Cartoons as real life reflections in "Ghost Dog"

Watching the movie "Ghost Dog" you will notice that the characters watch a lot of cartoons. Almost anytime you see a television the character is watching cartoons: Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, and even Itchy and Scratchy.

 You'd think with this being a blog about animated series and cartoons it'd be easy to make a connection to the two. I found the opposite to be true however. It took my brilliant professor and some research for me to realize that all the of the cartoons in the movie either forshadowed or reflected the previous or upcoming scene.

 My thought initially was that these mobsters were laughable at best and that the cartoons only exhibited that. I can't honestly say why he did this, but Jarmusch's use of cartoons is actually pretty freaking brilliant. He's showing throughout the movie, what I've been saying in this blog all along. Animated series are a reflection of our real lives. It's often symbolic, but with the examples of the shows I use in this blog it can also be pretty in-your-face.

 Every blog up to this point has shown that the lives that exist in animation are reflections of the way we look at subcultures, hip hop, gender, families, homosexuality, etc. Even in series where the characters are not people they relate on these issues.

 Perhaps the most symbolic example of this in the movie "Ghost Dog" is the final showdown scene between Louie and Ghost Dog. (Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie). They use an scene from Itchy and Scratchy show, a fictional cartoon series within the cartoon series "The Simpsons." The Itchy and Scratchy episode has the typical back and forth fighting between the animated cat and mouse, each one grabbing a bigger weapon. Eventually they grab guns and each one grabs a bigger gun until we see the planet Earth and the guns are bigger than Earth. Eventually someone has to lose, it turns out to be Scratchy. Who symbolically is the bigger guy (and he's black, just like Ghost Dog) not sure if this correlation was intended? But the cartoon result ends up exactly how the movie ends.

 What you can ultimately read from this that the winner is not always gonna be the biggest guy in the room. Its gonna be the person with the most powerful weapons. That weapon can (and usually is) the biggest physical weapon. But we also see in pop culture examples where the mind can be a metaphorical weapon. It was the person who was able to outsmart the situation that is ultimately victorious. Or the one with the biggest heart, who wanted it the most. In that instance the heart and the desire to achieve is the weapon. It can vary from film to film and situation to situation.

 (Spoiler over)

 As a cartoon lover, I loved what Jarmusch did with the cartoons. I think it was a fantastically creative and unusually genius move for a film of this kind. I also imagine it took lots of time to find the clips.
I was able to track down the Simpsons episode where the movie clip shown, click here to see it.
 

Who says you can't learn anything from television?

 About two weeks ago the Simpson did something it had never done before.

 In more than 20 years on television, few things have changed about the Simpsons. No one ever ages. No one ever changes clothes. No one ever changes their hair. The show is pretty consistent.

 The one thing that does change from week to week is their opening sequence. For each of the nearly 500 episodes (484 to date) there has been a completely different opening sequence. The show has one opening that it makes variations to each week. Each week Bart is writing something different on the chalkboard, sometimes Lisa plays a different song on her saxophone, and at the end the family always comes to the couch in a different way.

 The powers-that-be at the Simpson invited British graffiti artist and political activist Banksy to storyboard the opening sequence. This was the first time the show'd ever invited an artist to create the opening sequence.

What resulted was quite controversial. Have a look for yourself:



 Kind of a downer right? But child labor laws and deplorable working conditions exist. Sure no ones using unicorns to put the holes in DVDs, but its pretty inhumane in some places. We as Americans benefit from it and don't even realize it. This two-minute snippet brought more awareness to this issue than any legislation or books or magazine article ever did. Millions of viewers tuned into watch this. The sequence made news worldwide, online news outlets, etc. At the time of this blog post more than 4 million people had watched the clip on YouTube. That alone could be enough to mobilize a movement and create pretty significant social change.

 Television is powerful. Just because a show is animated doesn't mean that it can't teach us about the world and the society we live in. All semester I've tried to demonstate how animated shows critique the culture of our society. The shows tend to be more subtle and less blatant than this, but they're a commentary all the same.

 I get really passionate when people say you can't learn anything from television. I completely disagree. Intellectual people understand there are lessons in everything. Some might consider Jersey Shore trash TV at its worst. I say that its introduced us to a regional subculture and lingo I'd previously been unfamiliar with. (GTL, anyone?) One can analyze this show for lots of interesting sociological themes like the representations of gender and masculinity, surveillance culture, human sexuality, etc. Its all in your perspective.

 I guess the point I'm making is you can't discount television as an idiot box and you can't discount animation as being purely for kids. There's a lot we can learn from television whether Banksy or Snooki's doing the teaching.

Gone Hollywood

 When the Simpsons return from the summer hiatus in a few weeks, it will begin it's 22nd season. That's unheard of in today's television climate. It is the longest-running sitcom currently on television. It is also the longest-running animated show and scripted-primetime series still on television.

 The Simpsons began as a minute-long cartoon shorts that aired during the Tracy Ullman's sketch comedy show. The little family from Springfield gathered a following and eventually got their own series. The photo in the above right shows the family when they were a short sketch and the photo on the right is left is the Simpsons as we know them today. I like to imagine once they signed their TV deal some crackpot team of animated stylists (a la Carson Kressley of "Queer Eye") came in and cleaned the family up to give the stylish looks they have today.
  
 Twenty years later the show has spawned at least two movies, a couple of albums, and even a centerfold spread in Playboy for Marge (who still has the goods by the way). I remember when "Aye Carumba" and "Eat My Shorts" were like the cool catchphrases. I had a Simpson's lunchbox and outfits. My little brother (now a father with his own son) had Simpson tighty whiteys. And despite a small dip in ratings the show doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

 What's interesting about this show is the mass production and overexposure over the years has not seemed to diminish the fan's love of the show. The Simpsons have broken through. What probably should have been a be fad into an institution. If the show ends today it will have earned a fairly significant place in television and pop culture history. It's transcended generations. I watched it as a kid and now my nieces and nephews watch. And those Simpson's tchotchkes their nostalgia, a reminder of a wonderfully, happy time in my life.

 At the end of the day the Simpsons is a show about family. In twenty years very little about the show has changed. I think thats a big part of why its endured. Its a reminder that in a life where change is inevitable, we grow. We evolve. One thing in life should stay consistent and that's family.

 If you'd like to see a link to one of the original Simpsons cartoon shorts click here.