MonkeyFunk
05-02-2006, 01:28 PM
Ocular Excess: A Semiotic Morphology of Cartoon Eyes (http://web.archive.org/web/20010411033110/http://media-arts.rmit.edu.au/Phil_Brophy/KBMartcls/OcularExcess.html)
A few excerpts:
When one looks into the eyes of these Golem children - these boiled baby replicants, these petro-chemical spawn, these shell-shocked baby-boomers - one can feel tinges of a mournful and ghostly past (an effect widely exploited by film makers and photographers).
Look deep into the eyes of Astro Boy: what is reflected in those strange abstract ovals which pretend to be Japanese eyes? Stars? Studio lights? Atomic flashes? The white light of death? Are those op-blobs pure effect or traces of a postwar post-apocalyptic psyche?
The parentally concerned 80s and the environmentally friendly 90s extend this American emptiness, from Bobby's World and Barbie & The Rockets In Outer Space to Captain Planet & The Planeteers and The Rug Rats. Most of these TV cartoon shows are set in void locations of people-less streets, which uneasily echo the devastated urban landscapes of Europe and Japan during WWII. Their character designs perfunctorily allude to realist physiognomy but end up creating cadaver-like hulls with severely economic animation in the faces and eyes . These are the bastard children of Walter and Margaret Keane's waif paintings; these are the oppressively neutralized images that comprise the bulk of modern western animation.
You said it, man.
A few excerpts:
When one looks into the eyes of these Golem children - these boiled baby replicants, these petro-chemical spawn, these shell-shocked baby-boomers - one can feel tinges of a mournful and ghostly past (an effect widely exploited by film makers and photographers).
Look deep into the eyes of Astro Boy: what is reflected in those strange abstract ovals which pretend to be Japanese eyes? Stars? Studio lights? Atomic flashes? The white light of death? Are those op-blobs pure effect or traces of a postwar post-apocalyptic psyche?
The parentally concerned 80s and the environmentally friendly 90s extend this American emptiness, from Bobby's World and Barbie & The Rockets In Outer Space to Captain Planet & The Planeteers and The Rug Rats. Most of these TV cartoon shows are set in void locations of people-less streets, which uneasily echo the devastated urban landscapes of Europe and Japan during WWII. Their character designs perfunctorily allude to realist physiognomy but end up creating cadaver-like hulls with severely economic animation in the faces and eyes . These are the bastard children of Walter and Margaret Keane's waif paintings; these are the oppressively neutralized images that comprise the bulk of modern western animation.
You said it, man.