Search form

...and we shall do them EVERY harm!

19 posts / 0 new
Last post
...and we shall do them EVERY harm!

I was just storyboarding a end-result for a fight sequence in a show I'm on, and it struck me the numbers of ways I've gotten to HURT the characters I'd worked with over the years.

This shot has the character being electrocuted.
But I have had other characters suffer just as bad.
They've been incinerated, crushed, punched, slapped, stabbed, cut, kicked, kneed, elbowed, dropped from great heights, thrown into walls, painfully zapped with energy or electricity, hit by concussive energies, exploded, clubbed, struck with all manner of objects from trees to building materials, gassed/poisoned, drowned, suffocated/smothered, tripped, frozen solid, burned/scaled, blinded, deafened, vaporized, dematerialized/de-molecularized and occasionally even shot at.
On one show we even got away with sodomy (don't ask).

And then there's the emotional assaults....

And all of this has, in one way or another, been APPROVED by Standards and Practises.

I wonder what a shrink would say about that......

Ken Davis's picture

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

All of that and more was done to Wile E. Coyote, and I watched those cartoons when I was three. I guess there are no moral standards for cartoons - unless of course it's nudity. Then you better believe that's a paddlin'.

I wonder what a shrink would say about that......

I do not know about what a shrink would say but my quess is that Ed Hook would make a reference to "Keystone Kops".

Adult Swim, love it or change the channel. :D

I wonder what a shrink would say about that......

Soooo... tell me, how do you feel about your father? :D

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

If you animate cartoons for CN and stuff like that is just fine, but if you have to work in realistic stuff like Gantz*, i seriusly recommend you to have a full time shrink in the animation studio:D .

*You could make an anatomy study just watching it.

I've always liked looking at the animated deaths in all those ReadySoft interactive movies. Examples from Braindead 13. There's something deliciously surreal about seeing cartoon characters die.

Trouble is, as somebody said before, what's the limit. It takes a real genious to make a film without any violence that doesn't put you to sleep. I once wrote a series of scripts for TV on subjects like parent responsibility, drug-alcohol issues, etc. I'm from Havana, and in my city some children and teens have taken to the "sport" of clinging to the back of buses on their bicycles. The script on that matter was rejected because it featured the Grim Reaper on a bike, and the Inquisition said the image of the Skull was TOO STRONG FOR TV. How can you convey a message that something is dangerous showing flowers and ponies?... (I also had another rejected for being too funny, but that's another story.)
The truth is, when I don't see the violence warning before a movie, I don't remove my finger from the remote button. Most of the time I don't survive the first 15 minutes. And I'm not into slasher movies, it's just that the line is drawn too near for that rating: Little Red Riding Hood would not escape without a violence warning (Did you know the original story ends with Red being eaten, and that's it?) Snow white, All the Arabian Nights stories, etc. all have a degree of violence.
See what you can make of this: When I was a kid, we used to sneak into the cinema to watch the "forbidden" films (Who wants to wait to be 16) And we took in a lot of russian war movies (They make Saving Private Ryan look like the Care Bears) and Japanese Samurai movies, with their many severed arteries. We used to carry knives to school to sharpen our pencils, and we used to brag about who had the biggest or fanciest, but for some reason, although we had many fights, like all boys everywhere, we never got the kives into them.

what about dressing up in drag and flashing, seems to work for bugs

gotta love it!

I've always liked looking at the animated deaths in all those ReadySoft interactive movies. Examples from Braindead 13. There's something deliciously surreal about seeing cartoon characters die.

That's the sort of attitude that leads to road rage and unnecessary deaths. Death is never surreal, it's finite, its a denfinite end to a certain type of connection. Not that another connection can't be made. But only with thought and the knowledge that something has been lost.

That's exactly what makes J.K. Rowlings and the Harry Potter books relevant to todays children, and I am glad she had the strength of her convictions. No one's death is without consequences. We should all remember that.

Today's chldren are growing up with the concept that life is a video game and it doesn't matter...it doesn't have to touch us if we don't want it to.

Death does touch all of us...we can't escape it by making fun of it. Or a game of it. It's not a game!

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Death does touch all of us...we can't escape it by making fun of it. Or a game of it. It's not a game!

In a large part of the world, it is indeed a game........or an actual social means of dealling with problems.

The western world has some decidedly different views on death from those of the rest of the planet. In the parts of the world were the populations seem to be the largest and the people the poorest, the view is that life is cheap.
The qualms about killing others are a great deal less, and not so much because the laws forbid it, but because the social mores see it as a means to an end.

The key with cartoons is to make a distinction between the symbolisms and the iconography.
Harming a character in a humourous way is typically just inflicting the act upon an icon. The associated humour comes from some kind of relevance to the situation or absurdity of the situation.
Harming a character with symbolic overtones is meant to convey a message beyond humor, and the whole point of using a symbolic character to communicate a warding message--"this" will happen if something is done wrong or if you, the viewer, are wrong.
Of course, if the symbol is a negative ( like Hilter, or Bin Laden) then the message is directed towards them and not the viewer, and that its a reminder about Justice or vigilance or a similar notion.

Violent cartoon iconography tends to be about venting or absurdities, and bears little with real-life. Anyone emulating those kinds of situation often quickly finds out there's little of no bearing on real life, and what is funny on screen isn't funny in the flesh.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

In a large part of the world, it is indeed a game........or an actual social means of dealling with problems.

The western world has some decidedly different views on death from those of the rest of the planet. In the parts of the world were the populations seem to be the largest and the people the poorest, the view is that life is cheap.
The qualms about killing others are a great deal less, and not so much because the laws forbid it, but because the social mores see it as a means to an end.

The key with cartoons is to make a distinction between the symbolisms and the iconography.
Harming a character in a humourous way is typically just inflicting the act upon an icon. The associated humour comes from some kind of relevance to the situation or absurdity of the situation.
Harming a character with symbolic overtones is meant to convey a message beyond humor, and the whole point of using a symbolic character to communicate a warding message--"this" will happen if something is done wrong or if you, the viewer, are wrong.
Of course, if the symbol is a negative ( like Hilter, or Bin Laden) then the message is directed towards them and not the viewer, and that its a reminder about Justice or vigilance or a similar notion.

Violent cartoon iconography tends to be about venting or absurdities, and bears little with real-life. Anyone emulating those kinds of situation often quickly finds out there's little of no bearing on real life, and what is funny on screen isn't funny in the flesh.

Don't you find though that more and more people look at that world in terms of iconology, not experience? More and more people view individuals and life as icons that can be destroyed without recourse. When they drive as an example they only care about getting where they want as quickly as possible, and they view anyone that gets their way as an expendable matter like in video game, my fear is they will start to feel that about all parts of their life.

They earn points for destroying those that stand in their way. Not the way I want to live my life.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Brutal Daffy "Truth or AAAAHHH!!"

Daffy and Porky in "the ducksters" doing a game show called "truth or AAAAHHH!""
Talk about brutal!
Hilarious stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZgfnpJKePU

Don't you find though that more and more people look at that world in terms of iconology, not experience? More and more people view individuals and life as icons that can be destroyed without recourse. When they drive as an example they only care about getting where they want as quickly as possible, and they view anyone that gets their way as an expendable matter like in video game, my fear is they will start to feel that about all parts of their life.

They earn points for destroying those that stand in their way. Not the way I want to live my life.

Well, the western notions are very liberal spins on the way the world has been for most of existence.
Historically, the of idea of sanctity of life hasn't been a very well practised idealology. Given all kinds of factors, there just isn't the references for it.

Unfortunately, its a backwards kind of thinking given the progress of modern society, and I think its a sign of our maturation. Its hard to see, but with all the tools of communication in our hands there's apt to be some "confusion about the mores of life and death as society evolves.
T'wasn't that long ago that the "pillars of civilization" enjoyed public executions for example.
Social pain is just another kind of human emotional pain and for a group social lesson to take root, it has to be experienced.
An off-the-cuff example is the softening of the reputation of the tough and surly New Yorkers after 9/11.

Recourse tends to be an intellectual construct until its experienced, and then it becomes an emotional one. There's plenty of examples of that all around us every day.
You will ALWAYS encounter a persistantly belligerant type of person of some point, and the usual counter is to be belligerant right back at 'em.

Sometimes, if you can drop a piano on them in retort, its belligerantly poetic and funny all at the same time--but we seldom get to see that height of comedic craft in real life.

A pity, I sometimes think.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

That's the sort of attitude that leads to road rage and unnecessary deaths. Death is never surreal, it's finite, its a denfinite end to a certain type of connection. Not that another connection can't be made. But only with thought and the knowledge that something has been lost.

I hope you aren't questioning my ability to distinguish between that and the surreal, unreal world of make-believe and cartoons. A couple of months ago, the family lost a member, my aunt, who only lived to be fifty. We were all traumatised by that, I can assure you, and I am well able to perceive that as what it is.

I hope you aren't questioning my ability to distinguish between that and the surreal, unreal world of make-believe and cartoons. A couple of months ago, the family lost a member, my aunt, who only lived to be fifty. We were all traumatised by that, I can assure you, and I am well able to perceive that as what it is.

You have a knowledge of loss.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Not a big fan of violence. Don't care what the justification is.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Thank you.
I see it like this: cartoons offer us the insolent jester's view on life, and death is an inseperable part of it. It would be foolish for me to claim that I have no fear of the Great Unknown and to laugh derisively in that reality's face would be inappropriate. But! - the odd chuckle, wink and impish smile at that very reality - helps me live with it.

You have a knowledge of loss.

Kind of easy to dismiss, right?

The longer one lives the longer one's list of experiences becomes.

I play FPS games to relax.
I like the slow methodical hunt and setting up for the kill. There's a intricacy and morbid sense of release in taking great pains to kill something else.
Sometimes, I toggle the cheats on and "kill" with relish and abandon.

I've also played paintball and experienced a simalcrum of actually hunting another living person ( and being hunted) and doing them a very minor ( depending on where you get hit) harm.
I've watched and enjoy very violent movies and TV shows, and count some of them amongst my favourites.

And I've lost and had people I know lost to accident, disease and crime.

A former student of mine was murdered in California after dropping out of the programme I was teaching in.
I good friend of mine was shot at, almost bombed while serving in Afghanistan
One of the Air Cadets I knew well in my younger days was found crushed to death underneath a boulder, and foul play was suspected.
Another good friend of mine flew his charter plane into a mountainside, killing himself, another pilot and passengers, and sparking a public debate about pilot fatigue.

And still I can easily separate those two incongruities regarding violence and death.
One is painfully real and tanglible, and the other is ........a game.

What makes that work is the associations I have to each--there's no blur between them. I see no conflicts with either of the two.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

I play FPS games to relax.
I like the slow methodical hunt and setting up for the kill. There's a intricacy and morbid sense of release in taking great pains to kill something else.
Sometimes, I toggle the cheats on and "kill" with relish and abandon.

I like computer games and I can relate to the sentiment. Admittedly, FPS games have never very greatly appealed to me. I've played the odd FPS, of course, but mindless killing sprees like in Serious Sam don't hold much attraction for me. I prefer games like Deus Ex because of the sense of intricacy you mentioned, the satisfaction that comes from using the abilities the game offers you to outsmart opponents and master your surroudings. I'm currently playing Resident Evil 4 which has many grisly and gory elements, yet those serve to underline the game's strength and that is to create a claustrophobic, panic-soaked atmosphere in which the player's skill is required to succeed with limited resources.
As far as games are concerned, the degree of violence might be a question of abstraction. Let's face it, even chess is a game about killing if you look at it realistically. However, the question of degrees of abstraction isn't one I have to ask myself because I, like you, can see games for what they are: a non-reality.