Alison Loader

“We’re Asian, More Expected of Us!” Representation, The Model Minority and Whiteness on King of the Hill

Abstract: For years the only Asian American family on prime time, was a cartoon. The Souphanousinphones were regular characters in King of the Hill, which was, until its cancellation last year, the second longest running prime time animated sitcom after The Simpsons. As neighbours and rivals to the titular Hill family, the Souphanousinphones contributed to overarching themes of whiteness and class anxiety in the American South. Various episodes explored the Asian American experience of difference and assimilation, and the myth of the Model Minority. King of the Hill defied and perpetuated traditional stereotypes and offered the rare spectacle of Asian racial grief. These representations may have been two-dimensional but only because they were drawn that way.

Biographical statement: Alison Reiko Loader is an animation filmmaker, instructor and graduate student at Concordia University, Canada. Beginning with her first film, Showa Shinzan, produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 2002, her work has explored identity, race and cultural heritage. Her current research interests in animated installation, stereoscopy and anamorphosis constitute more formal approaches to representation and perception. Nevertheless she can still enjoy a good cartoon.

Van Norris

In the City: Animating 21st Century Britain
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)

Abstract: In the post-The Office afterglow public-service channel BBC3 saw comedy as part of the "consistently innovative and risk-taking programming" specified in their remit. The show embodied a tone which played into criticisms that the channel was pandering to an increasingly populist agenda. It also played into concerns about imagined community and maintained a narrative that actualises comedy's relationship with society which extends all the way back to Henri Bergson. This paper will frame this embrace of animation/comedy against institutional concerns and assess Monkey Dust as being emblematic of this wave of early 21st century UK mainstream TV animation.

Biographical statement: Van Norris teaches in the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests include: American and British graphic narrative form; Classical and Post-Classical Hollywood Animation and British Cinema and Television Animation, British and American comedy form, sitcom and stand up comedy. He is currently completing his PhD on British television animation. Van has presented his research at numerous conferences including the Society for Animation Studies, the Popular Culture Association and the University of Salford’s Comedy Matters conference. He has published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal and Animation Studies, as well as anthologies on television science fiction, animation and cinematic surrealism. Van is an Editorial Board member for Animation Studies.

Michael Daubs

Subversive or Submissive? User-Produced Flash Cartoons and Television Animation

Abstract: User-produced media are often presented as political reform, moving the locus of control away from mass media and toward the individual. The same is true for Flash animation or Flashimation. The Flash software allows user-producers to decrease production time while increasing their individual control. Thus, it is assumed that Flashimation is a subversive form that challenges the dominance of mass media, but this assumption ignores the complex, sometimes hegemonic relationships between Flashimation and television. This paper examines these relationships and questions whether Flashimation truly is subversive, or if aesthetic convergence and remediation reasserts television’s position as society’s dominant cultural form.

Biographical statement: Michael S. Daubs is a Media Studies PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. His research interests include visual culture and aesthetics, convergence and remediation, and the democratic potential of user-produced media. His dissertation, entitled Rivalry and Allegiance: Aesthetic Remediation between Television and User-Produced Media, examines the relationship between television and user-produced media through case studies of animation and reality media. He previously earned a Master of Science in Informatics (Media Arts and Sciences) and a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications, both from Indiana University.

Raz Greenberg

The Israeli Animation of Jewish Tradition in "The Animated Haggadah"

Abstract: The paper examines the Israel television special "The Animated Haggadah" (1985), directed by Rony Oren. The special remains a rare example of Israeli animation that managed to become successful both in the international market, and among Israeli audience. The Animated Haggadah" is also a unique example for Israeli animation that builds upon and links between the visual tradition of both Jewish and Israeli cultures. Using clay models, the animated special dramatizes both the text and the different rituals related to the Passover holiday feast, linking Israeli modern life with the traditional Jewish tale of exile, exodus, and return to the homeland.

Biographical Statement: Raz Greenberg is a PhD student at the Communication Studies Department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research aims at building an overall theoretical framework for animation, focusing on the definition of animation as text, and the analysis of such text. In addition, Raz also researches how Jewish culture – in Israel and around the world – has influenced the development of comics and animation in the media.