Jean
Detheux wrote about his unique views on animation, and some of his ideas really
struck me. He argues that animation is reaching a point where the process has
reached a point where it is linear and not many creative/experimental
animations are being made. In my opinion, Detheux is not completely wrong, but
he also makes some really good points.
In
his article he states, “It seems to me as if most of the traditional narrative
animation is endlessly repeating itself.” (Detheux). This was one of the
statements that he made, which I agree with. Taking a look at past Disney
animations, some of the most popular films they have made are the ones
involving the well-known Disney princesses. In most of these films, the
princess has a problem that she is facing, and ends up being saved by her “knight
in shining armor.” While this is not a bad formula, it gets pretty repetitive
after a while. I mean, even Disney recognizes that the format of their stories
is fairly identical. Chapter ten of our textbook even backs this up. The passage
states, “Our feature films always seem to end up with about 14 sequences.”
(Johnston and Thomas. 368). One reason that Disney could be doing this is
because their main audience consists of young children and they do not want to
present complex narratives to them. It is not surprising that other viewers
have noticed this formula as well.
On
the other hand, I feel that there are plenty of experimental animations being
made in this day and age. With all the independent/freelance animators we have
now, they are constantly developing new animations to publish on the web. I
have seen plenty of animations on YouTube that would not be considered to even
have a narrative. Here is one example. While Detheux makes some great points about animation, I do
not believe he is correct in saying that animation has lost its experimental
aesthetic.
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