Fantasy/Animation

Arab Animation (1937-2015) (with Omar Sayfo)

Special guest Dr Omar Sayfo joins Chris and Alex for Episode 119 of the podcast, which features a rundown of Arab Animation covering a range of cartoons from Egypt, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a discussion of Omar’s recent book Arab Animation: Images of Identity (2021). Omar is an Affiliated Researcher in the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University, and a researcher at the Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, who has published articles in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Media Industries Journal and The Journal of Popular Culture, as well as chapters in a number of edited collections. His monograph Arab Animation: Images of Identity looks at Arab animation from the 1930s to the present, offering an in-depth study of the “institutional and infrastructural background of animation production in the Arab world,” but also how Arab producers and artists have used animation to “mediate national, pan-Arab, Islamic and revolutionary identities.” Listen as the trio discuss a cross-section of animated examples that negotiate national culture and the mediation of political and religious messages, but also invite questions of local audiences vs. transnational flow; humour, allegory, and censorship; and the broader Arab political environment into which animation and fantasy has repeatedly entered. The case studies up for examination include Mish Mish Effendi (Frenkel Brothers, 1937) featuring the first Arab cartoon star; the fantasy film The Princess and the River (Faisal Al Yasiri, 1982) animated in East Germany; television series Freej (Mohammed Saeed Harib, 2006-2007) on the importance of tradition and custom; the parable Animal Stories from Qur'an (Sabbah Brothers, 2011) that demonstrates animation’s ability for educational entertainment; and the computer-animated feature Bilal: A New Breed of Hero (Khurram H. Alavi & Ayman Jamal, 2015) that depicts the life of Bilal ibn Rabah.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #28 - Adult Animation

Animation’s rude and crude history is the topic of Footnote #28 of the podcast as Chris and Alex take up the complex issue of adult animation. Topics include adult animation as the medium’s cultural ‘other’ and how it is a term involved in exclusionary tactics of classification; associations between the ‘adult’ of adult animation and taboo themes, strong language, and graphic sexual content; alternate definitions of adultness rooted in everything from the medium’s potential for satire, parody, and social criticism to wartime propaganda shorts; and how adult animation as a label opens up a discussion of animation’s own pedagogical function as a tool for education.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo*

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) (with David Sorfa)

Prepare for more multiverse madness as Chris and Alex dive into the world of Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022), the Oscar-winning absurdist sci-fi action adventure that engages head-on with the question of what it means to be human set against the backdrop of forking path storylines, a sumptuous mise-en-scène of colliding visual styles, and a maelstrom of digital VFX. The special guest for Episode 118 is Dr David Sorfa, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh and editor-in-chief of the journal Film-Philosophy, who specialises in philosophy’s relationship with cinema, Existentialism, phenomenology, the work of Jacques Derrida, and the presentation of thought and thinking in cinema. The trio cover a variety of topics appropriate to a film that slingshots spectators between multiple times and places, including what Everything Everywhere All At Once establishes in relation to feelings of worthlessness, apathy, and the power of choice; images of freedom and responsibility, and what it means for humanity to act in good faith; Michelle Yeoh’s star persona and her relationship to late-1990s/early-2000s Hollywood kung-fu cinema; the reflexive depiction of multiple femininities at breaking point; turns to chaos and fictional world theories rooted in what is made ‘possible’; and how a film like Everything Everywhere All At Once can add to and ‘do’ philosophical enquiry in positing how things might be otherwise than they are.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #27 - Surrealism

Following up episodes on hyper-realism and photorealism, this latest instalment completes the unofficial Fantasy/Animation ‘realism’ trilogy (!) by focusing on the history, politics, and aesthetic concerns of surrealism. Chris and Alex take a surrealist turn through the crisis of realism in the arts and the advent of photography; dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, and unconscious desires; postwar intellectualism, Salvador Dalí, and Dadaism; and how both fantasy and animation work in relation to surrealism’s political puncturing of the status quo, its claims to protest, and its affective assault on the senses.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) (with Jyotsna Kapur)

Whomping willows, Ford Anglias, and so much more are covered in episode 117 of the podcast, which (better late than never!) returns to Hogwarts for the second instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise and an adaptation of the 1998 novel originally released back in November 2002. Joining Chris and Alex for a closer look at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chris Columbus, 2002) is Jyotsna Kapur, who is a Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Southern Illinois University. Jyotsna’s research and teaching interests include Marxist-feminist theory of media arts and culture, the politics of labour, class, race, and sexuality in neoliberalism, and global children's media culture, and she has published widely on the intersections between visual culture and childhood. Listen as they discuss Hollywood cinema’s overlap with children’s rights in Clinton-era America and the question of protection; Harry Potter’s representation of London and the urban regeneration of King’s Cross St. Pancras as a space of travel, transit, and magic; Dobby, flying cars and developments in digital VFX; branding and world-building in relation to Potter fandom and tourism; mudblood as both a racialised category of identity and something entirely emptied of racial consciousness; and how Harry Potter negotiates the relationship between childhood and fantasy to stimulate a broader commercial and audience desire in the franchise.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #26 - The Cinema of Attractions

The tension between spectacle and narrative is investigated through the seminal work of Tom Gunning and his formulation of the “cinema of attractions” in this latest Footnote episode, in which Chris and Alex hold cinema’s propensity for exhibitionist visual display and its later development of story in delicate balance. Listen as they reflect on the emergence of actuality shorts, travelogues, and the ‘trick’ films of Georges Méliès; the acquisition and integration of narrative by cinema that challenged earlier modes of presentationalism; the role of technological innovation in the default myths of silent cinema; and how Gunning’s “cinema of attractions” model defining early film spectatorship and style intersects with both the screen histories and creative figures of fantasy and animation.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) (with Daniel White)

Finally following up their podcast on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001), Episode 116 has Chris and Alex picking up the story of Middle-earth with this instalment on the second film in the franchise, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002). Joining them is special guest Dr Daniel White, who is Senior Lecturer in Musicology in the Department of Music & Design Arts at the University of Huddersfield, and author of a number of publications looking at music in relation to worldbuilding and fantasy storytelling, including its role across the Lord of the Rings films. From the sonic dimensions of fantasy cinema to female vocality within Peter Jackson’s big-screen adaptations, listen as the trio discuss the contribution of sound to the construction of impossible fantastic space; processes of suture and de-suture; digital technology and Gollum’s identity as a VFX marvel; New Zealand and the impact within fantasy of shooting on location; what the interpretation of orcs as an indigenous community tells us about the film’s fluctuating levels of ‘humanity’; and the influence of Norse mythology upon The Two Towers’ musical logic.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Footnote #25 - Photorealism

Fresh from their discussion of hyper-realism in the previous Footnote episode, Chris and Alex discuss ‘photorealism’ in this latest instalment - a term that denotes the aesthetic mimicking of lens-based media to create the appearance of a world as viewed through a camera. Listen as they discuss photorealism’s relationship to the animated illusion of pro-filmic activity; links with hyper-realism as a broader aesthetic category of representation; the role of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in crafting and re-conjuring indexical signs (lens flare; depth-of-field); and how the simulation of analogue by other means links to processes of ‘remediation.’

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Peppa Pig Revisited (with Sarah Ann Kennedy)

Episode 115 celebrates Chris and Alex’s return to Peppa Pig (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2004-) for a part-interview, part-reflection on this staple of contemporary British animation and culture, which (unofficially at least!) follows on from the earlier podcast instalment discussing the style and tone of the series. The guest for this special ‘revisited’ episode is voice artist Sarah Ann Kennedy, who voices both Miss Rabbit and Mummy Rabbit in the show, alongside performing as Nanny Plum in Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom (Neville Astley & Mark Baker, 2009-) and Dolly Pond in the Channel 4 adult animation series Pond Life (Candy Guard, 1996-2000). Sarah is also a writer for Peppa Pig and an animation director, creating animated soap opera Crapston Villas (1995-1998) again for Channel 4, and is also currently a lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Central Lancashire. This episode covers all things related to the labour, creative practice, and technologies of voice acting, as well as featuring turns to the scope of ‘adult’ animation as a descriptor; local dubbing practices and the movement of animated television across national boundaries; ‘condensed’ animation aesthetics and anthropomorphic character designs; and the fun and fantasy of family that structures the colourful world of Peppa Pig.

Footnote #24 - Hyper-Realism

The podcast's first engagement with questions of ‘realism’ in animation takes centre stage in Footnote #24, where Chris and Alex historicise and interrogate the function of realism and hyper-realist traditions within a multitude of media and aesthetic traditions. Topics include hyper-realism’s place in relation to painting and sculpture; the uncanny quality of hyper-realist art and issues of resemblance; the parameters of Disney’s ‘hyper-realist’ animated style against earlier ‘plasmatic’ sensibilities; and how animation’s capabilities for authentically portraying the real are fundamentally tied to its status as a technology of creative representation.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**