Martin Goodman.

I.

When this summer ends, I will have written this column for 10 years (two for the former Animation Nerd's Paradise and eight for this esteemed website). That will equal roughly 120 monthly commentaries on animation, typically animation as it relates to American culture. Although I'm sure that luminaries, such as Maureen Furniss and John Canemaker might disagree, I continue to be amazed at how rich this vein is when mined. From the simple premise that American culture and American animation have a subconscious resonance, as well as a surface connection that is instantly interpretable, one can find enough material to entertain one's self (and hopefully, one's readers) for months to come.

However, a note of caution is definitely in order. When interpreting the matrices between animation and its attendant culture, one needs to be sure that one paints a careful picture. I have already spent several columns demonstrating how the deconstructive/semiotics movement often produces laughable parodies of animation criticism simply by ignoring such inconvenient items as history, facts, contexts and the actual stated intent of the animators. I have recently come across a fascinating book that explores a connection between animation and American culture of a particular era, and I recommend it heartily, save for one small but important caveat.

Christopher P. Lehman, assistant professor in the ethnic studies department at St. Cloud University, Minnesota, has written one fine book, American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era. He has evidently watched every cartoon he quotes and references, and not the same can be said for all authors in the field. The book is subtitled, A Study in Social Commentary in Films and Televisions Programs, 1961-1973. Lehman's core thesis is that cartoons slowly switched from a militaristic and violent milieu to a more liberal and pacifist bent as the costly and unpopular war ground on.

Christopher P. Lehman's fine book, American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era, presents, as its core thesis, that cartoons slowly switched from a militaristic and violent milieu to a more liberal bent as the unpopular war ground on.

Lehman expands this viewpoint to include many cultural issues of the era, including those related to race relations and the civil rights movement. Lehman's genius in this regard is picking up some of the subconscious resonance referred to earlier. The issue I had with some of Lehman's writing, however, and this refers to the caveat I mentioned, is that the author is more assertive than suggestive at times, and this can be problematic in a number of ways. It is one thing to suggest that certain parallels between the racial situations in America during the Civil Rights era were unconsciously picked up from the culture and transposed into cartoons. It is another thing to say that it seems that this was the direct intent of the artists.

To give an example of the difference, Lehman's examination of the 1963 Warner Bros. cartoon short, Banty Raids (p. 43-45 is an excellent piece of analysis, in part because Lehman is careful to note a subconscious context when referring to the beatnik rooster in the short. Lehman notes that Foghorn Leghorn's disdain for the rooster, "has some parallels to the white South's negative response to the early counterculture." This is acceptable language for such conjecture, as it is more assumptive in nature. Unless we know the exact purpose of the creator, assumptive methods in interpretation are the safest route to go.

Where Lehman's analysis becomes problematic is when statements such as the following are made:

And again, in reference to Magilla Gorilla and Wally Gator, respectively:

This is dangerously close to deconstructionism, but the implications of these declarative statements are a bit more disturbing. By not stating that the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the early 1960s unconsciously (or unwittingly, or uncannily) paralleled issues in civil rights, Lehman runs the heady risk of stating that the studio produced these cartoons with the preservation of the prevailing racial status quo in mind. This may seem like an exercise in semantics, but consider this: There is a large difference between picking up on the vibes of the times and having them indirectly resonate in a certain medium, and making a blunt statement of intent in that same medium.