This weekend, I watched the hit 2005 animated movie Bratz: Rock Angelz. This movie was one of the first Bratz films in CGI, and let me tell you- the plot is ALL OVER THE PLACE. The girls start a fashion magazine and use stolen passes to get into hot London punk clubs, but when they lose their passes they decide that the only way to get into the gig is to become a rock band? This movie can be considered capitalist propaganda- the Bratz shop in order to destress about their problems, and it's an implemental part of their lives. They don't have jobs either- Jade has an internship, but only for three hours until she is fired. Chloe meets a TRASH British prince and ignores her best friend Yasmin who finds celebrity judge Byron Powell's (I don't make this stuff up) dog, Ozzy. Jade and Sasha try to do a photo shoot for the magazine, but Sasha micromanages the whole thing and makes her friend feel bad! And this whole time, there's these two evil blond twins (Kaley Cuoco PLA...
Tom, amazing graphs and great point! The world is exploding with great animation and the latest blockbusters from the major studios sucks up all the oxygen!
ReplyDeleteThese are great! To add to this, I remember reading this article a couple years ago (https://www.cartoonbrew.com/award-season-focus/proof-that-oscar-voters-are-clueless-about-animation-109456.html) about how the reason why the Oscar for animation is so heavily skewed towards Pixar/the highest grossing feature is because most of the academy members don't actually watch all the films that were nominated. There's links to the full interviews with the voters, too, and it seems like most of them make decisions based on what their kids liked the best. The majority of them say they didn't even watch the animated shorts that year (this is the year that Big Hero 6 and Feast won.)
ReplyDeleteOne of them also says "If I was just voting for animation, I’d have gone with Boxtrolls. But since you have to consider everything, I went with Big Hero 6" - which also brings up the question of what the criteria for picking best animated film is or should be, in terms of technical/artistic achievement or content/story? Not that these interviews give me any confidence there's any method to the madness, but y'know, maybe there should be??
Warning this is political and not related to animation:
Deletethat makes me think how clear criteria for decision making can be so important:
https://slate.com/culture/2018/09/john-oliver-florida-voting-last-week-tonight.html
I'll be honest in saying that anything I know about animation has previously been through Disney and Pixar. I love How to Train Your Dragon and I put that under my favorite animated film on the list in class, but I wonder if I had more exposure to this world of animation if it would even be on my radar. My lack of experience with the world of animation is seriously concerning, but we are shaped by the culture we live in and that says that Disney and Pixar are the ones to watch and the ones that deserve all the awards. I'm hoping the class might help me with this. Btw these are fantastic charts, Thomas.
ReplyDeleteBig and small I love them all! Well, not all, but you know what I'm saying
DeleteI've always thought that animation wasn't given enough time or consideration in award ceremonies. I'd never thought that perhaps the people judging the films wouldn't even have criteria for judging them. That's just...ridiculous
ReplyDeleteagreed!
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ReplyDeleteAardman deserved better.
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