The Persistence of Animation

Portrayals of Class Mobility in The Simpsons

Abstract: As with most prime time animation, class is a recurring theme in The Simpsons. Its popularity and volume of episodes provide an ample case study. The Simpsons portrays a stereotypical American working class family, and presents themes of class mobility. Using a selection of episodes, this paper aims to explore the real world realities of this theme.

The ramifications that result from the show’s representations are discussed, including interviews engaging the group the show allegedly depicts. This investigation includes how audiences interpret the portrayals, and how it influences their views of class. In the current economic crisis, the idea of class mobility continues to play an important role in how the show reflects American society.

Biographical Statement: Harrison Stark is a graduate student at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He is working towards his MFA in animation. Harrison attained a Bachelor’s of Science in Telecommunications from Ohio University with a minor in Music.

Vision On to Stay Tooned: Animated Pedagogy in British Children’s Broadcasting 1966-1996

Abstract: This paper will look at the ways animation was promoted and “taught” in a range of British children’s television programmes, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. While Britain has a rich tradition of animated TV series, principally made for children, from the emergence of television in the 1950s through to the present day, it was series like Vision On, Clapperboard, Rolf’s Cartoon Time and Stay Tooned which offered a practical, critical and progressive discourse about the effectiveness of animation as an art, educating children (and adults) about the meaning and affect of cartoons, influencing many later practitioners and critics.

Biographical Statement: I am an established animation studies scholar, seeking to extend my work as a cultural historian, theorist and screenwriter/director, by establishing new areas of enquiry to research and promote. This paper emerges from research in two related areas — firstly, the continuing work in recovering and writing about various aspects of British animation, and secondly, engaging with the importance of archives and archival materials as part of a development to create a national animation archive in Britain. This paper will form parts of two forthcoming publications, and informs an on-going government enquiry about animation education and visual literacy.

“Telling it like it is?” Considering British Television Animation and Contemporary Satire

Abstract: One of the primary modes of comic address within mainstream UK TV animation is an adherence to the tradition of satire. However much of this is processed through the trangressive space afforded to post-South Park TV animation and when considering the ambiguous and open-ended approach that typifies this contemporary register it is readily apparent that, whilst directly confronting ongoing cultural dialogues of apathy, expediency and nihilism, many post-2000 UK TV animated texts reveal as much about the failings, as well as the successes, of this contemporary satirical narrative.

Biographical Statement: Van Norris is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media, School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at the University of Portsmouth. His research areas and post and undergraduate teaching includes British and American film and television animation forms and issues of representation, American graphic novels and narratives, British and American television and film comedy modes, forms and performance. He is currently completing his PhD thesis: Drawing on the British Tradition - The Mapping of Cultural Attitudes and Identity and their intersection with Comedy Modes employed within British Television Animation.

Among his published works in the field of animation studies include articles in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal (November 2008) and Animation Studies,; he also contributed to The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism and Cinema, edited by Graeme Harper and Rob Stone (Wallflower, 2006).

Nostalgic parody or parodic nostalgia? Sub-genre on adultswim

Abstract: Since the inception of Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] in 2001, many of the shows have shared thematic content which references TV animation from the 1970s and 1980s. Using parody and satire shows such as, Harvey Birdman, Moral Orel and Robot Chicken, create a nostalgia, which is shared with the audience. The nostalgia codes must be understood and accepted by the audience for the comedy to succeed. This paper examines the characteristics of these shows and argues that by using specific familiar animation techniques and nostalgic references, a new sub-genre within comedy is being created.

Biographical Statement: Dr Nichola Dobson is an independent scholar based in Edinburgh. She previously lectured at Queen Margaret University and Glasgow Caledonian University. She recently completed her first single authored book, Historical Dictionary of Animation and Cartoons,for Scarecrow Press and is now continuing research in animation and television studies, particularly in the area of genre. She is the editor of the Society for Animation Studies peer reviewed online journal Animation Studies. She has published articles on animation and television and recently contributed to an edited collection, The CSI Effect: Television, Crime and Critical Theory (forthcoming, Lexington Books).

Goliath’s Head Revisited

Abstract: “Goliath’s Head Revisited” will re-script Osamu Tezuka’s story of Goliath (a 1980’s TV animation release of Astro Boy — episode 11) with a creative series of alternative images and new meanings. The paper will perform and develop a socio-historical approach to image production that pertains to current modes of contemporary art. Through diverse media, “Goliath’s Head Revisited” will consider the context of Tezuka’s story today re-addressing the status of his legacy. The existence of an artwork will be compared to the reception of a posthumous artist, as well as inviting alternative readings towards the socio-cultural manifestations of Astro Boy as an iconic image.

Biographical Statement: Stephen Wilson is an independent artist and writer based in London; he completed a doctorate on Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio in relation to visual culture at the Royal College of Art and Design in London. During 2006/7 he was awarded an annual residency as the Abbey Award holder in The British School at Rome. This year he will be published in several texts, as well as completing his first film project: Iron Arm, Secular Arm set in Tokyo and London on the cultural significance of the iconic figure Astro Boy funded by Arts Council England, The Diawa Foundation, and The Sasakawa Foundation.