a video clipping from South Park and showed that even though South Park is known for its violence and sometimes controversial material, it often shows a problem that most people have, and then a solution for solving the problem. All this happens while still including comedy. I thought this session was interesting and that it took very different views of cartoons that a lot of people do not go that deep into thought about, which was great to hear about.