Illustration by Andreas Hykade. Courtesy of Chris Robinson.

Monthly provocative, drunken, idiotic ramblings from the North…

In general, I don't like cops, army folk, bible swallowers, or anyone whose primary function in life is to make, sleep, eat, dream, or shit, money. I don't like fools, even when I'm being foolish. I don't like elitist/pretentious/holier than thou fugs especially when I'm being a self-righteous prick. I even lose it with those close to me. The dog, kid, wife, and EXSPECIALLY, the woman I emerged from. In general people who aren't doing something for me at the moment I want something done for me. In short, I can be a pretty self-centered intolerant jerk. And that's why I'm the ideal person to spot those same traits in others.

I dunno when it was, a few months ago maybe, but I noticed a lot of talk about Cartoon Network not showing some old 'racist' Warner cartoons. Frankly, I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Sure, the early cartoons are embarrassing in their reduction of blacks to the level of minstrel monkeys and Asians to slanting eyed rice eating kamikaze diving nips and coolies. And some have argued that the same can be said of Scots and Irish, etc...and sure, that's true, but how many Scots and Irish were killed because of the colour of their skin? (Oh and just recently Porky Pig and Mr. Magoo were the target of the crusaders of tolerance.) Anyway...where was I? Oh...yeah...so...I thought...why all the fuss? There's just as much intolerance in films today. Yes, that's what I said. Sure you (not me) like to think we're the most tolerant people around. We've even got lots o' fancy words: African American, Native American, Mentally Challenged, Visually Challenged and Aurally Challenged. They all sound so...umm...harmless, charming even. But have things really changed? Does the fact that a man says a person is mentally challenged really change the fact that inside he stills sees a retard? These words, with admittedly good intentions, are often little more than another sheet cloaking deeply ingrained hatreds (which we've seen front and centre over the last 8-9 months). Like it or not, everything we experience/perceive is shaped by our culture, and at times it's so deep and so 'normal' or common, that we're hardly aware of it.

Let's take a few seemingly mundane examples. I was watching this piece of shit called Trumpet of The Swan about an annoying family of white Swans who are supposedly "just like us." They have the same goals, fears and concerns as any 'normal' person (despite their beaks and feathers). Now...what's wrong with that, you ask? Well...the problem, friend, is that these apparent gestures of tolerance ("Sometimes being different helps you find your voice," is the film's catch phrase) are little more than superficial sheets of sameness that Hollywood, in particular, throws over almost every race and breed in film. And it's not just Swan, take a gander (heh...heh...) at Shrek, Bug's Life, Antz, Ice Age. "But, they're just animals?" you say. Sure, but whether they're ants, ogres or woolly mammoths, they are living beings; they have verbal and non-verbal languages, habits, perceptions of time/space that are unique to their ilk. They represent 'other' or 'difference' and yet outside of say, Microcosmos, animals are just mouthpieces for Americans. Take Antz and A Bug's Life, for example (which are little more than outdated anti-socialist films), all the characters are reduced to common 'human' types: the neurotic hero, the love interest and the PURE villain. Their social lives involve drinking, dancing, loving and schooling, JUST LIKE US. The whole environment is really just a microcosm of someone's condensed idea of North American society. And sure...ok...this is nothing new...anthropomorphism has been rampant in animation since the beginning (to the point where Starewich was using live bugs to act out human trials). The USE of animals is not the issue here, but rather, HOW they're used.